Aztec Goddess of Microterra
by Ace Corona
An Aztec princess journeys through the Bermuda Triangle and conquers Microterra


In the early 16th century...

The conquistador was happy with his prize captive: the beautiful daughter of
the Aztec emperor. She was truly more beautiful than all the women of the
Spanish aristocracy, and had she been a citizen of Spanish society, he would
have had little or no chance of winning her favor. He was past 30, with
half-rotted teeth and a weather-beaten face, while she was a brown-skinned
teenage siren, more beautiful than all the maidens of the Aztec empire.

The conquistador knew enough of her language to be able to decipher her native
tongue, so he understood her warnings when she implored him to wait until the
rainy season was over before making the trip, but he refused her request. The
emperor of the Aztecs had given his daughter's hand in marriage as part of a
peace agreement, and the conquistador assumed she was trying to postpone her
destiny. He could only imagine how his friends back in Spain would react when
they saw he was married to a princess more beautiful than any they had ever
seen; to him it seemed that she was truly an Aztec goddess disguised in mortal
flesh.

When the Spanish galleon was out at sea, somewhere East of what is now Florida
in what we now call the Bermuda Triangle, a storm struck. It was more vicious
than anything he had ever experienced, for although he was commanding officer,
this was his first trip to the Western hemisphere, so he had never experienced
a hurricane. The crew abandoned the ship for land in all but one of the
lifeboats.

The mast snapped in half under the unrelenting force of the winds, and pierced
the hull. Within less than a minute, the galleon was sinking. The conquistador
and the Aztec princess climbed into the remaining lifeboat, but it began to
sink. It was only strong enough to handle the weight of one of them, because
the boat was filling with water that weighed it down. He did what he thought
was right under the circumstances; with a final kiss on her beautiful lips, he
jumped into the furious waves, leaving her safely in the boat. She had no time
to ponder his sacrifice as she scooped water out of the boat with her hands.

None of the other boats could be seen, and her fiance was most probably
drowned. She saw a light in the distance, and used her paddle to steer toawrd
the light. Her instincts told her there was safety there, and she assumed that
it was a sign of some divinity from her pagan religion leading her to safety,
so she sought the light. The pounding waves and the fierce winds did not
thwart her efforts, and soon she was upon the source of the glowing white
light.

It surrounded her and her boat, and for a moment there was calm as she tumbled
through a weightless void. Just as she began to succumb to vertigo, the boat
tumbled out of the strange vortex, and she was on another Ocean in another
storm, but unknown to her, this was not the same Ocean or the same storm.

She spotted land ahead, and steered toward it. The outline of cliffs appeared
in the distance, and soon she saw a beach. Her boat was carried by a huge wave
to the shoreline, where she abandoned her transportation and headed for higher
ground. Once she was safely standing on a hill, she found a cave where she
found shelter from the hurricane. After several hours, she finally forgot her
fears and cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, it was sunny and clear. The blue sky was welcome and
inviting, so the girl walked out to find berries or edible plants to sate her
hunger. As she walked along, she saw a narrow gravel-lined path, about two
inches in diameter. A little further doiwn the road, she came across a
structure about six inches high, and about five feet long and five feet wide.
It was composed of the tiniest stone bricks she had ever seen, and it was
covered with a tarp. When she removed the tarp, the girl was astonished to see
a tiny orchard of fruit trees. The smallest of the trees was three inches
high, and the tallest was no more than five inches high. She saw the tiny
fruits, which were much smaller than berries, so she sampled some of them.

As she ate, she noticed tiny spades, picks, and shovels that would be suitable
for people no larger than one centimeter tall. She picked up a shovel, and it
was like a large splinter. The girl wondered what kind of a strange land she
had ended up in as she continued with her breakfast.

A group of local villagers wandered along the trail leading to the orchard,
and the difference between the Aztec girl and the natives was immediately
apparent. Compared to the princess, they were only one centimeter tall. It
would take ten of them standing on each other's shoulders just to reach her
ankles. When they caught sight of the Aztec girl, the first instinctive
reaction was fear, so they began to run. To them she towered into the sky like
a conquering colossus, a mighty goddess dressed in white with the strange
symbols of her Aztec heritage sewn onto her garment.

She stood up to see what the commotion was, and saw the tiny natives. She
stomped after them, and overtook their tiny steps in a few massive strides.
There was no escape for the tiny people, and some of them quickly found
themselves in the hands of the Aztec princess.

