It was uncomfortably hot. It would’ve been even without his 30 pounds of gear. But with it, he was barely able to stay on his feet. Luckily the checkpoint was in the middle of a forest, where the trees provided ample shade. There was no way he would’ve been left standing if the sun had burned directly down on him as well. Despite the heat, and all the standing, he was rather happy with being stationed way out here in the sticks, guarding a road mostly unknown by both locals and the enemy. He wasn’t even sure where it led to. Must’ve been at least somewhat important to justify a checkpoint. Probably some forward outpost in the middle of nowhere, or some resupply center.

Standing still until his legs went numb certainly beat getting ripped to shreds at the front line. If he was entirely honest with himself, even this little road was still a bit too close to the main action for his liking. Sometimes he could hear artillery raining down a few kilometers from here.

Looking around, he saw that his comrades didn’t take too well to the heat either. His partner right next to him gave up on keeping watch and simply sat down, leaning against the little sandbag barricade they had build to block off the left lane of the road. If their CO saw that one of his men was with his back to the enemy, he would surely flip out. But odds were good that he wouldn’t leave his air-conditioned ‘command module’ in this heat.

Right next to them, on the right lane of the road, were another two soldiers behind a barricade, mirroring their side. One of them, the one standing closest to the middle of the two sandbag mounds, had his eyes firmly locked on the street before him. Jeff was happy that at least someone still took the job seriously.

Behind the two barricades was a machine gun nest, set up in the middle of the road. The gunner had his feet propped up against his mighty machine, thumbing through a magazine. Doing so in the middle of watch was obscenely against protocol, but their last contact was about 2 weeks ago, and that was a supply run that accidentally took a wrong turn somewhere and had to use this back road, so Jeff figured that the gunner had to do something to alleviate the boredom. He couldn’t see the ammo guy, so he figured that he was doing the very same thing his own partner was doing: Beating the heat by dozing against the sandbags. Their spotter was engaged in a conversation with two guys from the tank crew.

Because right behind the machine gun, blocking almost the entire width of the road, was their very last line of defense: A mighty tank, serving both as a movable roadblock as well as heavy fire power. Jeff always thought that this was a bit overkill for a checkpoint guarding a road to nowhere, but he certainly wouldn’t look this gift tank in the mouth. Somewhere inside he guessed there would be a third tank guy. He was sure they wouldn’t just leave it empty.

A couple of meters beside the road, hidden right behind the tree line, was the ‘command module’.
It was just a shipping container, housing most of their communications gear, but since it’s got an AC, that’s where both the CO and the Seargeant would be most of the time, together with the 3 comm guys.

This is how most days looked like, and Jeff was, as always, bored out of his damn mind. But still, throughout the army, he thought this was one of the best assignments possible. This way, once this is all over, he might return home without any cool war stories to tell, but at least he would return home at all.

__

“This fucking blows.”

To underline her statement, the brunette swung her leg back and kicked against the trunk of one of the many mid-thigh high trees surrounding them. The solid wood was no match for the frustrated giant. The tree immediately cracked in the middle like a dry stick, the force of the leisurely swung leg strong enough to rip the lower half out of the ground. The crown crashed against its brethren, the exposed root network on the other hand landed in the middle of the road they were following.

“Would you mind picking that up, Veronica?” Her ginger colleague asked, “Other troops might have to come through here at some point, a tree on the road would hinder them.”

Rolling her eyes and groaning excessively, Veronica bent down and grabbed what was left of the trunk in one hand. In a single fluid motion she lifted the broken half of the once mighty tree off the road and simply flung it to the side. After a short stint in the air it crashed into even more trees, uprooting and felling them too.

Standing back up she addressed the other giant in an overly upbeat tone: “There we go, good thing they can move through quickly now! We might need their help, even though moving a single fucking tree would take them hours!” Her quirky tone shifted into overt sarcasm towards the end.

The ginger sighed “You know that standard procedure is to always try and keep infrastructure intact so that back-up forces can mov-”

“Back-up forces?” Veronica snorted “We don’t need back-up forces. Hell, we don’t even need infrastructure. They could just send us out to the front lines, then we’d take the capital in a week without even breaking a sweat! But nooooo, they’re sending us on a fucking reconnaissance mission! Us! The two most conspicuous members of the armed forces!” The words echoed around the forest, actually managing to shake a few trees.

“Even you have to admit that that’s stupid, Emily!”

