Chapter 4: Roads

When 2050 rolled around carbon-based fuels started growing out of style and budget. Countries had to adapt. There were a variety of approaches, but a popular one was nuclear investment and none did it better than France. They had a head start in fact, with more than 50 reactors since 2000.

Most little towns--like the one Aoi just ravaged--didn’t have their own mini-reactors. Still, the plants were everywhere. Advancements in Thorium and other radioactive isotopes made construction and operation easier, safer, and, most importantly, cheaper! By 2080 the entire country run almost entirely on the stuff.

To that meteor from the stars? The faint emanation of radiation was like squirrel sweat to a bloodhound’s nostrils. As it floated through space traveling at speeds approaching that of light, the metallic vessel made subtle turns and adjustments on its path so it’d land where it did.

In a sense, it was on a mission, one gradually becoming clearer to Aoi. That it ran into her was a matter of luck. Did her poking wake it up? Was it even an ‘it’? Was it conscious? Did it wait there for a human, or would it infest any creature that disturbed it? Maybe it wanted the dominant creature on the planet? Maybe if it got into some dumber animal, it would’ve walked to the nearest human. Other critters were definitely fast, agile and, some of them, cute enough to get close to a human with ease. Aoi certainly would’ve pet a chipmunk if it walked up to her and made a cute enough face. Diseases be damned!

One thing Aoi knew was that she was in control here. Of course, if that meteorite thing was good enough at controlling her, she might not even know. But, in hindsight, it seemed less like a creature itself and more just ‘messages’. Slimy, liquid genetic codes. Still, those primal urges to eat and drink and evolve were new. Aoi figured they were put there before she fully absorbed its offerings. Like prerecorded messages: interstellar voicemail to the chosen one!

It didn’t matter in the end. Aoi felt free, healthy, and unstoppable.

Between that little town and those suburbs were a few roads that Aoi made sure to trod upon. People relied on these roads to get from place to place. She knew the medic wouldn’t be able to get to that town she messed up in their ambulances. There was a twisted sensation of power to that which she enjoyed. There was a part of her that was a bit of a bully, and it grew up with her here.

Being honest with herself, Aoi admitted it just felt good to break things. A simple reason, but making this world feel her weight brought her joy. Every minor slight against her: a bad grade here, a shoulder check on the subway there; it all seemed so trivial now that she could crush a house underfoot.

They’d make her out as a monster. So what! Being a monster was fun. Big, tough, able to do wacky stuff with her body that’d make most people squirm. The kaiju usually got away with things at the end of the movie, too.

Aoi reflected on another bit of movie knowledge. This place was the perfect spot and time for the army to attack her in earnest. There weren’t any civilians here really, just a few miles of road: dwindling as she made more and more of it untraversable with her deep prints. She also wasn’t that big. A giant-lizard size, like some of those older kaiju movies. They knew she could grow by now. She’s gone to college in this country for at least two years, so she knows not everyone is as dumb as the people in that town.

Aoi spotted them before their lesser eyes could see her: a caravan of 10 or so black vans and trucks and a small squad of helicopters. It was a small force, but perhaps they wanted to leave most of their resources at the residential areas just in case. Probably wiser than going all in.

“Silly!” she shouted once she got herself within a few thousand feet of the force.

“You are too few for me. You know that right? If you saw ‘Death Crab from Venus’ you’d know you need at least an army for a ‘monster’ half my size!”

They had some long range rifles or something since she started to feel little punctures against her legs. As before, her body just popped the bullets right back out. Worthless things.

The three helicopters flew ahead of the caravan which revved their engines in case they had to move. The aerial foes were pretty confident flying towards the 200ft kaiju-woman. Too confident.

As they pelted her with munition, one flew close enough for one of her back tentacles to rope him in. With the propellers crushed by the thick rubbery limb, she slid it into her mouth. All the while, she held eye contact with the other two. It intimidated them enough to stop firing for a couple seconds, then rage for a fallen comrade kicked in. They blew through ammunition like crazy shortly after.

Sloppy--their emotions were getting to them. They both circled around her head, aiming to shoot at her eyes. She reached up and nabbed one in each hand. A flex of her fingers and they were fully disabled. They hid like turtles in their shells--no, they were much too big for that. Like clams in their shells, or a pill-bug curling up on itself.

Regardless what shell analogy fit best, Aoi wanted the meat inside. She moved just one of her fingers on each hand to pressure the helicopter chassis. As predicted, that got them scurrying to the open sides of the busted crafts.

