Bikini Kaiju - Ch 6

Made some good headway with this story in the last week so I'm hoping to get the complete first draft done this week! It's expanded a bit longer than I intended, in part because there's so much background detail... So bare with me if it feels like there's quite a lot of build-up in this – things are going to get rather dramatic in a few chapters' time...

Ash was perching over the edge of her little platform, still considering lowering herself down, when the ground vibrated and she almost fell off. She crawled quickly back as bits of rock broke and tumbled down, and braced herself against the cliff, listening for the approaching giant footsteps. This was a living nightmare. She’d been stuck here for half a day, forced to relieve herself over the edge, dehydrated. It was a small blessing she was in the shaded side of the giantess’s valley; if the sun had been on her she would’ve been cooked by now. A little toasty snack for the returning giantess. Instead, she’d been left to slowly shrivel, not brave enough to try and climb down the walls that she clearly could not climb down, alone with her thoughts over what Ruth’s urgent mission meant. For her, for the world. How bad were things out there?

Steel Ruth hopped over the valley wall and landed with an earth-shaking boom that would’ve thrown Ash to the ground if she wasn’t already pressing herself into the wall. She shuddered, watching the enormous woman as Ruth grabbed a tanker of water and took big, pool-sized gulps. She let out a suitably giant gasp of relief, placing the tanker down and huffed, irritated. Unharmed, if sweaty and dishevelled from the journey. Ash wanted to ask what had happened, but dreaded drawing attention to herself.

Her hours alone here, staring out at the giantess’s few possessions, just dirty scrunched-up clothes and massive depressions in the trees and rocks that showed how huge this person was, had taken away some of Ash’s vigour. Or rather, it’d replaced it with more fear. Hopelessness. Who was she ever kidding, thinking she could stand up to a monster like this? Get revenge? The Sentinels were on another level, monsters that she couldn’t properly have comprehended before coming so close. She really was a bug to them.

Ruth crouched so her massive form took up most of Ash’s vision, and activated her projected computer screen again, squinting at news reports. Ash shifted to the front of the ledge, trying to see. Photos of Queen Rat, lying defeated in the rubble of a city. It was familiar imagery but not something that had been real for decades. An actual kaiju at large in the world. But apparently swiftly beaten.

Then images of a woman, giant and defiant. Not one of the original Sentinels, Ash quickly realised, as Ruth tutted. Photos of Ruth standing opposite the woman, regarding her with disdain. The new giantess, blonde, toned and beautiful, in her bikini, holding out a friendly hand. Ruth spurning it. Ash’s heart lifted as she saw the pictures for what they were.

“A rival,” she gasped.

The earth creaked with the giantess’s shifting weight, Ruth’s eyes roaming down to her. Angry. Ash froze, not meaning to have been heard. Was this it? All this waiting, and now she was in the headlights of Ruth’s redirected anger at this new woman.

“Why are you even still here,” Ruth rumbled, though, sitting back on her haunches. She glared at the screen like she was trying to uncover answers in the pictures of this new giant. Ash sat back too, a little indignation returning at such a flippant dismissal. As if there was anywhere she could have gone.

“She stopped Queen Rat?” Ash asked, boldly. If she wasn’t going to die, she might as well engage. “Where did she come from?”

Ruth growled and shook her head. Obviously the same question was troubling her.

“So I suppose you’re still irrelevant,” Ash heard herself say. Hadn’t planned that, but it was where they’d left off. It was what had driven her to come, what had fuelled her for so long since this monster had ruined her life. The Bikini Sentinels had damaged so much in return for so little.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Ruth muttered back, the agreement wrong-footing Ash.

They sat in silence, then, both considering the photos and the headlines that accompanied them:

QUEEN RAT RETURNS – TAIPEI SAVED!

SWEET SLOANE SAVES THE DAY!

KAIJU CALM ENDS – BUT UNLIKELY SAVIOR RISES

STEEL RUTH REFUSES THE HAND OF JUSTICE

“The fuck is that even supposed to mean?” Ruth scoffed. “Nothing to do with justice. It was a giant damn rat and some crazy woman who took things too far in dealing with it.”

That comment made a detail sink in that Ash hadn’t appreciated before. The rat wasn’t just down. It was dead. That was a big step. She couldn’t help herself, though, in replying, “What do you know about taking things too far?”