Emily simply shrugged “Not entirely. You have to admit we have a certain height advantage that makes it easier for us to spot things…”

“Spot what? The color green?” Veronica gestures out to the seemingly endless sea of green foliage. “We’re the ones who’ll get spotted long before we see anything… But no, wait, we’re not gonna get spotted, are we now?” her tone took on a sarcastic edge again “Because after all, we’re camouflaged!”

She gestured down herself, presenting their ‘uniform’, which barely classified as a two-piece swimsuit. The bottom piece featured their country’s flag smack in the middle of the crotch. The top piece had their name on the left cup and their rank on the right. And indeed, both pieces had a classic green camouflage design.

“We’re seamlessly blending into our environment!” Veronica kicked another tree for emphasis, this time hard enough to splinter the trunk into multiple fragments, propelled with enough force to rip apart the trees behind them, creating a wake of broken forest a couple hundred meters long. She took a deep breath and muttered:

“Honestly it wouldn’t be so bad if they at least made them the right size. I constantly feel like I’m gonna rip this thing apart. It’s not exactly comfortable.”

“You can’t really blame them for that.” Emily chimed in with a shrug “They had to make them out of some flexible, yet super strong material.” She took a shoulder string of her bikini top between thumb and pointer and pulled at it a few times to make her boob jiggle up and down. Each time she pulled the string, as well as each time the mass of fat settled back into the cup, slight groans and creaks could be heard emanating from the article of clothing.

“They couldn’t just give us normal clothes, they have to withstand a couple hundred tons of stress. It probably cost a fortune to produce just the few sets we have. We should be thankful we got anything at all and that they don’t make us paint our flag on our bare asses each morning.”

Veronica sighed “Alright, point taken. But even you have to admit that making them camo-patterned doesn’t provide any ‘tactical advantage’“, She marked that phrase with air quotes, “when it’s usually a couple dozen meters above anything it could actually blend in with.”

Veronica straddled a particularly high tree, showing off the 10-meter gap between it’s top and her bikini bottom.

Now even Emily had to chuckle “Well, no one’s stopping you from going prone and dragging yourself through the mud. Then you’d be perfectly camouflaged.”

Veronica snorted again “At least then I’d see what the hell’s going on below the trees. Seriously, Recon? Why do we always get these sucky jobs?”

“Oh please, you know exactly why.” Emily said, giving her friend a smile, half genuine, half incredulous. “The Commander thinks you’re a risk, so he sends you on missions where there’s minimal chance for you to cause collateral.” She sighed “And he sends me with you so someone keeps an eye on you.”

Veronica scoffed: “Yeah yeah, we all know you’re a textbook soldier. Why would he think I’m a risk?”
Emily laughed: “Seriously? You probably have a higher civilian casualty rate than a nuke by now. Even worse: Some of the companies you served in reported back higher casualties among our own personnel than some of those directly at the front lines. Also, when did you ever follow an order without talking back? You never do anything to procedure.”

“Pssh” Veronica waved dismissively “As if you’ve never caused some friendly fire.”

“Accidents happen, that’s unavoidable. But I never sank one of our own aircraft carriers.”

“They provoked me! They shouldn’t have messed with me if they couldn’t handle me messing with them back.”

“They accidentally bumped into you, because you were in their way, because you, once again, refused to listen to orders and fell out of formation.”

“So?! That shouldn’t matter. It’s not like they didn’t see me, they could’ve stopped!”
“No they very much couldn’t have, because an aircraft carrier doesn’t stop on a dime, Vero.”

“I still think they did it on purpose...”

“There were no survivors. You somehow managed to mangle the hull so badly no one could escape.”

“Yeah, duh, we mangle everything we come into contact with!”

“That thing was three times your size! Sometimes I think even at normal size you’d have quite the kill count...”

“Oh come on, I remember you laughing at the time”

“Yes, because the whole situation was ridiculous.”

Veronica pouted “Still, I don’t get why they expect me not to bump into and not their marvels of engineering they’re so proud of. I’m not a good swimmer, they’re purpose-build for it: End of discussion.”

Giggling, shaking her head, Emily concluded: “Anyway, that’s why we’re out here, following a road in the middle of nowhere just to see if it leads somewhere. No Civilians or friendly combatants out here for you to ‘bump into’.”

Veronica seemed to have grown bored of the topic already: “By the way, how long until we give up and head back to bas-”

She was interrupted by an unexpected sound. It wasn’t the usual cacophony of splintering wood and crumbling asphalt, this was a metallic groan.

