Bikini Kaiju - Ch 3

The five original Bikini Sentinels formed a pyramid of bodies, showing off buxom bodies, pillars of muscle and attitude. Steel Ruth stood at the centre, above the others, fists clenched and arms bulging as she offered a mean snarl – all attitude in contrast to Ramona’s seductive wink, Darlene’s flirty smirk, Washington’s serious thumbs-up and Mary’s simple smile. They were all young and scantly clad, as scandalous in the way they presented themselves as they were with their tremendous size – the artwork was first done in the 1950s. Ash stared at the logo grimly, printed across a vast canvas banner that hung down the far side of Ruth’s crater. The flag had faded and torn with time. She hadn’t noticed it from the platform, where the trees partly obscured it.

“I wouldn’t have it up myself,” Ruth said, seeing Ash staring, “but it’s another of their damn contractual obligations.”

Ash stood in the giantess’s palm, feet sinking slightly into her firm flesh, as she looked towards the mountainside, vainly hoping that someone might come back for her. She hadn’t ever planned on leaving, or making it home, but now she wanted nothing more, and couldn’t believe they’d abandon her like this. One sacrifice, that was the price of a trip to Steel Island. It was a firmly established rule. But she should’ve known better. When it came to the Sentinels, the rules were always flexible.

She tried to calm her breathing, and her racing heart, to look the giantess in the eye. Ruth stared back lazily, having realised Ash had an agenda but refusing to take a huge interest in it. That dismissiveness gave Ash the extra push she needed, and she clenched her jaw, trying to look defiant. This monster had no idea the danger she posed. She’d dropped her pack on the platform, but she still had poisons on her belt: capsules of a toxin that should be enough to kill a whole herd of elephants. Whatever else happened, if the giantess ate her, she’d have won.

“You don’t like me,” Ruth said. “It’s not exactly subtle. Was the guy I just ate your boyfriend? Husband?”

“I just met him,” Ash replied.

“So you brought this with you. It’s okay, I’m used to it.” Ruth rested her head against the cliff, looking skyward. “I’ve never been anyone’s favourite. Well, except for those weirdos who want to get trampled. I’m guessing you thought you could hurt me somehow? Or was this just a face-your-fears kind of thing?”

Ash couldn’t say anything for a moment, wary of how accurate Ruth’s assessment was. Fresh fear rose in her as she realised Ruth might kill her any number of other ways. If she didn’t eat her and swallow the poison, this was for nothing.

“I hurt someone you loved, didn’t I? Do you want an apology?”

The question sounded genuine. An apology was not something Ash had planned for, or ever considered. She said, “I don’t see how that would help.”

“Good, because I don’t really care,” Ruth admitted. “You think you’ve had it hard, but imagine the hand they dealt me. Fucking fist-fights with monsters, the whole world’s eyes on me, generals and politicians always after something, perverts just . . . God. I try to keep a lid on it for the tourists, but it’s just us now so you might as well know, little people are pests. Your kind are literally more annoying than flies sometimes – I don’t lose much sleep over swatting you.”

“We’re not insects,” Ash snapped. “You were human! How could you say that!”

“Because I don’t have to explain myself to you. So what was it? I’m guessing a collateral damage thing. Someone I squashed while fighting a monster? You’re not that old, so probably not a spouse or sibling. Your parents?”

Ash swallowed as Ruth guessed accurately again. The giantess waited for an answer but she wasn’t able to speak for a moment.

Ruth went on, “Got it. And you thought you’d honour their memory by throwing your life away too? Very much like a worthless insect. Well done. You’ve got something on you, in case I ate you? Or in you? Probably a few poisons in your pack. Or explosives? That’s alright, I know how to unwrap my food. And we can wait until I’m sure your system’s clear. Just to make sure you’re really wasting your time here.”

Ash glowered, lip trembling, feeling the emotion growing in her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She’d planned for so long, saved up, researched how to smuggle everything in –

“Oh don’t give me that look. Good news is I’m not going to eat you yet, so you can keep me company in the meantime.”

“You can –” Ash began swelling with anger, but Ruth’s hand suddenly closed on her, fingers wrapping her in a fist. She squealed as she was lifted higher, the giantess standing. She wriggled her arms free to hold on tight to Ruth’s finger as the mountains swung past. The giantess climbed over the crater wall, clearing a mountain as easily as someone hopping a short fence. The island shook under her landing, and the ground crunched as she walked out through the trees, feet finding regularly used spaces to move towards another mountain alcove. Holding her breath in fear, Ash spotted specs of people far off, the tour group scrambling down a path back towards Doogan’s boat.

“And you can’t call me callous when that bunch of little pricks left you here just like that,” Ruth murmured, seeing them too. “Five times a week they come out here, almost never arguing about handing someone over. That’s the tip of how monstrous your people are.”

Ruth crouched into a lush valley, to rest against another mountain, where a giant table and a huge canvas screen sat, a flickering image projected on it. It was a living space, of sorts – there were a few items of discarded clothing, big enough to cover buildings, and distorted metal canisters used for food or drink, dented from the strength of the giantess’s idle fingers. The screen showed a computer logo, which disappeared as Ruth’s vibrations activated it, revealing a desktop layout, fifteen feet high. The background was the same famous Bikini Sentinels logo from the banner, the five guardians posed like action heroes.

Ash was lowered and released from the hand to go stumbling across a flat surface – a ridge of rock. She steadied herself and gasped, looking down a cliff to a rocky patch forty feet down. There was nowhere to go either side of her, and just rock above, a perfect ledge to leave a person completely stranded. Ignoring her, Ruth grabbed one of the metal canisters and lifted it for a big swig of whatever was inside. She gulped with frightening large bulges in her throat, then set it down again and gave a belch that shook the mountains. Ash pressed herself into the wall to avoid tripping over the edge.

