Bikini Kaiju - Ch 18

Cooper’s heart was racing again, flying towards The Borough and the promise of another disaster zone. She wasn’t supposed to be here – hadn’t expected anything of the sort when she’d contacted Steel Ruth. Who else, after all, might listen to what she had to say with anything resembling a sympathetic angle? She’d have preferred Washington Fury, but considering she was preoccupied on a very public mission, and very hard to get in touch with anyway, Ruth had to do. All it had taken were a few vaguely threatening calls through the Sentinel Tactical Team’s hot lines, making clear Cooper’s credentials and laying out claims she had a story Ruth was definitely going to want to quash. Then she’d travelled out of the city to meet the giantess near some tumbleweed town in south Ohio. The only complication had been her phone occasionally sputtering out and the car giving up every few miles, needing restarting. Things were getting better, though: when Cooper really focused, to calm herself, the power fluctuations calmed too. She hadn’t been able to restore Deacon’s size, or in fact actually do anything specifically, but she was partway convinced she could control this.

She figured some input from the Sentinels, or their people, was the best bet towards getting the rest of the way there, so there she was on the road with Deacon in a little box on the passenger seat for proof. She’d had a few moments’ regret seeing the giantess waiting with an irritated posture on the horizon, like an angry statue she didn’t especially want to go near, but when she arrived and Ruth crouched to ask what the deal was, Cooper quickly slipped into explanation mode, ready to get things done. The giantess was dressed in bulky white running shoes, another pair of tatty cotton shorts and a vest and unbuttoned plaid shirt combo, for all the world like an attractive, dressed-down, gender-bent Paul Bunyan, strangely fitting in there in the plains of Ohio.

But just as Cooper began, an alert had come on Ruth’s oversized phone. Urgent attention needed in The Borough. Ruth needed – and then they were moving, having discussed nothing of Cooper’s situation. They were going together, not by Cooper’s choice, as Ruth grabbed her off the ground and bundled her in a shirt pocket before marching back towards her plane. The reporter squirmed and complained, but was unable to get her captor’s attention from inside this pouch bouncing against her chest. Ruth crawled in and Cooper thought she was about to be flattened as she lay down, but she was pulled out and carried in a fist to in front of the giant’s eyes as the plane took off.

“Oh shit we shouldn’t be flying,” Cooper said, trying to shift, but her arms were pinned in these massive fingers. “There’s something wrong with me – the electronics –”

“Nothing wrong with these electronics,” Ruth grumbled, not really listening. “And it’ll be a short flight. Now what the hell –”

Ruth’s phone buzzed again and she awkwardly shuffled in the tight cargo space to take it out with her other hand. Cooper was bumped about, yelping as Ruth answered a brusque call from Washington. It was tense, hearing the Sentinels confirming The Borough was in trouble, with Sloane coming. There was no hiding the manipulation in Sloane’s reasoning, justifying an attack on this city, citing terrorists, but the conversation moved fast, and suddenly came to violence.

Ruth cut the call off as the fight erupted, snarling, “I’m gonna beat the shit out of that kid.”

“But they’ll shock you,” Cooper protested, drawing a massive accusing eye to her. “With the ring, I mean. Listen – I need to tell you – after you got shocked, after we got shocked, I was hit with something else. Nothing electric’s working properly around me, and then –”

“What the hell are you talking to me for?” Ruth snapped. “It was Pelican that did it, and how is now the right time?” Her breath huffed over Cooper, blowing her hair back, and for a moment the reporter trembled, fearing a reprisal. Ruth was angry enough at Sloane that her fingers tightened, ready to hurt Cooper by proxy.

As the grip loosened again, she wheezed, “There’s a power in me. I shrank someone.”

This got Ruth’s attention, a fresh, interested look. Then she scoffed, “Oh piss off. You think I haven’t heard every story there’s –”

“You were with me! You know I got hit like you, and I shouldn’t have survived it! But I was in your hand, touching you, and I don’t know, I think something about that shock and whatever’s in you combined. It changed me, and I can prove it.” Cooper paused suddenly, as Ruth waited. Shit. Deacon was still in the car. She’d left her neighbour tiny, in a box, by the side of a random Ohio road. She hadn’t even locked the doors.

“Waiting,” Ruth prompted.

“He’s in the car…”

The giantess rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“But on my word, this is real. And things keep… Stopping around me. Lights, machines.”

“Hence my perfectly functioning plane, right? I gotta focus, this is not the time.” Ruth regarded her thoughtfully. Hungrily, Cooper sensed, and went very still. Ruth exhaled a shaky breath, evidently restraining herself. She wouldn’t, would she? Cooper had known how dangerous it might be connecting with the giantess, but surely she’d put curiosity over an instinct just to eat… Then something beeped and Ruth huffed, looking towards a flashing light. “Go time.”