Emily snapped her head around to look at her friend: “What was that?”

Veronica felt something under her sole. The weird, yet all too familiar texture of crumpled steel. Lifting her foot back up, she felt the mass stick to the bottom of it for a few seconds, before her sweat proofed to be an ineffective adhesive after all and gravity took hold of it once again.

Crouching, leering down between her thighs, she inspected the spot where the lump of metal had fallen back to earth.

“Well well well, looks like we actually found something.”

__

At first he hoped it was just his imagination, or his legs buckling and shaking from exhaustion. But the steady increase in intensity made that hope dwindle fast. Soon the tremors grew strong enough that his comrades snapped out of their heat-induced trance. As the sound of breaking wood started to accompany the shaking of the ground, he started to accept it as real. It sounded like someone stepping on sticks, only so much louder. There was palpable fear in the air now, a rising tension among the soldiers.

Jeff couldn’t believe it. Enemy contact, here? In the middle of nowhere? And then it couldn’t have been some small platoon they might’ve been able to handle, no it had to be them! This had to be some sort of cosmic prank played on him.

The sounds were deafening now, the men felt like the entire forest was breaking apart around them. Yet above that cacophony, somehow far louder, was something else: The sound of voices. Easily overpowering every other sound around, straining Jeff’s eardrums. It hurt, but he didn’t cover his ears, he didn’t dare move a muscle. He couldn’t make out what the voices were saying, the fear taking away his ability to follow anything but his own derailing train of thought. Then suddenly a loud

BOOM

and for a split second the sound of metal whining and groaning. The earth shook violently, Jeff was barely left standing. He looked back, expecting to see the tank, their mighty last line of defense, yet it was replaced with a peach-colored pillar, taking up the entire width of the street and extending far up into the sky. It took a moment for Jeff to realize that what he was looking at was the heel of a foot and the backside of a leg.

Slowly it rose back up to the sky, from where it came, and stuck to the underside of the foot, covering most of the sole, was an unidentifiable contorted heap of metal. Next to it, right at the tip of the heel, were two big red stains. Jeff figured that those were the gory remains of the two crew members who had stood next to their once impressive feat of engineering. The machine gun spotter was left staring at a big crater in the road, where just before he had talked to his two comrades. He looked up to see their remains stuck to the bottom of a foot, unceremoniously squished like insects.

The foot rose higher and higher. A good 15 meters up, the mass of steel that once was their tank became unstuck from the damp sole, hurtling back down towards earth. Just like his two conversation partners before him, the spotter was crushed under dozens of tons of scrap metal.

The entire squad stared at the heap. Only Jeff looked upwards instead, to the source of the danger.

The gentle green hue around them was replaced with a dark shadow now. Planted in front of them, to either side of the road, were two feet. Two pillars extended upwards from them, first diagonally, towards and past them, pushing aside branches and even entire trees with ease, until they bend back at an angle, ran back and joined together just a few meters in front of him, high up, just below the tips of the trees around them, where the color of flesh was suddenly replaced by a weirdly stretched and distorted camouflage pattern. Right in the middle of it was the flag of their enemy.

But it didn’t stop there, rising even higher, he saw skin again, lots of it, the distance allowing him to perceive it as a belly now. The navel made it easier to recognize, despite the glaring size difference.

Above that vast expanse of skin hung the biggest pair of breasts Jeff ever saw on a woman. Not relatively, they’d most likely be moderately sized on a chest of a normal woman. But those things could probably crush a tank like an empty soda can.

Past that he arrived at a face. It was a pretty face, nice and rounded with a cute nose in the middle, framed by long, straight, dark brown strands of hair hanging on either side. The lips were curled into a smile, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. No, Jeff recognized that kind of smile. It was the very same smile he saw his childhood bullies make whenever they were getting ready to tease and torment again. It was the same malice, only carrying so much more weight and power behind it this time.

The air was split by a sound louder than anything Jeff heard up until this point, loud enough so that he could feel his bones vibrate in frequency. It was the voice of the giant in front of him. It would’ve been a pleasant voice, if it didn’t almost deafen him.

“Well well well, looks like we actually found something”

Something about the tone she said it in heightened the fear inside Jeff. Apparently the same was the case for the machine gunner, who finally pulled himself together and realized that he should be doing his job. So he yanked his gun upward and promptly opened fire upon the enemy soldier. The roar of the machine gun was almost a quiet blessing compared to the roar of her voice just moments before.

