FOREWORD

Welcome to the sequel to my first story, "God Help the Outcasts." It's not completely vital to have read that (though I'd prefer you did), since this also follows on from the end of the movie, but there are a couple of characters (including in this chapter) unique to it, and it will help understand Susan's emotional journey. Which is what this story is mainly concerned with.

There will be more alien threats - both the movie and a lot of stories here seem to see them as mainly being monster hunters in the future, but for the time being I want to keep it as Monsters vs Aliens rather than Monsters vs Monsters. So there will be some action for them, and Susan will finally get to go to Europe.

But in general this is going to be another character-driven piece, looking at emotions and feelings rather than action and comedy, as Susan tries to adjust to her new size and her new role. While not as bleak a situation as the first story puts her in, one of the most powerful aspects of Susan as a character to me is that, unlike other superheroes, she can never be incognito. In addition, her size is extremely physically isolating. I want to examine how she comes to terms with these issues. Especially when it comes to her feelings for her loved ones.

Again, I have tried to take as realistic a view of this fantasy world as I can, in order to make Susan's emotions and character arc as believable as possible. Naturally, comments, critiques, and reviews are most welcome...

The buzzer was sounding. Susan moaned, and stretched. Where was she? Her body felt stiff and heavy. Opening her eyes, she realised she was in her cell at Area 52. Or her room, rather. Had it all been a dream? Fighting the robot and the alien? Getting her freedom? Finally being able to see a point to her new life? She couldn't bear it if it had just been a dream. No, to her relief, her memories were coming back to her now. That was remarkably scary, Susan thought to herself as she headed for her shower. She'd sometimes had dreams in her early weeks of imprisonment about being with Derek, and they had been so lifelike that waking and seeing the cold steel walls of her cell had left her emotionally crushed for the entire day. But she need not worry about that now, she thought with satisfaction. Her eyes had been well and truly opened.

She quickly washed her hair as the warm water cascaded over her tall naked body. She was no longer concerned too much with split ends or body or bounce or any of the things that used to obsess her. Looking back, it was amazing how much time she had wasted trying to make herself pretty. And for what? For Derek? What had that got her? A broken heart, that's what. No longer. Susan decided she would not accept any man who objected if she never wore makeup. Then again, what man could I attract? she thought to herself. Her new life gave her a lot of good things, first and foremost being a sense of self-worth and empowerment she had never had before, but… there were still sacrifices. Major sacrifices.

She stepped out of the shower and got dressed. She debated whether to wear the fancy new outfit Gallaxhar had dressed her in, but it wasn't really that easy to put on, and she wanted to keep it for special occasions. She might have been forced to wear it by that creepy alien, but it was also what she had been wearing when she had saved her friends, and the planet. And the planet… It was too big to grasp. Besides, she figured, Gallaxhar never really stood a chance. He was a delusional nutcase. How could he have ever taken over the entire damn planet? He was just like Derek—an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur and an ambition that exceeded his talent. Susan shuddered to think of what her life would have been like had she married Derek. It would have been small and limited. Whatever else happened in her life, she could not return to that existence.

So instead she got dressed in her old MCF jumpsuit, and quickly checked for e-mails. It was so nice being able to have full internet access again, complete with social media. There were quite a few new messages, but not as many as she had feared, and most of them could be ignored. After replying to a few, she headed out to the common room. The other monsters were already there.

"Where's Susan?" Bob was asking, looking around in every direction but the right one.

"Here I am," she said, sliding into her seat. "I was e-mailing my parents. They're so proud. There's been a total media blitz though. The minute they step outside they're surrounded by reporters."

"Shouldn't last long, hopefully," Link commented. "Mornin' sunshine."

"You too, Linkster," Susan replied with a huge grin.

"Good morning, my dear Major Murphy," Cockroach called. "Sleep well?"

"Wonderfully, thanks, uh, Major Cockroach," she smiled happily. "You?"

"Oh, I was fine," he said. "I'm still trying to recover from yesterday, however."

