The Great Awakening (Chapter 9)

This reminded Lilly of punching through a swarm of gnats, feeling the dots of their bodies ricochet off her skin, though the difference here was that the state-of-the-art Air Force hardware stuck in the creases and grooves of her palm, even one or two in the crooks formed by her finger joints. She held her open hand up near to her face, much like she had the lucky tallest skyscraper, and this time was able to spot the shapeless detritus speckled black and smoky at select points on her flesh. They were still easy to miss, and for a minute the girl felt a bit like she was playing a hidden picture game with the texture of her own hand, but eventually spotted six different defeated foes. Mission accomplished.

            Or so she thought. Next Lilly felt another pair of feathery-touches along her shins and elbows, plus another faint droning buzz somewhere just overhead of where she was crouched. Apparently they’d brought in the cavalry. Shrugging, the giantess was more than happy to meet her challengers on whatever aerial battlefield they selected, and after wiping off the first round of attackers from her hand like old chalk grit, she pressed both palms to her knees for support, then launched herself back to her full stature.

            While arching up, Lilly noticed what felt like a couple of cross-breezes grazing her skin where the blouse opened for her shoulders, the equivalent of puckered lips gently blowing to see her twitch, and she thought little more of it on her journey back to a ten-mile stand. Had she run a finger over her shoulders, the giantess might’ve noticed the smoldering flecks of three more fighter jets. Try as they might to zoom off at an invisible top-speed, the pilots were no match when it came to out-flying a 40-billion-ton being ascending with so little warning or hesitation. Her relatively-narrow shoulders, blasting straight toward the heavens, were alone enough to reduce the jets to fireballs that did even less damage to her than their bombing runs.

            Arriving again at her high-borne pinnacle of nearly fifty-three-thousand feet tall, Lilly also couldn’t help but detect the unusual motion of a few stray hairs in her otherwise glossy combed black tresses. She raked her fingers through the short silky locks, careful not to unsettle her hairdo too egregiously, and when she cupped her palm again beneath, caught three more infinitesimal ruins of deadly aircraft smote when they became lost in the hanging midnight forest of her hair. She smirked at this thought, gratified that they hadn’t managed to muss up her appearance too much other than flying into a few loose hairs like inconveniently placed tree trunks which billowed with the same cooling-breath strength as that which touched her shoulders. The girl flicked the leftover rubble-dots off her hand one by one, and then with her eyes shut listened closely to the lower atmosphere as she once did while camping and hoping to hear the chorus of crickets. These insects were harder for her to locate than those more literal bugs, but Lilly was patient, and upon hearing the second round of reinforcements daring to fly this high in the sky, she actually smiled. Her irritation had all but dissipated now, and the girl’s curiosity was once again piqued. She’d managed to catch a building, rooted to the ground and unmoving. What about something trickier?

            Way up here, where the air was clearer, Lilly spotted the squadron of fliers almost right away, quicker on the draw this time. It also helped that there seemed to be more of them now to notice, no longer coming in paltry half-dozen waves, but multiple full complements of at least twenty per group, now resembling the gnat-swarm she’d earlier imagined them to be. The giantess smoothed her bangs to the side, ensuring nothing could keep her from following the tiny tinker-toy planes on their path, and once she’d locked on, much like their own weapons, she didn’t lose them, though of course Lilly’s gaze was far more lethal than theirs.

            One had to be alert to win this game, but the outdoorswoman prided herself on good hand-eye coordination, and as soon as she heard the buzzes flitting past her ear, then into her line of sight, she was prepared. Raising a fist, she clawed her fingers and struck with the speed of a viper. Just before her flexed palm and semi-curled digits could meet their marks, however, Lilly watched with severe disappointment as the planes all diverged helter-skelter, some shooting straight upward, others to the sides or even below her wrist as her hand passed through their flight path, but not a single one exploded ticklishly against her fingers. Every plane in that unit was nowhere to be seen now, spinning lost in the lower-atmosphere, where gravity was less trustworthy. Maybe they were more talented pilots than Lilly had given them credit for. Perplexed, the girl repeated the quick-strike motion, this time close to her own face, and realized that the planes hadn’t expertly swerved away from her oncoming hand. The hurricane-winds ahead of her fingers had blown the jets asunder even before the far-stronger force of her hand could smash through them.

            Lilly reached forth, cupping both hands from opposite sides as she so often did as a child while catching lightning bugs in the backyard. Those were far easier targets, not only bigger and slower than fighter jets, but their glow in the twilight darkness made them easy for the youthful Lilly to track. She was a big girl now, though, smart and focused, and her growth spurt was helping her confidence with every minute she spent awake and oh-so-tall. With her outstretched hands positioned shoulder-width apart, fingers wiggling in anticipation, she awaited the closest micro-fleet to come flying toward her face. When they did, she drove her scooped palms together, with greater care than last time so as not to generate too much wind and lose her captures, but still with more than enough enthusiasm to overmatch the strafers’ pace. This time the planes kept their course headed straight for the space between Lilly’s eyes, but before any of them could get off a single shot, or at least one that she could feel skimming the bridge of her nose, the girl brought both hands together.

            She didn’t clap her palms directly against one another, but still sealed the planes in the darkness between. It was a relatively narrow space as far as Lilly was concerned, less than a thumbnail’s distance between palms, though it had to be an immense arena for the jets. She wondered how long they could last. The giantess didn’t feel them on her skin just yet, and knew they must’ve all taken evasive action, yet one by one, she counted those diminutive flying engines of war meeting their end in the forms of delicate prickles around the shadowy prison between her hands. Again she was reminded of a lightning bug, touching her skin with extremities thin as hairs, and indulged herself by peeking into the opening between her thumbs. In such absolute blackness, she in fact just managed to spot several flaming spots, where the fires of two-dozen or so crashed jets glowed bright just enough for her to see, despite their pitiful size, along the rounded plains of her cupped palms and curled fingers. Giddy over her own impressive precision, Lilly opened both hands and wiped their remains off on her skirt, straightening the ruffled fabric in the process.

            The giantess repeated this tender act of bug-catching several more times, on each occasion actually pleased when she heard the buzz in her ear instead of annoyed, as it would mean another chance to re-experience that same childhood mirth. Squadron by squadron she caught all those courageous enough to fly miles off the ground and meet on her terms. Some packs Lilly allowed to fly in circles around her loosely cupped hands for as long as they could survive before the darkness and confused guidance systems caused them to crash into her or even each other.  Others she didn’t even give the opportunity, too curious to feel them all at once, and instantly plastered both palms firmly together. The squealing air pressure and of course the crushing poundage of her dainty hands sandwiching twenty-plus fighter jets between them was more than plenty to turn every machine into fiery crumpled dust within the same half-second.