Cooper was carried down, pressed back into the dark as the giantess returned her to the shirt pocket, and the plane’s bay doors opened.

***

Ruth landed a short way west of The Borough with a mighty bang and froze as she took in the scene ahead. Washington was down, out cold – at best – before a smouldering skyline, with Sloane moving somewhere towards the centre of the city. A vicious woman in short camo shorts and a bra, bringing a booted foot up over a building, then stomping down, smashing through three stories of brickwork like she was stamping out a sand castle. Sloane turned from the attack, head angling up as the monster jet boomed off through the sky. She cocked her head to one side, spotting Ruth. A few miles away. Between them, there was a trail of rubble streets, ant-like people scattering through the wreckage, vehicles toppled and flattened. The horizon was gently lit in an orange haze from a scattering of fires.

“Fucking knew it from the start,” Ruth growled, marching towards the city, into the groove of destruction. She paused by Washington’s body, prodding her thigh with a toe. “You in there, girl?”

Fury twitched, giving a low groan. Not dead, not quite awake. Ruth spat to one side and pointed Sloane’s way. She shouted, “You raggedy bitch. Mask’s off, huh?”

“How’s that?” Sloane called back, sounding way too amused.

“No one’s calling you hero after this,” Ruth went on, crunching over the broken streets. Quick pace, fists clenched, moments from what she’d been itching to do since she’d seen the damn woman’s face.

“I’m on the cusp of exposing those NoTall animals.” Sloane spread her arms, indicating The Borough’s downtown – a wide circle of destruction where barely alive bodies were mixed in with the masonry. Sirens sounded far off, people screaming and shouting unintelligibly. “This is where they were hiding. Even if no one admits it, I’m stamping out a blight. And with this city cured, there’s no telling what else I might be preventing. There’s evil out there ready to surface, you know it, don’t you?”

Madness. No point arguing, no point talking – Ruth sped up at the last moment, a quick jog between the last buildings to break out and swing hard for Sloane’s face. There was the briefest satisfying moment of genuine fear in her eye before Ruth convulsed, a sharp electric pain shooting through her from her finger down to her toes. She twisted, jerking a shoe through the road and sending up an eruption of broken asphalt. She fell on her shoulder, jolting it hard, as Sloane hopped aside.

Ruth fell still, gasping for air, looking up the length of the other woman’s towering bare leg, and heard Sloane laughing.

“Now ain’t this familiar. You gonna stay down Ruth? Or maybe change your mind and help me out here? I got a lot of ground to cover and am happy to provide dinner.” Her face grew more serious. “Or I gotta put your lights out like your Commie friend back there?”

Ruth grimaced, pressing her hands into the ground, to push herself up. Sloane casually placed a boot against her chest and trod down, pinning her back to the ground.

“Take a second and think, Captain. I’m doing good work here. Seriously. This town needs a wake-up call if we want to protect this country.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Ruth snarled, breathing heavily against the weight of the woman’s foot. “Not about this country or what they think of your lies. But I one hundred per cent guarantee they’re all better off without you.”

Sloane leant in, resting an elbow on her knee to put more pressure on Ruth, making her gasp. “Hey now. You’re gonna hurt my feelings, carrying on like that.”

The extra pain triggered Ruth, and she forced everything she had into recovering, enough to throw her arms up and dig her fingers into Sloane’s calf. As the other woman shrieked, Ruth pushed up with all her strength, toppling her but not letting go. Flailing her arms, Sloane hopped on her other leg as Ruth tugged on this one, making her swing around to one side and fall. The giantess hit one of the few standing high rises, bringing down a tower of apartments around her chest. Ruth crawled forward as Sloane landed, people and rubble and furniture scattering over her. She clambered up her legs and threw a punch into her temple. Another punch as Sloane’s head bounced back, another – before Sloane got an elbow in and jammed up hard.

Ruth fell with a sharp wince at the sound of something cracking – another damn rib?! She scrambled to the side, with Sloane hurrying the other way, and they both stood unsteadily, to face off again. Ruth flicked her hands out to clear them of debris as Sloane stared uncertainly, listing to the side with blood trickling from her forehead.

“Try that again,” Sloane slurred, almost sounding tearful. “You’ll get the shock of your life.”

Ruth looked at her own hand, studying the dull ring they’d used to trap her. Seemed lifeless now – maybe it only had so much charge. She shrugged. “I’ll try my luck.”