She brought them to her mouth. One at a time, she pursed her lips and slurped them out of the open cockpit like a cuttlefish would an oyster.

With both the humans in her mouth, Aoi let them simmer in her spit for a short while. She had made another modification to her body. As that cloying fluid hit them, it’d start to irritate their skin. That was a mere side effect, not the goal. The two human’s soon noticed their clothes melting away. Boots, gear: all of it. The pair was left naked and red. With one of the pilots a woman, the other a man, an inquisitive Aoi wondered if they had any awkward feelings? A curious thought pushed aside just as easily as the pair was pushed down her throat.

In her palate pampering Aoi had let the caravans of vans and trucks get away.

“Damn” she muttered.

The group sped several thousand feet from her by now. Thankfully, it was a trivial pursuit to catch.

Aoi was about to get down on all fours again: but she stopped herself. There was no need, and it’d be nice to test how fast she could move bipedally. She used to run track, after all.

Bluish-greenish feet slammed down, over and over as she erupted into a sprint. Her mirth filled the air. She liked to jog, and often tried to get Yoshimi to go with her: succeeding every once in awhile. The thrill of wind against her skin; the sensation of blood pumping through her veins. It was familiar, though her feet ripping up tarmac and asphalt was a novel pleasure all to herself.

Once in awhile she slammed that new tail of hers into the ground for added damage. When she wasn’t thinking about it, it just sort of naturally swayed left and right.

Nearly upon the traveling pack, Aoi leaped into the air and crashed into the concrete a few hundred feet in front of them. Now, she delighted as they quickly tried, and failed, to stop in time and avoid running into her toes.

The front of the vehicular force just combusted against her feet. When the constructs ran into her toes, they flew upwards just a tad and puncture their engines against the points of human-like toenails. The fires they made didn’t seem hot enough to hurt Aoi, but she stamped them out to be safe.

The rest of the pack just sort of crashed into the pancaked scrap she made--or each other. With each car seemingly disabled, she lifted her foot and hovered it over the strip of road they stalled on. Aoi applied just enough pressure to crumble their roofs and keep them all in place.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You knew this was a death sentence right?” She applied more pressure.

“Something tells me you didn’t just form up once I started eating people either. The government here was always planning to kill me soon as I showed up on a stream. Admit it!”

Her tones was stern. Her voice was distinctively feminine--her old voice basically--but with a thoomier timbre now.

They began to squeak up at her. It was hard to hear, so she lifted her heel and, with impeccable balance, scooped up one of the crumbled vans beneath it. There were three soldiers inside.

“It was orders.” one said.

“Orders? But you knew you could die here correct?”

“Y-yes, but it was for our city. It was for our country.”

She chuckled. “That’s... kind of dumb if you think about it. If you knew you’d likely die here without stopping me, I would get to Paris anyways.”

He grinned, finding courage somewhere even staring into the glowing green eyes of a monster. “They’ll be, prepared.”

She paused. If only there was a way she could know what he did. She felt something inside her again: something forming. A new organ or even a new organic system.

Maybe she could know after all...

Aoi cut through the steel of the van like a knife through butter. Her short finger nails were comparatively sharp here. She tapped the side of the vehicle to nudge him out, then she used a back tentacle to grab the van and hold it on the side. A flex of the appendage and her strength further crumbled the automobile. That would keep the other two from jumping out.

The she-monster squinted down at the man in her palm. A wicked smirk formed on her face. The ground beneath him was warm with her body heat. Her tripped once and felt it: soft. She pinched him between two fingers and chuckled.

“I never thought I’d hold a man smaller than an eraser. Alright, hold still, I’m not sure how this works, or if it even works.”

Her other hand pointed at him, and from that index finger sprouted a cluster of flailing, thin ropes of flesh. Each of those ‘tiny’ ropes--they were the size of a garter snake to him--had their own little cluster of tendrils on the end. Those looked like the tentacles of a sea anemone or something, and each of those vermiform appendages were small enough to fit in anywhere on his body.

“I also don’t know how much this’ll hurt, maybe bite on your shirt or something?”

It was a genuine suggestion. She still had a little kindness left in her, even if her girlfriend betrayed her and everyone was trying to kill her: including this guy.

The soldier or agent or whatever the hell he was tried to wiggle his hands towards a grenade on his belt. Aoi saw, and yanked the belt right off before he got his fingers halfway there.

“Alright this’ll be gross, but I need you to behave.”