The bullets just bounced off of her stomach. The giant simply raised an eyebrow and let out a soft chuckle.

“Take it that you don’t want to surrender then? Fine by me.”

Slowly, menacingly, the giant extended her hand down towards the gunner until it was right in front of him. She bend back her index finger and held it behind her thumb. Jeff already knew what was going to happen next, but the gunner didn’t, as he kept on senselessly firing at the fingernail in front of him. The bullets weren’t even strong enough to pierce her skin, he should’ve realized that absolutely nothing would get through that nail, but all reason had left him.

She released her finger, the tension held in the single digit far more powerful than anything the squad could’ve thrown at her. Neither the gun nor it’s operator stood a chance. It happened in a split second: First her nail hit the gun, not only turning it into scrap, but also a deadly projectile. It tore a huge hole through the torso of the gunner and crashed into the ruined tank behind him with such force that both pieces of metal basically became one. Mercifully, the gunner didn’t notice any of this, as he was turned into a fine red mist by the impact of the very same nail only fractions of a second later, painting both the nail and the tank leftovers behind him a crimson red.

The ammo guy standing next to him had barely realized what just happened to his comrade when the still extended index finger pivoted slightly and trapped him under it’s soft pad, easily covering his entire torso and legs. He couldn’t even scream before the pressure increased, crushing his body and cracking the asphalt beneath it. He could only let out a pained gurgle before he died.

That seemed to have snapped the two soldiers behind the right barricade out of their paralysis. One of them turned away from the grisly scene, jumped the sandbags and took off running down the road.

He obviously still wasn’t thinking straight, as he was running away from the hand, but straight towards the titanic woman. Looking up, Jeff saw her eyes following him, watching the tiny man’s antics with an amused smile. His partner, left behind the right barricade, watched in disbelief as he saw him running straight at her in blind panic.

“Todd you fucking moron, you’re right under her!”

Todd looked upward without slowing his pace, and as he saw two well rounded cheeks and the outline of nether lips barely contained by camo-patterns hanging right above him, he realized his mistake. Far too late.

Jeff saw how Todd looked upward for a second, then to his shock the camo-clad crotch began to fall towards the ground.

THOOM

The quake was strong enough to send Jeff flying, his feet losing contact to the ground for a second. Completely disorientated he fell on his stomach, but immediately pulled himself up using the sandbags to look at what happened.

Where Todd had stood Jeff could only see the undersides of smooth thighs and the enemy’s flag on a camo-patterned back splash between them. Underneath it heaps of cracked asphalt. The hundreds of thousands of tons not only turned Todd into an unrecognizable stain, but pressed his remains a couple meters down into the earth as well, deep into a perfect imprint of her ass.

“God damn it! Todd!” The soldier on the other lane cried out, which only attracted the attention of the enemy. Swiftly from above came another hand, pinching the soldier’s head between thumb and index finger. Jeff braced himself to see his comrades skull splatter between the two soft digits, but instead he was pulled upward, towards her face. He screamed all the way up. It was a miracle he didn’t break his neck getting yanked up like that.

She lifted him up to her eye level and looked him once over while he kept struggling in her grip.

“You know, you look pretty cute. And it’s so rare these days that I get to have fun with you guys. Maybe I should keep you for later.”

He gave no indication that he even understood what she said to him, he was too busy clawing at the two fingers holding him, fueled by agonizing pain. But he was held firmly in place. They didn’t budge an inch.

She watched him struggle for a few seconds with a lazy smile on her face, then she hooked the thumb of her free hand under the waistband of her ‘uniform’, pulling the front open. The smell of sweat permeated the surroundings instantly, with musky undertones. Jeff couldn’t help but think that, despite their size, they too seemed to struggle a bit in this heat.

She dangled the soldiers a few meters above the opening.

“Sorry in advance for the rough ride, but the outfit didn’t come with pockets.”

There it was again. That sadistic, sarcastic undertone of a schoolyard bully.

“Try not to suffocate.”

With that, she finally let go of the soldier’s head. He plummeted downwards, hitting the smooth, elastic material and sliding down on a thin film of sweat that was layered atop of it.

She released the waistband and it snapped shut. The soldier was pinned against the hot, damp flesh by the skintight material. It was difficult to breath through the humidity, muskiness and pressure. He was sure to pass out soon.

While her giggle shook his body, Jeff could see a roughly man-shaped outline on her crotch, struggling for a brief moment before stopping completely. He was unsure if his comrade just accepted the circumstances and gave up, or if he had passed out.

