Helping Hurricanes (Chapter 1) (Patreon)

Vera sat upon the shoreline cliff, her bare feet resting in the churning bay. Her posture slumped while her cheek rested in dismay on her upturned fist. The chocolate-haired giantess had been looking forward to this week for a long time, months even, if not for a full year. This was supposed to be a time of triumph and joy, for her and all others like her. Rampage Season was the best rite of passage among the giants, and Vera had taken to the holiday with great verve when she came of age, demolishing much of her selected coastal town underfoot while laughing and almost singing to herself with delight. After several years had gone by in this way, the girl’s excitement for the task of crushing and smiting the architecture and streets into dusty rubble had turned to affection for the city itself. This was “her” place, and she really did feel a great sense of ownership for it, savoring the sight of the last vehicles racing out of the evacuated city once a year so that she could take her stand, literally, upon the city before pulverizing it with her soles, only for it to be rebuilt brand-spanking-new the next year.

But not today. This morning, Vera had waded giddily across the ocean and emerged through the mist, eager to see the bustling city freshly rejuvenated and awaiting her annual visit, only to realize the place was already destroyed. Angry at first that another giantess had sniped her reserved city, Vera came nearer and knelt down close to the town, close enough that her warm breath tilted over cars, and realized the footprint craters that were stamped into the ground were, in fact, her own; the town hadn’t been repaired since her previous rampage. This was very distressing to Vera, as Rampage Season had become the highpoint of her entire year. After standing ominously above the town with a smile on her face, half-hoping the city was maybe about to finish fixing itself at any minute so she could wreck it again, it became clear that nothing was changing. She had to find out why.

“What happened?” she sighed with whimsical disappointment. “Why is it all still broken? Didn’t you know I was coming back?”

There were severe communication issues owing to the fact that the citizens were akin to baby insects by scale comparison to Vera. After her booming questions were delivered to the town, several unsuccessful attempts were made to converse. First they tried microphones, megaphones, and poster-writing; then, a speaker system was given to Vera to place in her ear, but all she got was static. At last, a nervous crowd embarked into the palm of Vera’s hand while she cupped it by her ear, then shouted at the top of their lungs, until at last a connection was made. In this way, Vera learned the relatively small yet plucky coastal town hadn’t been able to rebuild itself because FEMA’s Rampage Season budget had been brutally cut. Due to the lack of funds, the citizens simply made the best of their ruined town, repurposing the debris, mining ore out of the deep craters formed from Vera’s soles, and building new ramshackle homes in the pit depressions sculpted by her bare toes.

Utterly defeated, Vera had retreated from the site and taken refuge on the cliffs a couple miles away to sulk. She’d had such a thoroughly enjoyable time last year, stomping and trouncing and dancing across the ravaged town until almost every square meter was either coated in grit or otherwise turned into a canyon by her naked foot, that there was literally nothing left worth trampling. Sure, she could powderize the paltry huts and scaffoldings that now constituted the town’s infrastructure, but to do so would seem hollow; Vera doubted she’d even be able to feel the minute papery scraps cracking against her heels and toepads, sensitive though they were. Plus, most of the fun was taken out of the sport anyway, knowing the town couldn’t revive itself after her visit. Her town. Vera wistfully groaned to herself, blinking at the horizon. If only the selfish itty-bitty government hadn’t taken away the city’s money. If only they knew how important rebuilding was after every Rampage Season, though Vera guessed they couldn’t, seeing how the human nation’s capital was safely landlocked, and thus they never received visits from giantesses.

Vera smirked to herself. Of course. That was it.

Within the hour, the bustling capital metropolis found itself suffering an unseasonal eclipse. This was their assumption at first, until it was discovered that the shadow only encroached on part of the expansive city’s square mileage, in a very distinctively human shape, even if its scale was more deific. Vera stood at the city limits, her hands on her hips, her legs spread in a wide stance as though she was about to commence a dance routine. In a way, she was.

“Happy Rampage Season, everybody!” Vera called out, so that her lyrical thunderclap of a voice echoed through every miniature concrete canyon. She impatiently tapped her foot, sending seismic waves throughout the futuristic high-rise-crowded capital with each slapped landing of her soles. “Since you didn’t fix my town, I’m just going to use yours, if that’s okay. Better hurry up and go on vacation, because there’s a storm coming soon. Tick-tock. Except for some of you… I want you to stay and share this very special time of year with me!”

After studying the complicated urban terrain below, Vera spotted the government facility campus at the outskirts of the central municipality. She frowned with determination, an appearance that would’ve come off as harmlessly cute if she happened to share stature with the people below, instead of possessing a lithe cloud-touching body with the combined surface area of certain small countries. Her size difference and lofty eyeline didn’t exactly make it easy for Vera to recognize human landmarks, but this one was large enough to be found, not only showing off the city’s hubris, but ensuring they’d be present to bear witness to the coming demonstration. She leaned down, extending her pinky finger, and used it to methodically dig out a deep moat in the land surrounding the capital’s HQ, carving through rock and dirt without so much as a diverting twitch in her posh digit. By the time a crowd of politicians and civic workers had gathered on the lawn, like ants mobbed around crumbs, they were too late to cross the wide gulch sculpted in by the giantess’s finger.

Then, satisfied that all citizens except the government officials had the chance to skip town, Vera waited. She whistled to herself, a cheery song that likely registered as a haunting threat to the penny-pinching government body trapped on the newborn island of their facility. Getting antsy, Vera knelt down to inspect the border roads. Pinching trees in her fingertips and sprinkling the green particulate remnants into the wind, she ensured to leave the streets clear and unmolested by even her smallest toe. Stepping on their exit route would only further delay the girl’s gratification, and she was barely able to stand the wait already. Little by little, the traffic trickled down every outbound road leading away from the city, including the highway which traveled under the arch of Vera’s legs. The giantess shimmied her feet in close together, until she had the busy thoroughfare walled in by her bare insteps. She marveled at the efficiency of the population racing through the space between her titanic feet and out of town, the traffic flow mainly registering as a multi-colored brook in her eyes from so high above.

When at last the final speck-sized vehicles had zoomed down the highway, well out of city limits, Vera rubbed her hands together and took several tentative steps across the lush green space that surrounded the city proper. Spying the nearest sign of civilization, the girl redirected herself, raised a leg, and watched the shadow of her foot enlarge slightly as it bore higher in midair. Then she brought it careening down.

At the first ticklish sensation of abandoned suburban homes popping underfoot, the giantess blushed, unable to restrain herself from an involuntary string of fangirling snickers. Whole neighborhoods could fit in her generous arch, and Vera took advantage of this, mashing the landscape until it and the pebble-sized houses were all flat as the earth. These homes were sturdier than the ones from her favorite seaside town, and she suspected it was because the capital had never been visited during this hallowed season, thus making it viable to build stronger for the long term. That infinitesimal difference in the houses’ fortitude made it absolute ecstasy for Vera to crush every white-picket-fence home-dotted block under her heels and toes, like finding the perfect crunchy leaf to trod upon, only in a whole pile. When she’d laid waste to every picturesque neighborhood, replacing the cutesy layout with a few choice-positioned footprints, the girl strolled away, houses still tumbling out of her toe crevices on every lethargic step.