"I don't blame you," Link put in, chewing on some squid. "I thought we were dead meat this time for sure."

"You were so impressive," Susan admitted. "You and Bob, the way you just ploughed through that clone army."

"Nah, they were nothing," Link said, but his huge grin gave his true feelings away.

"But you, my dear, were… I don't know how to put it," Cockroach said. "At the end, when you saved our lives by catching that power core…"

"You'd have done the same for me," Susan smiled.

"I'd have been crushed to a thin smear," Cockroach informed her. "You were the only one who could have saved us."

"I guess it was fairly heavy," Susan admitted.

"Fairly… fairly heavy?" Cockroach choked. "Uh, out of interest, just how heavy did it feel to you?"

Susan thought about it. It had definitely been very heavy, and had actually hurt a bit when it struck her, forcing her to one knee. But she had been so flooded with adrenaline at the time that the effort had barely registered—all she knew was that she had to save her friends. "Uh, about a hundred tons?" she guessed, remembering what Doc had said about lifting houses. "Two hundred?" she added, seeing him just stare at her.

"I'd estimate well over five hundred tons," Cockroach informed her gently. "I told you that you were strong, remember?"

"Five… hundred… tons?" Susan gasped. She looked at her arms. They looked no more muscular than they had ever been, which is to say not at all.

"Pretty decent. You could bench-press a Boeing," Link informed her.

"Oh my god…" Susan breathed. She made a fist, and looked at it. Then she grinned. "Cool. Just as well, too, or you guys would have been squished."

"And you," Bob noted. "You were under it."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Susan laughed. "Wow. I guess I am pretty strong now." She punched the air. "Ha! Take that, Derek Dorkle!" Then her face fell.

"You don't miss Derek, do you?" Cockroach asked.

Susan shook her head. "No, no…" she assured him. "But… I kinda miss the idea of Derek, if you know what I mean."

"I think I do," Cockroach said sympathetically.

"I don't," Bob said.

"Hush, blue dude," Link said. "She's lonely. We all are."

"I'm not," Bob told them happily. "I have you guys. I love you guys!"

Susan laughed. "Yeah, I have you guys." She was glad Bob had interrupted, as she suddenly felt reluctant to go into her feelings. Instead she thought about how strong the Doc had said she was. Five hundred tons? To be honest, she thought, that was a totally abstract number. Even benching a Boeing like Link had said—it was impossible to really grasp. She only knew that lifting the power core had felt incredibly heavy, but not heavier than she could stand. She was suddenly interested to learn exactly what her physical limitations were. Monger could set up some sort of testing facility easily enough, she knew—and would welcome the data. Even if the idea about creating super soldiers seemed to have been quietly shelved—for which she was very grateful.

After breakfast, she sat back on the couch and turned the projector screen on. As expected, the news programs were full of the previous day's events. She watched a few reports, most of which were full of futile speculation and shots of reporters standing either beneath Gallaxhar's ship or in a studio. The government was yet to release its own official statement, but there was rampant speculation on everything, not least the strange creatures that had appeared from the ship just before it exploded.

"The question remains," the news anchor was saying, showing a blurry still of the four of them hanging off the bottom of Gallaxhar's ship, taken with a very long lens, "is this the same freakish giantess that we saw just a couple of days ago fighting a massive robot in San Francisco?" The screen now showed a separate video of Susan tackling the robot, taken by someone in one of the fleeing cars. "The government and the Pentagon are not confirming anything at this stage. We have been told, however, by a source close to this new heroine, that she is in fact Susan Murphy, a native of the Modesto, California, that the UFO appeared over and who has been kept in a secret government facility for genetic experimentation. Is the army creating a new breed of super-soldiers, great titans who will literally crush the enemy? Should we be worried?"

"Now, I think that's a little too much speculation, Jim," the co-host said. "What I think we need to be focusing on is that this woman, and her even more unusual companions—can we get any clearer images than those? This one appears to be almost reptilian, and one we cannot make out any details at all about other than his blue colour—anyway, we need to remember that however they were created, they have saved the city of San Francisco from an attack that has caused billions of dollars in property damage, but luckily cost almost no casualties thanks to the prompt evacuation."

