"I'm not properly clothed for wading through water." Watashi shut her eyes at the clear river's cool temperature, battering her bare skin. She shut her green eyes, and held her arms out. "If this is a dream, then maybe I'll try conjuring a bathing suit, or making the river shallow. Fairies, can you do that?"
A tiny sting hit her leg, making her slap it. "Of all creatures, why would the fairies put a mosquito here?"
---
The weapon's beam struck the humongous explorer directly in the back of her knee. Voltage surged from that spot, electric bursts spreading on the towering leg. It reached her dress and apron, traversing the fine materials. Lastly, it caught in brilliant sparks across her waist-length hair. Shadows upon the ruined cities shifted; her thigh muscle flexed subconsciously from the jolt.
That shadow stretched out over the plains and valleys of uprooted homes. It coated the ruins of the woman's careless stroll, and beyond, to millions watching in horror and panic. Her shoulders passed the clouds, followed by her ample bosom, full hips, and peachy knees. The workers at the coast who built the gun had little time to wallow in regret: the mediator's growing heel collided with their buildings. A harsh impact instantly pulverized them into the expanding, supple skin. Survivors witness the delicate woman's weight cracking the ground, breaking off a chunk of ground from the shore, and sending it sinking to the seafloor.
If their first plan didn't work, the government had their navy in place to intercept the wandering behemoth. But as she stretched out, feeling the water, her slender toes flexed into the sea. Even if were standing still, the tidal waves generated by the immense pads would overtake their armada. But with an innocent smile, Watashi flexed the mile-long pillars into the refreshing liquid, overturning them with the undulations.
With less than a twitch, the mediator's height - already enough to devastate a continent - multiplied tenfold. She opened her eyelids; and soon, her mouth followed, gaping in amazement. She kicked a foot into the water. The resulting blasts of pressure washed up on beaches halfway around the world. Its power sliced the steel hulls of larger boats, and tore smaller ships into sprays of metal rain.
---
Quietly, the woman held her finger to her mouth, observing the much more manageable waters below. They were essentially a puddle, brushing just midway up her talus. Wetness dripped from her kick, making circular ripples in it. "Huh... It actually worked. The river dried up."
That wasn't all. The skies were darker, filled with stars. It gradated to an azure hue at lower heights. The strange mists had descended to the ground, forming miniature whirlpools that tickled her bare ankles. But amid that, the mountain chain still stood. She continued, keeping her eyes on the target, hoping it'd give her some clarity.
---
Across the sea, the government jumped to work. They put every other operation on hold to build up defenses. Satellite images and translated news reports gave them enough information to work with. On the front lines, a well-oiled air force patrolled the furthest reaches of their country's maritime boarders. They swore the giant visitor's innocent steps would not soil their land. With the high altitude and size of the air crafts, she was bound to see one, and realize what was happening.
Then they saw one of Watashi's toenails in front of them.
It wasn't on the radars patrolling of the seas below.
It wasn't pictures sent from overseas allies on the ground.
Their planes, miles in the sky, were level with her nail.
Her toes were standing relaxed, partly submerged in the ocean. Despite being cut flat, there were clearly clumps of destroyed buildings in the space underneath them. A skyscraper wouldn't be tall enough to pierce the keratin convex.
They could prepare for a giantess. They couldn't prepare for a 2000km tall giantess. If she lay down, she'd be longer and wider than Japan.
Most pilots turned immediately, knowing that an idle twitch meant the end of their lives. But one brave helicopter pilot unloaded her arsenal onto the vast surface. A dazzling explosion brushed the hard cells. When the smoke cleared, the mediator's toenails remained unscathed, unchipped, and towering as ever.
She continued her journey. The helicopter and fleeing planes exploded instantly upon contact with her moving flesh. The splash from her steps created tides large enough to consume the fleet. In fact sheer force in her legs made bits of the seafloor rise to the surface, and reawakened underwater volcano chains the world over. It doomed many in distant nations.
And this country before her didn't have very high hopes, either.