Jeff tore his eyes away from the outline of his fellow soldier and looked up, towards her face, only to see that her eyes now rested on him and his partner behind the left barricade. The only ones left. He felt gravity increase tenfold under the gaze of her ice gray eyes. Whatever end she had planned for him, he knew it would be a nightmare. Suddenly he found himself wishing for a swift death by a bullet on the front lines.

“Hey, Veronica?”

__

Emily didn’t want to get in on the action at the checkpoint. She enjoyed a good skirmish, but she knew that Veronica would be in a much better mood after blowing off some steam. So while the brunette was busy picking on the soldiers manning the barricades, Emily looked around for something else. Remembering what she learned from tactical lessons, there had to be a semi-permanent structure around from where they were running the show.

It wasn’t on the road, so it had to be somewhere between the trees. Hands on her hips, she put one leg out and moved it left to right in front of her in a sweeping motion, making short work of the foliage, the mighty trees breaking away on contact with her smooth leg like toothpicks.

The three radio operators had been frozen in fear, hearing the gunfire and the screams of their comrades from the street. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a normal enemy encounter. Their sergeant was about to leave the command module to assess the situation, to help in any way he could, but the lieutenant held him back.

“You stay right here! Haven’t you felt those tremors, son? Don’t you know what they mean? Going out there is suicide! It’s best if we just hide here and pray to God that we’re hidden enough by the trees…”

The sergeant couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wanted to walk past his commander, to ask him what the hell was wrong with him, abandoning the men serving under him. But the fear he saw in the lieutenants eyes made him hesitate for a second. Just long enough for all hell to break lose.

It sounded like the forest outside was being ripped apart. The ground vibrating eerily, while the thundering sound of splintering trees and tons of shifting dirt was loud enough to silence even the thoughts in their heads. Then the whole container shook like it was just hit by a freight train. The left wall had dented inwards, putting most of their equipment, as well as the AC, out of commission.

Then everything fell silent.

She didn’t need to clear a big area before she found a gray shipping container between the broken trunks and branches. It had a dent in the middle where one of the broken trees hit it, but otherwise it seemed unharmed from the carnage around it. Lucky break.

The calming quiet didn’t last long before it was replaced by the ugly screeching of deforming metal. The entire middle section of their command module crumpled inward a few inches, then they were pushed to the floor. It felt like somebody cranked up the gravity inside the container. When the invisible force relented, they looked out of the container’s opening to find a billboard-sized, blue-greenish eye staring back at them. The view out of the opening was entirely taken up by one half of an impossibly large face. Freckles the size of dinner plates dotted the skin beneath the eye and orange curls thicker than steel cables hung to the side of the face.

The air around them split, almost bursting their eardrums

“Who’s in charge here?”

Emily bent down, grabbed the container in one hand and lifted it to her face to take a peek. Inside she saw five men looking back at her in varying degrees of distress. Thinking for a second, she decided she only really needed one of them.

“Who’s in charge here?”

The voice was so loud that most of the men inside were too preoccupied with the pain it caused to actually understand what it had said. The lieutenant understood, however. He wanted to reveal himself right away, perhaps then the monster would leave his men alone. Maybe she just wanted to talk, to ask for information. The fact that the titanic woman hadn’t crumpled their command module underfoot like the tiny tin can it was gave him some hope for that.

But fear had entirely immobilized him. Deep down, his unconscious kept him from revealing himself, because he had seen in the past what these giant creatures of war would do to men like him. Just for fun.

He knew he waited to long as gravity around him gave out. For just a moment, he and his men hung in the air, and with them all of their equipment. Then the world turned upside down and everything within the metal walls was thrown around violently into every direction. The men screamed in pain as bones broke against sheet metal and heavy radio equipment. The lieutenant saw how the heavy AC unit caved in the torso of one of the operators as it pinned his body between itself and the walls of the container. As the world turned further around him he saw how another operator was flung towards the ceiling by the ever changing gravity, head first. He heard sickening crunch of the man’s neck even over the sound of screams and chaos. Then everything went still again. Gravity was restored as they’d always known it and the three survivors fell back to the floor. The enormous face returned.

No answer. Emily wasn’t really sure if it was due to shock or defiance, and neither did she care, she just rolled her eyes and proceeded to shake the container a bit. Not really that hard, just rough enough so that they get the message. Looking back in though, it seemed like she might’ve overdone it a bit. Two of the men were now lying on the ground motionless, two others seemed pretty dazed. It had been about two years since the start of the war, but still she hasn’t gotten any better at gauging how much force she needs to exert. At least she tried to learn, unlike Veronica.