"We've got one of the people who were on the bridge when the robot attacked standing by now, Jane," the first anchor said. "Bill's out by East Beach with her now. Bill?"

"Thanks Jim. I'm out by East Beach, the nearest the government is allowing us to the collapsed bridge. We can just make out where the upper part of the mysterious alien robot projects out of the water, but it's been shielded by tarps so we can't actually see what is going on. With me here is Mrs Fay Wreigh, who was in her car with her husband Mike during the attack. Fay, can you tell us what you saw?"

"Well, we were heading out across the bridge, following the evacuation order, when a truck-trailer unit suddenly jack-knifed and blocked both lanes. I screamed. Then… I just couldn't believe my eyes. This giant woman, and I mean giant—she must have been a hundred feet tall—just reached down and lifted the truck off the car. A giant! What else has the government been keeping secret from us I wonder? What's hidden at Area 51? We have a right to know!"

"Indeed we do. Anyway, about this giant…"

"Yeah, right, the giant, okay. Yeah, we were just about to keep heading north when this great robot thing smashed into the bridge, just about killed us, and the next thing we know we're sliding off the bridge. I remember looking at my husband in fear, knowing it was the end, when this giant woman sticks out her leg and saves us, blocks our car from sliding off. All the while she's fighting the great steel claw. I'm telling you, she deserves some kinda medal for that. She saved our lives."

"Mrs Wreigh, thanks so much. Back to you, Jim and Jane."

"Well, whoever this mysterious heroine, and her even more mysterious friends, are, they've earned the thanks of a grateful city and nation. We'll have more updates on the events in Modesto as they come to hand, but I think at this stage we can safely say that the same band of unusual heroes that saved us in San Francisco was also involved." The video cut back to the shot of Susan and the others hanging off the ship. "Whoever they are, whatever their story, we salute their bravery and heroism. Now here's Rachel with sports."

The segment ended, and Susan turned the TV off.

"So, what do you think of all the hype?" Link asked, lying back on his own smaller sofa.

"Really embarrassing, to be honest," Susan admitted. "I mean, it's nice to be free again, and for the world to no longer hate us, but…"

"But what?"

"I'm still not sure how people are going to treat us. I just want to be treated as me, not something I'm not."

"Ah, but you are being treated as you, my dear," Cockroach told her. "You are being treated as a hero, as you are a hero. You may not feel like one, but by George, every one of us owes you our lives. You sacrificed any chance of getting your old life back to save ours. And we won't ever forget that."

"Come on," Susan said, "you know I would never have been able to live with myself if I had just fled. I told you that."

"That doesn't make it any less heroic, my dear. In fact it makes it more heroic."

"Well, I suppose… But, if I'm honest, I liked the feeling of confidence being Ginormica gave me. I like being strong—physically and emotionally."

"Hey, and why shouldn't you want to be stronger?" Link asked her. "You and I, we're the macho types of this gang. Strength! Power! That's where it's at, baby!"

"Watch it, Link, you'll put your back out again!" Susan called as the aquatic ape started to execute a series of kung fu-style flips. She laughed as he crashed into the table, and quickly pretended that was completely intentional.

A little later Susan was relaxing on her couch with Mark Twain, which she was reading on the oversized computer tablet Cockroach had made for her using a 60 inch LCD screen.

"Ginormica, you have a visitor," Monger suddenly announced, driving into the room in his jeep.

"A visitor?" Susan asked, astonished. They never had visitors. Ever. The entire base was so secret that the mere mention of its real name was a federal offence. She put down her tablet. "Who is it?"

"Go ahead," she heard Monger say in a quiet voice. Susan took another look at the jeep. There was a young girl sitting there with him, in a light blue summer dress. She looked a little familiar.