She raised them to eye level, and examined them. They were tiny, on average,
about one centimeter tall. The girl smiled, happy to have found and captured
such delicate playthings.

"You have much to fear from me," the girl said in her native Aztec language,
but the tiny captives could not understand her. They spoke the language of the
Terran empire, the government that had tried, sentenced, miniaturized, and
abandoned them here by teleportation.

The planet Teera was highly technologically advanced, and had zero tolerance
for crime. After developing miniaturization and interdimensional technology,
the Terrans passed a law that forced criminals to be reduced to the size of
one centimeter tall and banished to the planet Microterra. The planet
Microterra was in a parallel reality with no intelligent life on it. The
Terrans had sent scout ships to annihilate the native animals, so they would
not be a threat to the miniaturized criminals banished there. Animals used for
food and beasts of burden from Terra were also miniaturized, and placed on
Microterra so the captives would have a food supply. Plants native to Terra
were also reduced and planted there, as well.

The scout ships had also swept the atmosphere, removing all microbiological
dangers, as well. Thus, the planet was made safe for the condemned criminals,
who were sent there with no possibility of parole. They were forced to survive
on their own, to carve out their own civilization as best they could. Since
most of the criminals had a minimal understanding of science, the civilization
they developed was equal to the neolithic societies of Earth, with no
electricity or industrialization, just adobe brick dwellings, concrete, and
plaster.

The Aztec princess, with her tiny captives in hand, followed the trail into
the tiny town of the Microterrans. Her feet were far too massive for the thin
trail, and she accidentally crushed a bridge made from tiny bricks hewn from
small pebbles.

When she arrived in the town, she saw a civilization at a technological level
equal to her own Aztec society. The small adobe brick dwellings didn't even
reach her ankles, and the perimeter of the tiny city was less than fifty feet
long by fifty feet wide.

The citizens of Microterra, when they saw the Aztec princess, were terrified.
They had no way of knowing if she was evil or nice, and most of them ran to
their small homes and hid in terror. Others, caught out in the open, sought to
please the young giantess by bowing low, hoping that their act of veneration
would appease her.

The giantess smiled, happy to have found such a tiny race of people she could
rule over. They were like toys to her, and she loved them. Seeing them bow to
her didn't impress her, because as the daughter of the Aztec emperor, she was
already accustomed to having people under her control.

The Aztec princess raised the captives in her hand into the air, and lowered
one of them into her mouth. After a few moments, she swallowed him. She then
did the same to the next one, and the third one. This was the first sign the
Microterrans that were watching had that the princess was dangerous.

The princess looked around. About fifty yards from the edge of the tiny city,
there was a large slab of granite. She walked toward it. Steps aurrounded it,
extending from the top, and circling it down to the bottom. It was the
transition platform the Microterrans arrived on when they first came to the
planet Microterra. The top of the platform was located at the exact height,
and at the same point of latitude and longitude as the sentencing chamber of
the Imperial courtroom back on the planet Terra.

When the banishing law was first enacted back on Terra, the platform was used
consistently, night and day, to send thousands of miniaturized convicted
criminals to Microterra, where they could never do harm to the law-abiding
citizens of the planet Terra again. Now, many decades after the law was first
passed, the platform rarely ushered new arrivals, because the citizens of
Terra were more than a little afraid of being miniaturized and sent to
Microterra. Still, once every couple of weeks or evey few months, a new
miniaturized arrival was teleported onto the platform, to take his place among
his own kind, the one-centimeter-tall people of this tiny land.

By a stroke of fate, a miniaturized convict from Terra had been teleported at
the exact instant when conditions were right for the interdimensional vortex
that brought him to Microterra to simultaneously appear at that exact point of
latitude and longitude on Earth. The hurricane in the Bermuda Triangle the
princess's boat was passing through ocurred at the exact time when the
magnetic field of Microterra had changed polarity, causing anything from Earth
to be pulled through the vortex if it was within those exact coordinates at
that precise instant. The chances against this happening were incalculable, so
that an arrival of a normal-sized person from Earth being pulled through the
vortex might happen once or twice every five or ten centuries.

The princess continued to explore this island, and noticed that all the flora
and fauna were of miniature proportions. There were no plants or animals
anywhere to be seen that shared her stature, and this pleased her. A smile
crept across the face of the princess as she contemplated the fact that there
were none who could ever challenge her authority. And among the tiny
Microterrans, there were none who would ever dare defy her.