She noticed that the fifth men was roughed up like the others, but seemed otherwise unaffected by her show of force. Matter of fact, he looked angry. Meeting her gaze, he pulled his pistol from its holster with determined movements and opened fire.

The sergeant was furious. He just saw two of his men die. Not by falling dignified in combat, but by being thrown around like oversized dolls. All the while his commander seemed unable, or rather unwilling to do his duty and fight the enemy. He had enough. He knew he faced impossible odds, but he wouldn’t give up without resistance. It doesn’t matter if it seems futile, a soldier doesn’t die with bullets left in the magazine, dammit! So he drew his sidearm and opened fire upon the enemy.

The little pin pricks Emily felt on her cheek annoyed her even more than the silent treatment from before. She was tempted to shake the container again, to really show she meant business. Her grip already tightened, the thin metal bending and whining under the slight increase of pressure. But a cooler head prevailed. It looked like she already killed two of them, so brute force didn’t seem to be the way to go. She needed something else to persuade them into cooperation.

And right then Emily remembered that she had one of the most adept tiny torturer in the whole armed forces with her right now. She turned around to see if Veronica had already finished with the checkpoint, just in time to see how she dropped one of the enemy soldiers down the front of her panties.

Emily blushed. Oh yeah, Veronica’s ‘unorthodox’ methods would surely yield results.

“Hey, Veronica?”

Not taking her eyes of her two toys, Veronica talked roughly in the direction of Emily’s voice:

“Yeah yeah, we can leave soon, don’t worry. I’m almost done here. Give me like, two more minutes, alright? I’d like to take my time a bit after wandering around pointlessly all morning…”

Emily caught up to where Veronica was sitting down and held the dented container in front of her face: “Don’t you worry, I’m not here to keep you from your fun. Matter of fact: I brought you some more to play with.”

Veronica turned and looked up to her friend with a grin: “Oh wow, for me? How very thoughtful of you.”

Emily shrugged: “Can’t always be the buzzkill now, can I?”

Veronica eagerly raised a hand towards the container, but Emily drew it back.

“Wait, I don’t want you to just rip them apart.”

“Oh, so you’re deciding to be a buzzkill after all?”

Emily laughed: “No no, just shut up and listen for a second. One of the guys inside is the commander of this checkpoint. I’d like to know which one.”

“Ok, so ask them.”

“They won’t tell me.”

Veronica snorted: “Damn, a hundred meters tall but they’re still not afraid enough to answer your questions? Poor Emily.” She laughed.

Emily punched the brunette’s arm in a playful manner “Oh shut the hell up. I can make them plenty scared. I’m just afraid I’ll break them before they can tell me anything. So I was hoping for you to use your unique brand of creativity on them.”

Veronica cocked her head and said with a sly smile: “What, the perfect soldier needs help from ‘The Risk’?” with a shrug she went on: “Why should I care if you get to play with their commander?”

Emily squatted down to look her friend in the eyes. In a low, almost conspiratorial tone she said: “Because once I ‘capture’ this checkpoint’s commander, I can declare our recon mission as a success and we can escort our prisoner back to base.”

Veronica beamed: “Why the hell didn’t you lead with that?” She held out the palm of her hand.

“Alright, gimme.”

Suddenly not so sure if Veronica really would be gentle enough, Emily hesitantly placed the container into the brunettes hand. “What exactly is your plan here?”

“Well,” Veronica said as she raised the container towards her face to look inside, “have you ever heard of chemical warfare?”

Emily furrowed her brow a bit: “Sure, but I really don’t see how that’s applicable here…”

“In that case, I’ll be happy to demonstrate!”

And just like that, Veronica let out a hearty belch, held the container in front of her mouth, and gently blew inside it.

As the lieutenant saw the face of the second giant, he knew there was no hope left. But he wasn’t at all prepared for what would happen next. None of the survivors were.

A deep rumble resonated throughout the command module, and the eye that had been staring them down through the opening was replaced with a pair of full, pursed lips. A strong wind took hold of the men as the temperature around them rose rapidly, as did the humidity. Within seconds a tropical climate took hold of the enclosed space. Their eyes began to sting, then to burn. Pepperspray would’ve been soothing compared to this. As they tried to breath it felt as if pure acid was poured down their windpipes, corroding every inch of it. Their lungs seized, completely refusing to work in this toxic environment. The only mercy was that the acrid air completely took out their sense of smell, because the toxic stench of what was left of Veronica’s breakfast surely would’ve finished them off.