"Uh, Amy, right?" Susan asked, rather surprised indeed. She got down off the couch and lay on the floor so her head was as close to the ground as possible.

"Good afternoon Major Ginormica, sir. Ma'am," the little girl said. "I would like to apologize for my behaviour the other week."

"No need to apologise, Amy," Susan smiled. "I'm really sorry for scaring you so much."

"Thank you, Major," Amy said.

"Did you put her up to this, General?" Susan asked with a slight smile.

"Negative," the general told her. "She saw you on the news, apparently, and wanted to meet you properly. And I figured, what the heck." He grinned, and nudged the young girl.

"General, deep down, you're about as hard as a custard sandwich," Susan laughed. "But that is so sweet of you, Amy. I'm so glad you came, so we can get to know each other a bit better. How's your knee?"

"All better now, thank you ma'am," Amy said.

"Please, call me Susan. Everyone else does. Well, except for the general, of course."

"Regulations. Ginormica's your new official name," Monger told her.

"So, Amy, you live here on base, right?" Susan asked.

"Yes, ma—Susan," Amy said. "My daddy is a sergeant here."

"So you go to school here too?" Susan asked.

Amy nodded. "Everyone who lives on base has to stay on base. We can't go outside it. Daddy says it's to keep the country safe."

Susan pursed her lips. It had not occurred to her that the secrecy and security that restricted them to Area 52 might affect the military personnel stationed here as well. Suddenly she found herself wondering if Monger even had any family.

"Come on Amy, let's go and talk," Susan said, and smiled to encourage her.

"Uh, I… sure, great!" the little girl said.

"I'll be back to pick her up later," Monger said.

Susan gave him a salute, which he returned and drove away.

"Would you like to come to my table?" Susan asked.

Amy nodded. Then she saw how high it was.

"How do I get up?"

"I could always lift you up." Susan suggested.

After a short pause Amy nodded. "Okay. But… not too high. Or fast, please."

"Noted," Susan said with a reassuring smile. She laid her five-foot hand down, palm up, and let Amy sit on it. Cupping both hands together to form a protective bowl, she carefully lifted the tiny girl onto her table.

"There. Was that fun?" she asked.

"A bit. I guess," Amy said. "It wasn't as scary as the first time."

"I'm really sorry about that, you know," Susan said softly.

"That's okay," Amy told her. "I know you were only trying to help. I shouldn't have freaked out."

"I guess I can't blame you. Anyway, if you sit down there, at that table, I can sit down here, and we can talk," Susan said, taking her normal seat. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Um, let me see," she said a bit nervously. "The general said you were nearly fifty feet tall. Is that right?"

Susan nodded. "Forty-nine feet, eleven inches, to be precise."

"What's it like to be a giant?" Amy asked.

"Well… You know, to be honest, I'm still not totally sure," Susan admitted. "On the plus side, I'm much stronger, and I could save my friends, and I can totally open any jar out there. They don't stand a chance!"

"Wow, that's so cool. Sometimes I think I would like to be a giant," Amy admitted. "Sometimes I think it would be nice to be bigger and stronger than everyone. Then they couldn't tease me."

"Hey, tree-trunk legs!" Link called out. "Destroy any major landmarks today?"

"Oh, they still can," Susan said, laughing. "It's just easier to ignore them. And yeah, it helps if you can do this." She quickly grabbed Link, and gently tossed him in his pool. The amphibious ape surfaced and grinned at Amy, whose look of shock quickly turned to giggles.

Susan smiled, then looked down at Amy again.

"But sometimes I wish I was still normal sized," she went on. "So I could do a lot of things I can't now—would you believe I can't ever go a mall again? I can't go a restaurant with my friends either. And if I was your age, I couldn't go to school with them."

"But you can save the earth from an alien invasion," Amy noted. "That was fantastic. I wish I could do something like that."

"Yeah, there is that," Susan said. "Not that I did it all by myself. In fact it was really Doctor Cockroach—if he hadn't reprogrammed the computer to destroy the ship, the invasion couldn't have been stopped. All I did was save us after the ship started blowing up."