“Oh I can show you,” Ruth snarled, reaching a hand up. Ash startled backwards, letting out a frightened yelp, as massive fingers stretched towards her – but the giantess paused before snatching her, leaving Ash to stare fearfully into the wall of her rough palm. Her head turned away, ears pricked to a sound. Her hand ominously hovered before Ash as a gentle vibration followed, building into something stronger. A thunderous thrum, a helicopter so vast it made the sky shake – the sound that aptly gave the great Sentinel transports their names. A thundercraft approaching. It roared over the island as Ruth gave a different snarl, rising to her full height again, cracking her knuckles. Ash tried to recover her shaking breath as she stared up at the terrifying woman, so close to whatever Ruth had intended for her, only to be saved by the promise of another giant.

The unseen helicopter, which would be bigger than a building, settled and quietened, the noise replaced by quaking footsteps.

Ruth flexed, muscles corded for a fight, but as she turned the tension softened out of her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You need to guess?” a voice boomed back. Ash recognised Ramona Dynamite’s vibrant accent, good-humoured and all the scarier for it. Any relief she had was replaced with deeper dread; anyone in the world would’ve been more welcome than the Destructora, the Sin Sierra – Ramona, the Sentinels’ most ashamedly dangerous member.

“I mean, how did you get her? You didn’t want to just call?” Ruth demanded, as Ramona stomped into view.

She stopped beyond the ridge, folding her arms in mock-scolding under an immense chest, and Ash was stunned with equal parts fear and awe. Where Ruth’s monstrous size was partly tempered by her casual appearance, Ramona was as striking as ever, arms and legs bulging with muscle on show out of her loose-tied shirt and cut-off denim shorts (famously made by Cargo GoGo, keeping Ramona in fashion since 1967). She was a Latino goddess who knowingly trod a delicate line between curvaceous and slim, flirty and fierce. Dark enough to be exotic, but not so dark the racists couldn’t pretend she was white. Fun and smiley enough to break hearts, so when she committed terrible atrocities the world had trouble judging her too seriously. This woman had trampled towns under her loose-laced combat boots and plucked up boatloads of people to devour while telling her audience they loved it. Maybe some of them did – she was single-handedly responsible for pushing the Sentinels into the most off-kilter territories of exciting generations of young men and women into unnatural, size-warped sexual fantasies. But under that cheerful charm, she was a menace, unchecked because her stomping grounds tended to be south of the imaginary line that the world’s media cared about. The champion of all Latin America (actually half Colombian, born in New Mexico), she was also their scourge.

And here she was standing before Ash, the other side of Ruth, smiling her brilliant white smile, eyes big and round, shiny jet hair flowing over her shoulders.

“Caught a flight when I saw the news,” Ramona explained. “Redirected when we saw the newer news. Damned if I was getting drawn into clear-up duty. And I didn’t call, mamacita, because I wanted to talk to you and not them.”

Ash heard the intention in that them – an understood other. Their controllers, whoever might listen in on a call.

“Now, you going to invite me in? Put up a drink?”

Ruth sighed and stepped back, not like the valley wasn’t wide open. Ramona climbed over, two giantesses between mountains making an expansive landscape suddenly feel cramped. Ash scuttled as far back as her tiny space would allow, trembling at the sight of Ramona’s perfect legs climbing high up past her. And those boots – scuffed, rounded leather lace combats that went up to her shins, tongues lolling from the clumsily undone laces. Her signature footwear was designer derelict.

“Maybe I should have called ahead,” Ramona said, taking in the space, particularly a great crumple of Ruth’s underwear. Like a dirty cotton marque had collapsed. “Given you a chance to clean up.”

“Maybe you should shut up,” Ruth replied, though some of her venom had faded. “I take it you haven’t met the newbie yourself?”

“No. I wanted to hear the mighty Steel Ruth’s take firsthand. Who is this bitch?”

“I don’t know but I don’t trust her. In fact, I’d go so far to say she’s trouble. Or would be, if I could be arsed about it all. I wasted a day flying out there to check on Taipei, which would’ve been better spent here. The world’s welcome to whatever shit storm she’s brewing up.”

Ramona laughed but Ash found herself shifting forward again, shocked by Ruth’s words, even if it shouldn’t have been a surprise. She shouted, “What’s wrong with you?”

Their guest giantess’s eyebrows shot up in delighted surprise, and Ash chilled as the huge woman turned her attention to her. The Sin Sierra herself took her in with that curious, cruel look that so often spelled disaster.

“Oh I didn’t know you had a friend, Ruth?” Ramona mocked, crouching down. “Who’s this adorable objectionable bollo?”

Ash said nothing, locked in her gaze.