She walked over to a creek to get a drink of water. After drinking her fill,
she scooped up some wet clay. She fashioned a pyramid temple similar to the
temples of her homeland in Mexico. She returned to the town square, and showed
the clay pyramid to the tiny Microterrans. She wanted them to understand that
she expected them to construct similar dwellings, so she could be reminded of
her home.

The Microterrans quickly got the point, in spite of the fact that they spoke a
different language than that of the mighty maiden who towered over them. They
got to work, and by the end of the day, with all of the townspeople pitching
in, they had a small pyramid temple constructed that was an exact duplicate of
the one the princess had molded out of clay. Like ants scurrying about at her
feet, the tiny citizens of Microterra worked on the temple, simply accepting
the princess as their new ruler.

Dagon was a wise young man, and knew of a linguistics expert living in a
nearby town who was busted for embezzlement. Before he was convicted, he had
studied the cultures of worlds in parallel universes, and might be able to
speak the dialect of the mighty matriarch who had conquered their tiny land.
He jumped on a horse while the bricks for the pyramid temple were being hewn
from stone, and rode off. The Aztec princess watched his tiny horse speed away
with him on it, and thought nothing of it, because alot of horseback riders
came to and fro.

The wise elders of Microterra knew the young giantess would be hungry soon,
and not wanting to end up as her new meal, instructed some of the younger and
more able men to begin harvesting enough crops to feed the mighty colossus
when it came time for her to eat.

As the majority of the townspeople were busy constructing the pyramid temple
to appease the mighty maiden, others were hard at work loading up carts and
hauling them to the town square. By the time the pyramid was finished, the
giantess was indeed hungry, and the supply of food carts lining the town
square looked more than inviting to her.

Reaching down, the princess picked up the largest cart, which was only about
an inch in length. The fruits and vegetables looked unfamiliar to her, but she
lifted the cart high above her mouth and tossed it back, sending the entire
contents of the cart crashing against her tongue. She chewed and swallowed it
in one gulp, and found it delicious, so she picked up another cart.

She tossed back cart after cart, and carefully set the empty carts back where
she found them, knowing that they would serve again as containers when it was
again time for her to feast. After vanquishing the contents of forty of the
carts, the mighty giantess was at last satisfied, and walked to the edge of
town and slumped down to rest. She fell asleep, happy to have found a tiny
race of people to serve as her pets.

Meanwhile, Dagon arrived at the settlement where the linguist lived. He raced
to his door and knocked. Gonar answered the door, groggy from an afternoon of
drinking.

"A giantess from Earth has arrived at our settlement! The capitol city, where
the landing platform is located! You're the only one who might speak her
language!"

"A giantess?" Gonar asked. "What region did she come from? I've only studied
the primitive people in the Western Hemisphere."

"That's where she's from!" Dagon replied, "She's an Aztec! I think she's from
the royal family!"

"Aztec?" Gonar asked, "That would make sense, the Aztecs are near this region.
I can speak Toltec."

"Then you have to come with me, to the capitol city!" Dagon implored. "You're
the only one who can reason with her in her own tongue! I'll take you on my
horse, he's the swiftest in all of Microterra!"

Gonar climbed on and the two of them rode on into the night, to the capitol
city where the giantess slept. The next day, the Microterrans fell into line,
and quickly accepted the princess as their goddess without argument. They
toiled at her feet, building another pyramid temple even bigger than the first
one. While she was eating breakfast, Dagon and Gonar showed up in the town
square. Gonar got off the horse, and addressed the teenage titaness in her own
language.

"Mighty goddess, I implore you to have mercy on our tiny land and our
people..."

The princess stopped eating, and looked to see who was addressing her in her
own language. At about one centimeter tall, Gonar had to yell to be heard by
the powerful princess.

"Who speaks to me? I am a princess."

Gonar bowed low to the ground, then stood up and shouted: "We are honored by
your arrival. It has come to my attention that you have swallowed three
innocent men. I would implore you to allow us to choose the men you will kill,
because there are those among us who deserve this fate, and innocent men
should not die in this manner."

"Why should I spare the lives of insect people?" the princess asked.

"Because you are our goddess," Gonar answered, "and the gods are wise. We will
worship you without question, and accept you as our absolute ruler, but we
would request a charter between you and us, guaranteeing that only the guilty
will die by your hand, and not the innocent."