She moved in again, shifting low and tight with both fists raised, and Sloane took a startled step back, not so brave. The hesitation made her guard weak and Ruth got a blow to her side. Sloane tried to catch herself on another building, but it couldn’t take her weight and crumbled, bringing her down to a knee. As Ruth swung in to follow through, the giantess retreated, crashing through a wide street with her arms up defensively. She got back up as Ruth tried to follow, hissing orders into an apparent earpiece – “Get her already! What the fuck!” – but her eyes were wide with worry. Something was wrong.

Ruth smiled wickedly. “Daddy’s little cheat-tech failing on you?”

“You don’t want to do this, Ruth,” Sloane said, more like begging than a threat.

“Oh I do. I really do.”

Sloane’s face tightened, accepting this was happening. Her eyes got harder, meaner, and she gave the slightest shake of her head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

Ruth rushed in again, with two quick jabs, but Sloane evaded them, just, and skipped to one side. A crowd of people who’d been hiding scattered under her feet, screaming as some of them were squashed. Ruth spun and threw up her leg for a kick, and caught Sloane with a glancing blow as she ducked. Then Sloane struck back, coming in with a kick of her own, so fast Ruth barely saw the boot before it caught her chest. She was thrown into the air and twirled round to hit the ground face-first, sending a mighty shockwave through the city. As fissures snapped through the surrounding roads, she heard buildings tremble and fall further off, more people screaming. Right down by her face, pressed into the rubble, little ash-covered civilians tried to run out the way, watching her with terror. Probably more than a few under her body.

The ground shook again with Sloane’s approach, coming in to stomp on her back, and Ruth just managed to roll out of the way as the giantess’s boot hit the road. She kicked back, catching the side of Sloane’s knees, eliciting a shriek and bringing her down again. But Sloane swung into the attack, driving an elbow at Ruth as she rose up, hitting her in the gut. Ruth went down wheezing, hands spread, and took another blow to the side of the head. Dazed, she staggered out from Sloane’s reach, but only just – when she twisted back to face her, the woman had a fist raised, ready to strike home.

“Say hi to Sheerwolf,” Sloane spat bloodily, and drove in for a killing blow. But a huge shape flew in from the side, dark and powerful as a falling building – Washington Fury roared through the air throwing her full body into Sloane’s. The pair went down hard, slamming through more buildings, rattling the world, and Washington followed with a flurry of punches. It lasted a couple of ferocious seconds before she jolted upright, screaming as another burst of electricity caught her. Fury fell on the ground, convulsing hard, as Sloane crawled aside, stunned and bleeding.

Ruth stood shakily, trying to regain her senses as Washington was hit by another burst, immobilised. So the rings weren’t all out. But Sloane was injured, moaning on all fours, and Ruth was ready to finish this. She stepped in, crouching to grab a solid chunk of fallen building, and brought it up overhead, ready to break down over the woman’s skull. She ignored the pleas of little people dangling from it – one fell off with a shriek and bumped into her shoulder.

“Enough!” Sloane cried, sensing it coming, but Ruth brought the building down.

Her body pulsed. As Ruth struck, Sloane’s muscly shoulders rose up, expanding out to meet the blow. The masonry split apart against her and Ruth was knocked back, hit by a wall of flesh. Much more than was there before – she was smacked bodily by Sloane’s growing shoulder, now larger than her. Ruth stumbled, almost fell, as she dived to get out of the way, stepping on people and knocking apart buildings. When she looked back, Sloane was already four times the size, still growing, hunched over the city like a fleshy moon. Ruth went from a stumble to a run to put more distance between her, getting barely any further away as the giantess kept expanding, thick leg following.

The world kept quaking, rumbling, groaning like the entire planet might crack apart under her weight, and half of The Borough was already falling, caving in on itself in pathetic clouds of dust. Finally, it settled, and Ruth found herself staring up at the impossible, unable to blink for the enormity of the woman. For the first time in almost a century, Ruth felt small.

Sloane slowly uncurled from her crouch, a blood-and-ash-dusted behemoth of bare flesh. She had to be ten, twelve times the size of before, her booted foot maybe two hundred feet long, taking up most of the central city area, her bent legs hovering over the rest, body bigger than a civilisation. What was she, a thousand feet tall? Ruth, taller than a tower herself, was a doll before her. Worse… A rodent.

The immense woman’s head rotated at a glacial pace, taking in the tininess of the world beneath her, and her impossible huge eyes, rounder and whiter than ever, fixed on Ruth. Her mouth twisted in a slow, sick smile. She spoke with a bass-rich voice, vibrating the Earth: “Surprise.”