"You're far too modest, my dear," came Cockroach's voice as the insect-man walked down the steps from his lab.

Amy squealed briefly, then recovered herself. "Sorry, sir," she muttered.

"Quite all right, my child," Cockroach assured her. "The head's always a little more scary in person."

"I'm okay," Amy said, looking at him nervously out of the corner of her eye.

"Care for some tea?" he asked gently.

"Oh, that's right!" Susan exclaimed. "I'm being a bad hostess! Do you like chocolate, Amy?"

The young girl nodded.

"Great! Be back in a moment!" Susan jumped up and ran out, her footsteps thundering on the floor.

Amy watched her go, her eyes wide. "Wow…" she breathed.

Susan was back in a moment, carrying one of her special chocolate bars. Amy gasped. It was bigger than she was.

"Doc, got a knife?" Susan asked.

Cockroach scooted to the dining storage area, and brought out the largest knife there, a foot-long kitchen knife.

"Would you like me to cut it?" he asked.

"No, I want to try," she told him. "But thanks."

The knife was less than half as long as her fingers, but Susan managed to pick it up delicately between forefinger and thumb, and carefully slice off a small amount of chocolate, the size of her fingernail.

"Yay, I did it," she said with a grin. "Bit like trying to cut with a needle."

"Thanks so much," Amy said, as she took a small bite from her large chunk of chocolate. Cockroach handed her a cup of tea.

"Oh, I don't drink tea thank you, sir," Amy said. "I'm too young."

"My apologies," the insect man said courteously. "Susan, you want a cup?"

"Can you get us some hot cocoa instead?" the giantess asked.

"Excellent idea," Cockroach admitted, pressing the intercom buzzer by the hatch where their food was served from.

"Kitchen here. How may I serve you sir?"

"Two hot cocoas please. One super-sized, one regular."

"Coming right up, sir."

"Sir. I like that," Cockroach said. "Respect at last! I told them they would rue the day!" He cackled madly, his eyes staring.

"Chill, dude," Link scowled. "The minimum-wage drones at McDonalds would call you 'sir' too."

In a few moments the hatch opened up again, and Cockroach handed Amy a cup of hot cocoa. Susan took her own 60-oz cup, and smiled. "Ooh good, they put some marshmallows in."

"Anyway, as I was saying," Cockroach said, sipping his sweet tea. "We don't worry about who saved the Earth, who stopped Gallaxhar. We're a team."

"A team," Susan agreed.

"But it was mostly you," Cockroach added with a smile.

"I thought it was mostly me," Bob said.

"Ha. Nope, it was all Insecto," Link chuckled. "We'd have died if it weren't for him. Her. Whatever."

"Or Monger," Susan added.

Amy looked confused, and Link laughed. "We're just joshing you. Go on, drink your cocoa. I'd going to order some seaweed soup."

"But seriously, you should have seen Susan." Cockroach told her. "She was jaw-droppingly amazing. I still get goosebumps—or I would if I still had skin."

Susan blushed. As did Amy.

"I almost got her killed," the young girl said softly. "I'm really sorry about that."

"No, no, no," Susan assured her. "It wasn't your fault at all. I… I forgot for a moment just how scary... how scary I might look now." She blinked back tears, fighting to keep control, to keep the painful memories from surfacing.

"You… you really don't," Amy said. "I was just too frightened to realise. I had no idea you were here…"

"Didn't you know there were monsters here at the base?" Cockroach asked.

Amy shook her head. "Daddy never mentioned it. He wasn't even allowed to talk about his work with us. He told me later that most of the base personnel had never even seen any of you. He said your area was the most top secret of all."

"I suppose that explains the panic," Cockroach mused. "Idiots," he muttered to himself under his breath.

"So were you always a—a giant?" Amy asked.

Susan shook her head. "A month ago I was only five foot six. I was totally normal. Completely average."

"Wow. So all of a sudden you just grew? Like overnight?"