"I have been the daughter of the emperor all my life, and I well know that a
ruler must have the approval of the people, to avoid assassination. I will do
as you request, not because you ask me to, but because it is my decision."

When she said this, Gonar thanked her and bowed low. Then he got up, and
translated what had been said to the people, and they cheered.

"The reign of tyranny is over!" people shouted, knowing that the gigantic girl
would rule them justly in the future. Gonar became an instant national hero,
and a crown was placed on his head. Dagon's role was forgotten, even though it
was his wisdom that brought Gonar to the town square to begin with.

Soon, the Microterrans got back to work, and the princess resumed her
breakfast. After vanquishing fifty of the carts, the mighty giantess was at
last satisfied. The princess accepted the role of goddess enthusiastically,
and enjoyed her position of power and the dominion she held over the tiny
people. She was not cruel to them any more, she simply expected them to obey
her commands.

The Microterrans, obedient to a fault, offered no resistance, and zealously
surrendered to the commands of their new goddess without hesitation. With
Gonar interpreting her commands, there was no confusion in this new world
order, this monarchy of the mighty maiden.

Something that Gonar made known to the other Microterrans was the fact that
the princess came from a culture of bloodthirsty practices, and that as she
sought to forge a new society in her image, the traditions of her people would
probably make their way to Microterra. Sure enough, one of the first commands
the girl goddess gave her tiny subjects was to celebrate by bringing her the
most hardened criminals in the Microterran civilization. The goddess demanded
a sacrifice!

Gonar assigned priests, and had the governor of the city have fifty criminals
brought to the town square in chains. There was no shortage of crime on
Microterra, so there was no worry of running out of sacrifices for the
princess goddess. There were several different religions on Microterra,
brought over from their homeworld of Terra. Gonar and the priests took this
very seriously, because men were about to die.

They probably deserved it, in fact, some of them definitly deserved it.
Rapists, murderers, men guilty of every crime under the sun. Fifty of the
worst of the worst, hand-picked by the warden himself. The priests each asked
the criminals what religion they held, and the appropriate priest met with the
prisoner of that particular faith. Their were Hindus, Buddhists, Christians,
and men who worshipped Zeus and Apollo, a popular religion on Terra, a world
where the Greek civilization never fell.

After being blessed by the priest, the men marched up the stairs of the
pyramid temple, and the colossal teen awaited them. She towered over the
temple, which didn't quite reach her knees. She had one foot planted on the
left side of the pyramid temple, and the other foot on the right. The
sacrificial victims didn't appear alarmed. They knew they were about to be
eaten, but they didn't seem to care. The whole village was gathered around the
town square to witness the mass sacrifice, the first of what was to become
many more.

The goddess reached down and grabbed her first victim. The men and women at
her feet looked up at her mouth in fascination, waiting for the man to be
devoured. There were no children whose eyes had to be protected from this
spectacle, because the men and women who were miniaturized were surgically
altered so that they couldn't reproduce before being teleported to Microterra.

There was no escaping the sovereign siren, as she tossed the captive back
against her tongue and closed her mouth around him. He was still in chains,
and so he would be when he was in her belly. The monolithic matriarch didn't
chew her prey, she simply forced him to the back of her mouth with her titanic
tongue, and swallowed him whole. For the remaining 49 captives, there would be
no escape on this day. The people cheered when the first captive was
swallowed.

The domineering damsel reached for yet another victim, and as she did, a man
in chains tried to make a run for it. He didn't get far, as he was approached
by guards with swords. The siren supreme chose him as her next victim, his
reward for his troubles. He screamed out like a coward, but all he succeeded
in doing was amusing the mighty maiden as she tossed him back against her
throat, giving him the privilege of becoming victim number two. The giantess
swallowed him and reached for another.

The people cheered as she reached for the third victim. She swallowed the
third, and the fourth, and the fifth victims. There seemed no way to satiate
her appetite for victims. The teenage colossus didn't slow down by the time
she reached victim number thirty, and by the time the fiftieth and last victim
was swallowed, the entire afternoon was gone.

Dagon was forgotten, with Gonar elevated to Chancellor Supreme. The least they
could've done was to make him second in command, but nobody seemed to even
care. He rode his horse to the town where Gonar once resided, and tied his
horse to a post and went in to a tavern.

A group of men were studying a large piece of parchment, and talking of war.
Dagon took a swig from his ale, and walked over to them.