Chuckling with amusement, the giantess then took a table-sized plastic box and clicked it – a giant-sized mouse for controlling the computer. The projection lit up with a page of writing as Ruth leant to one side, reading. Ash stared in surprise: it was fiction. A romance novel? Ruth was quickly engaged in it, with no regard for the person she had captured.

Ash looked around, wondering if she could get down somehow. A vine, some footholds? If she could sneak away, get her pack, there was still hope. The giantess’s arrogance would be her downfall.

“There’s no way you brought anything that could hurt me, by the way,” Ruth said, distractedly. Ash stood still, frightened now that the monster was paying her more attention than it seemed. After another moment reading, Ruth continued, “Two times, people have successfully snuck in with poisons. Enough to kill some pretty big animals, they said, but it just gave me a bit of a stomach ache. Well, the second one gave me the shits, and that wasn’t pretty for anyone involved. My toilet’s not that effective.”

Ruth rearranged herself, stretching out, and her giant foot crashed through the undergrowth to rest beneath Ash’s position, wriggling toes bigger than her head. Ash was momentarily transfixed by them, considering the dirty underside.

“Been a few attempts at bombing me. One guy flew a plane into the island. The Russians actually hatched a whole wild plan to take us down with nukes once, you know that?”

Ash nodded quietly, because everyone knew about the Hon Lon Standoff, possibly the single most tense week in the Cold War. They were coming on sixty years since the Sentinels had first been established, and that was the closest that the giants had come to being used for fighting against humans. If they’d pushed things a little further, the world might’ve woken up to the danger these monsters posed, instead of accepting them as saviours.

“Not that whole thing in Vietnam,” Ruth said, though, again guessing Ash’s thoughts. “That was a glorified publicity stunt, really. No, this was about eight years ago, when I was just out here minding my own business. As I have been for a long time.”

The giantess’s eyes pointedly sat back on Ash, making her cower. She stared hard, wanting a response. Ash cleared her throat, struggling to look the huge woman in the face. Finally, she said, “You killed my dad.”

“Speak up, you think I can hear you all the way over there?”

“I said you killed my dad!” Ash shouted, anger flaring. “In New York, 2004, when you trod on our family store! He never hurt anyone! He was just serving people in the community – you stepped on him and didn’t even realise!”

Ruth’s expression was blank. Still not caring. “Must’ve been the last time I was there. If I hadn’t stepped on a few of your people, Reptscalian would’ve destroyed the whole city, right? Reptscalian, who I remind you has not been since we dropped him in the ocean.”

Ash fumed quietly, having heard it all before. More than a dozen monsters more ferocious and terrifying than any of the Bikini Sentinels had assaulted the world since their first inception, and the giants had forced them back, for the most part, but always at great cost. But two decades since the last such creatures had been seen, people were still paying the price – still rebuilding, still sending sacrifices to the Sentinels. Five a week just for Ruth, she’d already admitted.

Ruth shifted closer and Ash backed into the wall again, squeaking in fright. The giantess knelt to bring her huge face close, lifting a tree-thick finger to poke Ash in the chest. “You’ve had a lifetime to build a grudge against me, haven’t you? All time you could’ve spent doing anything else. Sometimes I wish you little shits could kill me, you know? The world’s practically a prison as it is. I’m as remote as possible and you still come bothering me every day. You still hound me all over the internet. We didn’t ask for any of this, but I did my part. All I really wanted was to be left alone.”

“Well what’s stopping you?” Ash hissed back, finding some defiance. “Go drown in the sea! Find a poison that can kill you!”

“I said sometimes you cheeky sod,” Ruth replied, smiling thinly. “I do appreciate my downtime. I have my books. And that there” – she nodded to where Ash saw a light perched near the tip of one cliff face, large and caged like it had been ripped from a lighthouse – “never lights up anymore. We ended the kaiju rampages and I’ve earned this retirement. I’ve earned the right to squash, eat or otherwise abuse anyone I want, because I’ve done more for this world than any of you ever will. That makes me a monster, you think. But I’m not. Even just lounging out here, I inspire people, investing my time and money. Keep that in mind. I’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

Ash’s eyes were welling up with injustice and frustration. There was no revenge to be had here, no way she could even get through to this monstrous woman. She said, “Then what are you waiting for? Just kill me.”

Ruth considered her, as if deciding right then whether or not she would. A smile stretched across her huge mouth again. “No. I’m going to keep you for a bit. Much as I don’t miss the madness, and the bigger attention, it can be quiet out here.”

“That’s because you’re not necessary!” Ash shouted. “You don’t belong in this world! We don’t want you!”

Something beeped, loudly, and the caged light on the cliff lit up, deep red. The beeping continued like a siren, long and short blasts, and Ruth’s brow folded. Ash caught her breath, looking from the giantess to the light, fearing she’d somehow triggered it, a warning system or some other alarm. But Ruth very carefully took her giant computer mouse and clicked away from her book, pulling up a message. The light and beeping cut off as the words jumped out at Ash, an image appearing below them.

KAIJU ATTACK IN TAIPEI – SENTINELS ACTIVATE

“Ah balls,” Ruth huffed. “You had to go and jinx it, didn’t you?”

Ash shifted to the edge of her ledge, trying to see better. The image was blurry and taken in motion, but its subject was clear enough. Something as big as a skyscraper, stooped with an elongated snout, either a giant lizard or a rat? Ruth hummed as she skimmed the text.

“Guess you got your wish. I’ve got some work to do.”