Maxima!!

TRACK 26: THE MAXIMA

Rosie bent into a slight stoop with arms that dangled, and fingers that convulsed at best. Ragged breaths escaped her maw as it opened and shut of its own accord. All the while, she felt her body turn hot enough to melt a glacier. Felt her nerves threaten to vibrate out of her skin. Felt her broken heart pound. Harder. Faster. Harder. Faster. Harder. Harder. Harder.

Her heart thumped loud enough for the whole city to hear.

And then it began.

Rosie doubled over and hugged herself tight -- tight enough for her fingers to dig into bones. No matter how much she fought the blazing pain under her skin, she couldn't stop it. Her bare toes dug into solid stone, only to spread out longer, and further, and drive up towers of rock. Every inadvertent step she took, every inch she rocked made the land ripple; thugs by the dozen abandoned their machines before she trampled them into powder. Her legs widened and extended, as if to turn her limbs into heaven-piercing lances. She could only squirm and groan as she rose higher and higher. Above the park. Above rooftops. Above everything.

"Boss? What's going on?" Bruce asked.

Rosie felt it all deep inside her. Cells that expanded and multiplied; organs that kicked into overdrive; systems that tore and reformed, endlessly, to match her transformation. And it refused to stop. At best, the wounds that decorated her body disappeared. Steam emanated from even the tiniest cuts until they shut, dried, and evaporated, as if tended to by loving angels. But her growth proved far from divine. Her fifteen hundred feet became a distant, quaint memory. As the park and blocks wailed in the wake of her earth-rending weight, her shadows blacked out bigger chunks of the city. The Ferris wheel she'd dwarfed at the start shrank even further; before long, she could have held it in one hand. No matter how sharp her senses, they steadily became useless as her size ratcheted up. Once upon a time, she'd gotten boxed in by a maze of buildings; as the seconds wore on, the tallest spires turned into nondescript bumps on the ground -- and the shorter, wider buildings went completely flat.

She yelped, she growled, she squirmed and sweat. But she couldn't stop it. Any of it. She just grew. Bigger. Stronger. Tougher. Heavier. More than enough to make the Rosie from a week, day, or even hour ago nothing more than a gnat in the wind. In one final, desperate act, she let out a sky-shredding scream. And only by some miracle -- the desperate begging of the planet -- did it work. Her growth slowed down. And eventually, it stopped. That left her there, soaked, slumped, shaking, and scraping for air.

And five thousand feet tall.

Gustav got his mech to shake its head. "Oh, no."

Rosie heard the words, somehow. Even though her senses had improved, she pushed against the limit; the brute that once came in crystal clear sounded tinny and distant. Every gasp, every shout, every cry for help reached her -- voices from grown men, transformed into squeaks from baby mice. But the ratio between her and the average man made the latter look smaller than a grain of rice.

But Rosie couldn't think about it. About anything. Though her breathing calmed down, her mind remained invalid. Empty. At most, she let her arms droop and sway, while her slackened head bowed. If not for her respiration, she would have looked like a dead woman. The pink energy cleared up until every last petal vanished.

Gustav regained control of his mech. One by one, the thugs' machines went back to normal. Yet none of them moved. No one dared to try. All of them stayed still and silent. All of them, except for one.

"Boss," said Bruce. "What now?"

Bruce got his answer. That voice made Rosie jolt, capped by the boom of her heartbeat. She broke out of her slump and reared back -- too far at first, but that gave her time to pry her mouth open and suck in tankers' worth of air. When she finished, she stood up straight. Posture, corrected. Arms at her sides and fists formed. Legs spread slightly to support her weight and stance, while her taut toes cracked the asphalt.