---
The pink-haired explorer made landfall, relaxing her digits into the swampy green spot. She still held her dress up, baring her legs - to make sure none of the muck below stained it. Even a few steps out of the water, the thin grass splashed and slid around her heels. A bath. She'd need a bath after this.
But first, the mountain range. Maybe it'd give her a clue to this mysterious dreamscape...
She blinked. Her shoulders slumped. Her voice dripped with sarcasm: "My, my. It's glorious."
The "mountains" were right there, barely brushing halfway up her toes.
Watashi lifted her foot delicately. "Is this some sort of illusion?" To test, she prodded the small lumps. The meager touch flattened them instantly.
---
Misty clouds circled her toes as they crushed the landscape below.
Five cities disappeared underneath 10,000 square miles of pedeal flesh. The modern structures at the height of development cracked and splintered like toothpicks with a mere touch. As if the mountains were liquid, her sole sunk into them. Loosened from her unconscious crush, and flew in the air. With an immense splash, they enveloped other nearby metropolises in a filthy tomb.
Due to the Earth's curvature, the living landscape's expression was imperceptible. The highest point in perspective was her knee, twisting slightly as it lifted to the heavens.
...Only to descend in yet another cacophony of quaking and filth. A million cries drowned helplessly beneath the humid wrinkles.
When she raised her leg, nothing but a five-digited canyon remained. The imprint was visible from space. The sides were higher than any man-made structure. Every trace of contract by civilization or nature vanished beneath it. It was all trash, compacted to hard rubble by incomparable pressure.
Highrises, towns, roads, and valleys stuck to her dermis, abducted from the Earth. In avalanches, the flattened structures slipped from her stratosphere-piercing heel, and down to her looming, thin digits. Flash floods from the residual saltwater traversed the countryside. Others experienced showers of lint-smothered houses; the crumbling settlements caused mass destruction on their own. A single step destroyed all hope for rebuilding their homes. In fact, people doubted the land would ever be inhabitable again.
From sea to sea, her monumental foot stood as a beacon. Her round heel glimmered with wetness, sweat drops sweeping through torn landscapes. The arch was almost untainted by the country - clean, delicate, and rosy with warmth. Dirt plainly marked the curves of her metatarsals, showing exactly where it dug deepest into the landmass. And when each of her flexible joints dangled, phalanges folding and unfolding, scores of debris cascaded from the organic folds of her prints. Debris that could be them, or people they knew. Visible waves of warmth rose from both the sky-dominating skin, and the crater it left.
With naught but a step, Watashi had shaken every soul in the world.
---
"Great. The fairies have really outdone themselves." The woman began pacing, in search of people. "Where do I go from here? I can't see my shoes. It's nothing but green and blue..."
---
As the explorer paced, more land fell to the meteor strikes of steps. Her dainty footprints wiped the largest cities and mountains clean off the map. The gentle sway of her hair in the wind made a booming noise, like a bomb dropping from above. And the swing of her ankle, alone, generated winds that tore trees from their roots.
Underground safety bunkers were evenly scrunched, her skin piercing their ceilings. Trains, planes, and cars trying to leave were broken helplessly. Nuclear weapons did nothing but wipe some of the ruins off her soles. Whole states and provinces screamed as one - a quiet buzz to the mediator, who snuffed them underfoot.
Without noticing, her pace led her across seas, to new continents. Nobody escaped the quaking stomps. Skies filled with peach, and within seconds, the falling behemoths pulverized every trace of a living organism.
BOOM. Immense Western metropolises were dust on her sole.
BOOM. Northern settlements were cool tickles on a girl's heel.
BOOM. Centers of culture were gone forever.
BOOM. Vast deserts and ancient structures decorated the side of her arch.
BOOM. Sprawling Eastern capitals became toejam.
BOOM. Southern archipelagos sunk to the seafloor.
No place was out of her curious legs' reach. No site was too sacred for her innocent touch to defile. Nothing the humans did meant anything. They could only pray not to swallowed by growing cracks from her crush; stuck beneath mountainous rock slides, or washed up in influxes of saltwater... But to disappear quickly with the billions against her supple sole.
In a matter of minutes, a young woman had effortlessly rendered beautiful Earth into a map of her shapely footprints.
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