Emily burst out laughing. As far as enhanced interrogation goes, that sure was creative.

Between giggles, she managed to ask: “Is blowing a burp in their faces really gonna make them give up? Not to question your methods, but I broke most of their bones and all that did was make them shoot me.”

“Excuse me,” the brunette shot back in a tone of mock offense, “but this happens to be my area of expertise. Trust me, it’ll work.”

And so the ‘Expert’ looked back into the container, watching her targets wheeze and hack on the ground, writhing in agony. Once she felt that they’ve suffered just enough, she ripped the back end of the metal tube clean off and blew through it, hard enough to force all of the air out, but gentle enough not to launch any of the men out of it like a spit ball through a straw.

With that, she handed the container back to the Emily: “There we go, I’d be amazed if they’re aren’t ready to cooperate now. If they still want to clam up, though…” a wicked grin formed on Veronica’s face “… do feel free to hand them back. I got a couple more ideas.”

Metal screeched as the back wall crumpled and disappeared, flooding the inside with light. A strong wind took hold of the men. The air that washed over them was still humid, hot and stale, but compared to the airborne acid just a moment ago, it was a godsend. The world shifted as their container moved hands. Most of the equipment, broken beyond repair by this point anyway, fell out of the newly opened hole in the back of the module. Once again they were greeted by the freckled face with orange curls.

“Alright, ready to cooperate? Or do I have to hand you guys back to my friend?”

Last chance. His men wouldn’t survive another encounter with the brown haired girl. As long as there was still hope for him to save two of his men, he’d have to give them what they wanted. So he gathered the last bits of his strength and yelled out through a corroded throat and aching lungs: ”It’s me! I’m the commander! This is my checkpoint!”

The face disappeared, and he felt the container descend. When it settled, all there was to see through the exit was a vast expanse of peach. Right in front of the container was ground again, in a very similar shade of pinkish-white, but with ridges and contours, unlike the smooth backdrop further in the distance.

“Out.”

He wasn’t going to hesitate again. He fought against his broken bones and dragged himself out to of the metal walls and onto the weird, alien ground. It felt soft under him, and a gentle warmth rose from it. Looking around, gaining a sense of surrounding for the first time since the container got picked up, he saw that he was standing in the middle of a giant palm. Her giant palm, which she held roughly at the height of her stomach. That was the vast expanse he saw from inside. Craning his neck up, he saw her face in full for the first time, looking down on him with a cold expression.

“So that’s him then?”

He whipped around and came face to face with the other giant, the one with straight brown hair. She met his eyes with a bored, almost vaguely disgusted look. He was probably quite a pathetic display to behold after what she made him go through. He tried not to think about what she might’ve done to the poor souls caught outside. Being this close to her face made his anxiety grow even larger. It also sort of disoriented him, from his vantage point he couldn’t tell that Veronica was still sitting down.

Looking back and forth between the two enormous figures in their entirety for the first time now, he realized that he had allowed his checkpoint to be utterly annahilated by two half-dressed women barely out of their college years.

“Looks like it. About time.”

The by now all too familiar sound of bending metal made him break eye contact with the brunette, just to see how his captor crumpled the command module in one hand like an empty soda can, tossing it aside like trash. He heard how it hit the ground with a heavy thud.

He was distraught, at first for failing to save the sergeant and the remaining radio operator, and then at the thought that they probably had a far more merciful end than whatever was left in store for him. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything after all.

A boom loud enough to almost rupture his eardrums ended this lament. Reflexively he covered his ears for protection, but immediately regretted moving his beaten and broken body so abruptly. The ginger girl had snapped her fingers a few meters above him.

“Pay attention. You’re now our prisoner. If you resist or try to escape I’ll squish you like your men. If you cause trouble for me or my partner in any way you’ll be reprimanded. Harshly. If you behave yourself you might survive the trip back to base. Am I understood?”

His ears were ringing. He had stood next to gun batteries that were quieter than her, but he understood. He weakly nodded his head, hoping she’d see it from way up there. His throat and lungs were still stinging, so he didn’t feel like yelling. Seemingly, she did see his gesture, because he was shaken again by a resounding:

“Good.”