“Don’t be shy,” Ramona said, pursing her lips in disappointment. She raised a hand and poked Ash with a finger more slender and better manicured than Ruth’s. Ash flinched to the side. “You had something important to say?” Without warning, her hand pinched at Ash, taking her shoulder between finger and thumb. She stood, carrying Ash up, making her scream as the world fell away, a tremendous height and nothing between her and the distant ground but the pillars of two giant women’s bodies. Ramona held her up between their faces, beaming happily while Ruth watched with disdain.

“She sounded upset with you?” Ramona pointed out, and gave Ash a little shake, as callous as she might toss a broken doll. Ash kicked about, trying to reach up and hold onto her finger. “Go on, say it. Ruth is a monster, no? Such a lazy one, complaining about saving the world. She would rather sit on her pretty bum and masturbate over fitness magazines.”

“Oh fuck you,” Ruth said, but barely stifled a laugh. The closest Ash had seen to her lightening up. “But yeah. This one wanted to kill me. Stood on her dad, wasn’t it? A few years back.”

“Aww.” Ramona pouted, her charm almost making the sympathy sound genuine. “Poor little thing. If only she was as big as us. But she has a point, don’t you think? Honestly, Ruth, you have become so jaded. You need to get out more.” She used Ash’s flopping body to punctuate her point with little flicks.

“Stop it! Please!” Ash cried, hating her own pitiful voice.

“So sorry, I didn’t mean to, oh my little bollo!” Ramona chided, drawing her back and dropping Ash into her other hand. She cupped her there, and came in for a pouting kiss to make things better. Ash flinched, pressed into her giant, wet lips. Then the hand was drawn away, leaving her trembling in another giant palm, as Ramona flipped a switch and grew serious. “Did she tell you anything? Where she came from? Who made her?”

Not talking about Ash anymore, but back to the mystery new giantess.

“No. We didn’t talk much,” Ruth said. “The way she spoke, though, and the way that rat just appeared, this is something someone planned. Has been planning.”

“Yeah, you feel it too, huh? So, what are we going to do about it?”

“I already said, didn’t I? Not my problem.”

“In my experience, powerful people don’t like leaving loose ends. Competition, even if it’s not competing, tends to get their attention.”

“Let her come here if she wants. But I’m –”

The red light flashed, Ruth’s warning alarm whining in to interrupt however she was about to dismiss this crisis. Both giantesses joined Ash in looking down with alarm at the sound. Surely not another attack? But Ruth scowled, toeing her mouse to activate the mountainside computer screen. The alert that came up was not a headline, not so damning this time.

Ramona laughed again as they read it together.

YOU ARE INVITED – SENTINEL SLOANE MIXER

“You’re out, is that what you were going to say?” Ramona purred. “Seems someone wants you in.” She rummaged in a pocket with her free hand, for all the tight space her slim shorts allowed, and drew out a car-sized phone. The Motorola Superscale. It lit up as she tapped the screen and she hummed acknowledgement. “I have one too. Are they calling her a Sentinel, or saying it’s a mixer between her and us?”

“I don’t know, do I,” Ruth replied bitterly. “You can tell me after you go and find out.”

Ramona hummed, reading the rest of the message to herself as Ash looked from one of them to the other. Whatever they were being called to, it might mean her being left here again, alone, for however long, she did not know.

“Sounds like a party,” Ramona said. “An island compound off Alaska. Exclusive invites for only the most important dignitaries and press. Oh. This will be fun. Girls back together. Maybe there’ll be dancing? Come on Ruth.” She leaned in, nudged the other giantess with her hip.

“You came to ask what I thought, I’ve told you,” Ruth said. “Don’t trust, don’t want anything to do with her. It’s on your head if you go. I’m happy here.”

“You have a funny understanding of the word happy,” Ramona pointed out, but shed some of her faux cheer. “Very well. I’ll take this one for my efforts, then?” She lifted Ash, lips peeling back in anticipation, and Ash’s heart jumped. A chance at freedom? Doubtful.

“Will you fuck,” Ruth snapped, and her hand suddenly shot over Ramona’s, balling Ash into a fist and hefting her away. Ash was smothered, squirming against her hot flesh, as Ruth scolded the other woman, likely saving her from being devoured out of spite more than charity. “Get out of here, then. Wasted fucking journey, wasn’t it?”

“Seeing your beautiful face up close is never a waste,” Ramona goaded. “And I will go and see what this is about, but I’m not going anywhere till I get that drink you promised. Don’t worry – I brought my own snacks.”