She swished her mouth and spit at him. This was that old, constricting fluid. She had a few types of salivary glands now, each one handy.

As the wriggling ends of her finger probe got to the soldier’s head, they slipped and slinked right up his nose to interface with his brain.

She saw everything, albeit crudely. While he fruitlessly writhed in the salivary glue, she started digging back into his memories. Thankfully, this interface was only one way, as Aoi soon learned some intimate stuff.

She learned his name was Noah. She saw his memories of showering this morning and flexing in the mirror after. She laughed. Honestly, she might’ve have found him handsome if she didn’t have more feminine interests in love herself.

‘Too far back’, she thought.

She tried to speed things up, a process which got him screaming extra loud. It was like electric shocks to his brain. It felt like worms were digging around his skull. Thankfully for Aoi, she didn’t share his sense of pain here.

Then she saw it. He got orders from his outpost in the city to head out here with a small group to ‘stall’ the ‘monster’. She was ‘extremely dangerous’ said the disembodied voice on the radio, and she needed ‘to be put down.’.

Noah was assured that ‘if your squad failed’ there’d be ‘plenty of defenses back in the city. Artillery and all sorts of stuff.’. A lot of it ‘top secret’. Noah didn’t know it. They never told him.

She frowned. “Hmm, nothing too useful there Noah.” said Aoi. He shuddered. If she knew his name, she probably knew everything else.

Aoi wiggled her toes, denting the rest of the caravan that was still below her foot. A soothing sensation as she thought of an idea. If she ‘tugged’ a bit more with this trick of hers, she felt as though she could yank out everything he knew. Probably wouldn’t be too useful since she didn’t even exist as a kaiju-gal till a day ago at most, but you never know.

“I’m pretty sure this one will hurt.”, she chimed.

With a bit of focus those finger tendril things really got in there. Some went down his throat and punctured one end of his esophagus to get at the nerves in his spinal cord. A few went into his ears, gross as it was.

His entire life flashed before her mind in an instant. Well, everything that mind stored of course. He didn’t have a perfect memory. Still, she brought what was there into herself. It was a snapshot more than his actual self though: memories and thoughts and feelings up until his death--which was now. Noah didn’t survive the process. After an especially straining screaming session, he stopped moving and got all limp. Aoi couldn’t feel a heartbeat with these ‘feelers’ of hers either.

She sighed. “Everything else was just as useless. Exactly as I thought. Though I suppose I’m trained in firearms and explosives now.”

Aoi removed her digit from his body. Those tendril-things sunk back into the skin to return the finger-tip to its normal, smooth and whorled face. Her stomach rumbled again and without even thinking too hard she just popped his limp body in her mouth and swallowed.

The noise got everyone under-sole screaming. Aoi chuckled. “Ah that’s right.” Her tentacle brought that van to her face. “I almost forgot about you all for a second.”

Opening wide, Aoi stuffed the partially crushed van into her mouth. The view from the windows was now her mouth flesh, greenish-blue and softly illuminated by her new-fangled saliva. She smushed the sides of the van with some suckling; the muscles of her cheeks more than enough to bend steel and iron.

It occurred to her that they might try and ‘self destruct’ like Noah did. She didn’t bother to try and see if that were the case. She nudged the van under her teeth and crunched down enough to mangle them, but keep them alive. Faced with her saliva, the entire vehicle was rusting and melting in her mouth. What she swallowed was a fluid lump of soggy metal with two naked, twitching people inside.

Then there were the others below her foot. They could only listen in horror to everything going on. The darkness of her sole was all they could see through the lacerated holes in the roofs of their trucks and other vehicles.

The doors smushed by the ‘gentle’ pressure of her foot made it so any routed foe had to clamber out the window. She didn’t see the first fool to attempt it, but she felt a wiggling not unlike a maggot as one of the fuller soldiers flailed upwards and brushed his bald ahead against her sole.

“Ah, persistent. Trying to escape huh? It’s no use. This was all pointless. Even if I don’t know exactly what’s there, rest assured that when I reach Paris I’ll be able to deal with whatever’s in store.”

And she stepped down. It was more of a sensual experience than the expected. She hadn’t stepped on something with this much metal yet, and the tiny bit of resistance it had in comparison to those homes and roads and people made it all the sweeter. She purred as she flattened the wrecked caravan and the wretched souls within.

“Kaiju Aoi...” she muttered, chuckling. “Who knew it’d be this fun.”