And then, he witnessed something somewhat strange. The woman’s cold expression changed into one of pondering, then she looked slightly conflicted. All while keeping her eyes on him. Was she reconsidering taking him prisoner? Was all that torture for nothing, because she’d just kill him now anyway?

Finally, the conflicted expression gave way to one that was harder to interpret. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say it was shame. But he had no more time to study her face, as the ground below him began tilting forward, causing him to loose his footing and tumble forward. The pain from his injuries flared up again as his captor only regarded him with two words:

“Brace yourself.”

As he felt himself falling, the exhaustion and pain finally got to him. The last few things he was vaguely aware of was hitting a soft, stretchy surface before settling into a tight, humid, but comfortably warm place. Then he lost consciousness.

Veronica was laughing hysterically as the waistband of Emily’s panties snapped shut. She tried to keep a cool, dignified look on her face, despite the quickly deepening blush on her freckled cheeks.

“Shut up.”

Between giggles, Veronica managed to ask: “Is that how we’re supposed to transport prisoners, Ma’am? Is that proper protocol?”

“I said shut up! What was I supposed to do? I need to keep my hands free in case of enemy contact, and I couldn’t exactly put him in a pocket or something.” A bit quieter, she continued: “I considered putting him in of the cups of my top, but I wasn’t sure he’d survive there while I was walking, so that was the best option I had…”

The giggles subsided: “Hey, you don’t have to sell me on it.” Veronica said, giving her own panties a quick tug, accenting the outline of the soldier still stuck there. “I was just surprised to see you partake as well.”

“I am not partaking. I’m escorting a prisoner of war!” With a huff, Emily hoped to change the subject: “So, I’ve done my part. Are you done here? Can we leave?”

Veronica looked back down onto the broken little checkpoint, zeroing in on the two little bugs still stuck there.

“Not yet. Don’t worry, I’ll finish up real quick.”

__

His partner was still in the very same spot as before, sitting on the ground behind the sandbags. The only thing that made it apparent that he wasn’t still dozing off were the short sobs he let out every now and then. Jeff on the other hand had remained standing, witnessing the whole thing, at least that which wasn’t blocked from his view by Veronica’s thighs. He wanted to run, but he feared that doing that would only draw her attention back down to him. But now, with her eyes once again locked onto him, that didn’t matter anymore.

He looked to his partner one last time, ashamed of the fact that, in that moment, his thoughts weren’t on saving him, on dragging him along, but rather if torturing him would slow the giant down long enough so that he could make an escape.

"I’m sorry.”

And with that, Jeff dropped his worthless gear, turned around, and ran as fast as he could, avoiding viscera and metal scrap as best he could. He almost fell as his body was shaken by the sound of her giggle.

“Look Emily, he’s booking it!”

A darkness engulfed the woods around him. A shadow. She was standing up again. He didn’t want to look, it was a stupid thing to do, it would only slow him down. But he had to see what she was up to. He looked back just in time to see his gear, his cover and his friend dissapear beneath her soft sole as she shifted her legs standing up. He had seen enough, and doubled his efforts, sprinting like he never had before, lungs burning from the sudden exertion, his tired legs screaming in protest.

“Aren’t you gonna follow him?”

“Nah, why would I? I can just do this.”

Before he had time to consider those words, he was thrown to the ground. Hard. He was hit by something from above, the force of the impact snapping most bones in his body, yet miraculously leaving him alive and conscious. As pain and shock gave way to his other senses, he felt a familiar sensation, like he was submerged in water, very warm water. But something was wrong, it was too slimy to be water, to thick. He would’ve barely been able to move in the liquid normally, in his broken state it was impossible. Through the searing pain shooting through his body, he almost didn’t notice it, but it was undeniably there: A burning sensation all over his body, a completely different kind of agony added on top of every other torture he had to endure today. He tried to breath but all he felt was the thick, slimy liquid making it’s way into his mouth and airway, burning away inside him now as well. As the lack of oxygen slowly took him, all he could think about was that even the worst death imaginable on the front line would’ve at least been more dignified than this.

Maybe he should’ve been less of a coward.

__

“You’re disgusting sometimes, you know that?”

“Hey, me being disgusting made them give up their commander, don’t you forget that!”

“I have to admit, you really are an expert. Spitting that far and hitting a moving target is impressive.”

“And yet, they still have you babysit me. So, can we get back to base now, ‘Ma’am’?”

With a tug of her panties, Emily answered:

“Sure, I think we gathered enough Intel for one day. Let’s head back.”