"Even faster," Susan told her. "I was in church about to be married."

Cockroach whipped out his tablet. "Here's the footage."

"Yikes!" Amy exclaimed, looking at it. "Did it hurt?"

"Hurt?" Susan asked, surprised. "No, not a bit." Her eyes glazed over. "No, not physically. Emotionally, mentally… Yeah, it hurt. A lot."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad," Amy said.

"Oh, no, no, it's not that," Susan said, wiping her eyes. "No, I'm okay. But to be honest, it's not been easy. But it does have its good parts," she hastened to add. "I feel good about myself."

"Could I ask you something?" Amy said, a little nervously.

"Sure."

"Why is your hair white?"

"I honestly don't know," Susan admitted. "Something to do with this special stuff inside me that makes me so big. I used to have chestnut hair. But now I quite like this. Any ideas, Doc?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea why your hair is white," Cockroach told her. "It doesn't make sense. But then almost nothing about your physical transformation does, apart from your voice. And even that…"

"What about your voice?" Amy asked.

"It's quite low, isn't it?" Susan asked.

Amy nodded.

"That's because my voice box is bigger, like your father's is bigger than yours."

"It's quite a nice voice," Amy said. "It's low, but you don't sound like a man at all."

"To my relief," Susan laughed. "Can you imagine me with James Earl Jones' voice? He's the guy that did Darth Vader's voice in Star Wars."

"Him?" Amy giggled. "That would be funny!"

"No, Amy, I am your mother!" Susan joked.

A musical chime echoed through the room.

"Oh good, lunchtime," Link said. "I'm starved."

"Why? All you did all morning was watch the telly," Cockroach noted. "While I was hard at work."

"You just sat in your chair," Link pointed out.

"Thinking, my dear chap," Cockroach told him, pointing to his head. "Exercising the old noggin."

"What about? You're not trying to shrink Ginormica still are you?"

Cockroach shook his head. "Before Amy arrived, I was looking over some of the data from the wreckage of the robot," he said. "Monger's given me full access now. Or at least he says he has. There is a lifetime of work there. Several lifetimes. Not to mention the crashed ship. I still want to get access to the actual wreckage, though. Who knows what I could create!" He let out a loud maniacal laugh, and Amy jumped.

"Sorry, my dear," Cockroach apologized. "Force of habit."

"Amy, you'll stay for lunch, won't you?" Susan asked.

"Ooh, do!" Bob cried. "There's going to be cake! And balloons! And bunny rabbits!"

"No, Bob, no bunny rabbits," Cockroach told him. "Not after last time."

"Greetings, monsters," came Monger's powerful voice as he stepped off the elevator. "Thought I'd join you for lunch."

Cockroach and Link stared.

"Join us? You've never joined us for lunch," Cockroach said.

"Yeah, what gives?" Link asked.

"Got some important news for you later," he stated. "Anyway, today's a special lunch. Dr Cockroach has told me what he and Link promised Bob, and by heavens, that's what we're gonna deliver!"

Taking out his walkie-talkie, he barked an order. The food hatch opened up, revealing a cake the size of a small car, and at the same time, a panel in the ceiling slid open and several dozen red, white and blue balloons drifted down.

For once in his life, Bob was speechless.

NOTES: East Beach is a real location in SF that has a nice view of the GGB-or, in this case, what used to be the GGB.

I wanted to start out with a light, pleasant scene that helps to heal one of the wounds Susan suffered in my first story. So there is no actual plot here, just character interaction. The first few chapters deal with the after-effects of the previous story, which I wanted to deal with before we move onto the new one. I made her being reading Mark Twain as an accessible classic, just a way to show that Doc has been educating her and expanding her horizons as I suggest in another vignette.

If you search YouTube for Ginormica Deep Voice Test, you can see a very quick 'n' dirty test I did to try and get a more realistically low voice for Susan. The fact that her voice remains unchanged is one of the minor things that bug me about the movie's depiction of her size.

[slightly edited on 5/5/13]