The Great Awakening (Chapter 29) (Patreon)

Soon Rodriguez stopped issuing orders altogether, especially when it became clear how truly little there was left to do except retreat. While that giant foot was close enough now to spot the flaming impact sites from their heavy arms briefly lighting up her toe skin like firefly tails, the combined might of the navy’s pawns could neither dent nor budge the girl, who was still blissfully sliding her foot at sub-glacial speed into the ocean, and was about to spill right over the first ships which had come to meet her.

The higher-ups roared commands via radio for all vessels to pull back immediately and rejoin the carrier fleet from which they were dispatched, but it was obvious to Rodriguez that this mandate came too little and far too late. She in fact knew this from the first moment the giantess appeared on the horizon, but the lethal proof was charging toward them now with the same apparent intent to purge them from existence as the whole shelled-out city of Manhattan, toes ripping up tidal waves and capsizing front-line battleships while still a quarter-mile away. And just in case any of the fearful sailors still believed their enormous opponent was doing all this out of simple fascination or even slightly by accident, a sly smile curling on her plush pink lips confirmed that this calamitous gesture wasn’t just business, but for pleasure too.

The retreat commenced in haste, with gunners still pinging hot metal off the girl’s sun-and-surf-soaked toes in ridiculous hopes of slowing them down, but that foot wasn’t stopping for anyone or anything until the high-borne goddess-sized being in charge of their movement got what she wanted. Rodriguez was spooked far more by the girl’s steely gaze than by the rapidly-approaching bulwarks of her toes, even as they began overtaking smaller vessels and dunking them fatally beneath the tossing waves. It was a look she recognized well, because the officer saw it in the mirror every morning, when psyching herself up to be not only professional but exemplary in her service to the country. In essence, it was a look of unbreakable determination, and Rodriguez knew that if this ten-mile girl shared even half her conviction, then they may as well have switched off the rudders on the ships and taken a swim in the chop, for all the good it would do to flee from the inevitable pillage of those meaty toes, each one of which alone could’ve wiped out the navy’s whole response team, to say nothing of the lengthy and spacious sole-brawn which dragged behind the quintet of her extremities.

Hanging like a barnacle to the railing now, PO3 Rodriguez watched ships containing comrades, brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, disappearing first into the unfurling mist of the giantess’s wave-skimming toes, then under the rounded boughs of those digits themselves, dunked so deep that even if they rose back to the surface once the girl had passed over them, there was sure to be nothing recognizable of the vessels leftover, hardware or human. There was no time to mourn them, however, as that foot kept on advancing. In less than a minute, half the collection of smaller battleships had been plunked under the surface with only the effort required to nudge the dark-haired creature’s bare foot through the watery loam of the harbor, and Rodriguez was pretty sure even that the girl wasn’t pressing her full weight down. She was just gliding her foot forward with supreme balance, letting the turbulent waves tickle her soles, and sinking ships full of patriotic young prospects by the hundred.

Too disturbed, the officer finally forced herself to look away from the oncoming carnage. At a great distance in the opposite direction, she could see the aircraft carriers parked and prepared to send out the next equally-useless round of naval boats to sacrifice at the feet of New York’s gargantuan trample artist, but Rodriguez had no illusions about actually making it there alive. Not unless, by some inexplicable miracle, the girl stopped advancing her foot into the water. To her shock, though, this was precisely what happened, as the thunderous crash of waves and implosive crunching from downed ships abruptly went quiet. Rodriguez dared turn again to investigate why the second half of the fleet was “allowed” the privilege to continue retreating at top speed from a foe who could’ve easily caught them from here even with an hour-long head start. Then her white-knuckled fists grew clammy around the deck railing.

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            Lilly couldn’t have been happier to have discovered the cute boats saying “hello” to her from the coast in their own adorably explosive way, since she was just beginning to get temporarily weary of pulling New York apart high-rise by high-rise. Not that she could ever become permanently bored with this game, she knew for certain, but some variety was nice, and once the ships had caught her attention, she knew exactly the kind of refreshment needed to break up the monotony. After repositioning herself and setting her toes in the calmingly gelid saltwater, she saw the ripples from her foot sending out rings that made the boats vigorously bob as if she’d skipped a pebble across the surface; several ships vanished underwater, and those that endured began traveling back the way they’d come almost immediately.

            “What, going so soon? Was it something I said?” Lilly whispered with partial disappointment, though she didn’t really care either. A game of tag would be welcome, or at least she thought so, until she realized how slow the miniscule things moved, and so she settled for another self-test of dexterity. Would she be able to feel them individually under her toes, she wondered, before they were dragged to the still-shallow depths?

Lilly’s first attempt proved that she’d have to be much gentler if she was going to have a chance of feeling the boats pressed briefly against the tender undersides of her ocean-sprayed digit pads, so she made a more concerted effort to prop her foot upward by digging her heel against the city, and doing her utmost not to disturb the waters too greatly just before touching down on top of another dozen boats.

The insignificant dots of those battleships, mostly only visible against the similarly-hued blue-grey ocean froth when actively shooting off sparkling artillery, reminded her of delicate-legged water insects walking on the surface of a babbling brook, though of course the navy would be far more easily caught and broken than such animals. The lubrication of the sea made it trickier to detect the crispy metallic desecrations happening each time her toes trapped another fleeing ship, but Lilly again decided that she did feel them, just as she had the tanks pinched off the mainland, and what’s more, it was a serious thrill not just sensing the infinitesimal vessels come apart at her touch, but bowing to the force of her Atlantic-dribbling foot and becoming one with the ocean floor sands. Then, with half the fleet subtracted from service and either buried in underwater turf or stuck to her toes, Lilly felt another good idea coming on.

“Let’s just see where you’re headed now, little ones,” the giantess murmured under her breath, likely heard only as a storm-cloud rumble to the ears of her probable next victims.