"What are you guys discussing?" Dagon asked.

"We're trying to decide how many catapults we need to defeat the goddess!" one
of the men said.

Dagon tilted back his head and laughed. "You can't defeat a giantess that size
with mere catapults!" Dagon replied.

One of the men approached Dagon with a wooden spear and told him to smell it.
The stench was overwhelming, and Dagon pushed it away.

"What is it?" Dagon asked.

"It's a spear that's been dipped in hemlock! Enough of these loaded onto
catapults should poison the giantess, and we'll be rid of her!"

Dagon finished his beer, and as he walked out, he said, "You guys are crazy!"

He got back on his horse, and rode back to the Capitol City where the Aztec
princess-goddess resided. He had to get word to Gonar; he would know what to
do. If the giantess was attacked, she might indiscriminately slaughter anyone
and everyone, not just the perpetrators.

As Dagon rode back to the city, the people of the city were having their own
celebration. Everyone had donated ninety percent of their gold and silver, and
the blacksmiths of the city had been melting the precious metals down to form
gifts for their goddess.

The teenage goddess stood in front of a pyramid temple while several hundred
carts were pulled by scores of horse teams to the town square at her feet. The
first gift was a golden brazierre, ornate and carved by the most skilled
sculptors in all of Microterra. The second gift was a golden covering for her
pelvic region.

The princess didn't put them on right away, she waited until all of the gifts
were presented. Silver armbands and bracelets, and gold and silver
boot-sandles with leather straps. The princess took her gifts and journeyed
toward the hills so she could get dressed without Microterran eyes gazing up
at her.

When she returned, she was wearing the golden brazierre and the other
implements, and swore never to take them off. When Gonar translated this, the
people cheered, and the sound was like thunder. The princess retired to her
chamber, which was still under construction, and Gonar went to the local
tavern.

It was there that Dagon found him, drinking a cup of ale. Dagon rushed in, and
said:

"There's some men, in a nearby town, who plan on attacking the goddess! If
they do, it could mean doom for all of us!"

Gonar was concerned. "When did they say they were planning the attack?"

"I don't know!" Dagon answered. "But they're using poison-tipped spears! Their
plan could work!"

"We must inform the goddess immediately!" Gonar said.

Both men ran toward the chamber of the goddess, a huge tent with a brick frame
that had been hastily constructed to protect the goddess from the elements.
Gonar ushered Dagon inside. The goddess was sitting in a stone chair, covered
with a layer of straw, and covered with linen. She held a silver goblet that
had been given to her not long after she had arrived. She was drinking wine.

"What brings you to my chamber, slave?" the goddess demanded to know, in her
own language.

Bowing low, Gonar answered: "My friend brings a message, great one! There are
some men who have rallied together to attack you! Dagon here brought this news
to me, and I in turn informed you!"

"When is the attack to commence?" the princess asked.

"He does not know, mighty goddess!" Gonar answered.

"Then he must die!" the princess answered, "He has failed me, and therefore,
he shall know the depths of my belly!"

As she reached for Dagon, he misunderstood her intentions, because Gonar had
failed to interpret her words for him. By the time she had him in her grasp,
it was too late. She didn't even put much effort into it, she just tilted her
head back, dropped him into her mouth, and swallowed. Gonar looked at her
abdominal muscles, knowing his friend was still alive within that wall of
flesh and muscle, still breathing, struggling in a futile effort to survive.

"I will swallow all the criminals in the city tomorrow at dawn," the
princess-goddess said, "to punish your lot for their defiance! An attack on
me? It will only serve to amuse me to crush them into oblivion!"

The next morning, just as the princess had commanded, all the criminals in the
Capitol City were led to the largest pyramid temple. Gonar had stayed up all
night to ensure that the commands of the goddess were carried out, and even
awakened her himself so she wouldn't oversleep.

Seventy criminals stood on the steps of the pyramid temple, and the princess
commanded the guards to remove their chains. Twenty guards went around doing
as she commanded, and soon the criminals were ready to be eaten. Before the
princess had even grabbed the first victim, trumpets could be heard in the
distance.

Far to the West, a procession of thousands of Microterrans were hauling a huge
object on the most massive cart Microterra had ever seen. Thousands of horses
hauled the cart, which rolled on wooden wheels. A tarp covered the object that
was being delivered to the Capitol City, and it was the same size as the
goddess.

It was daylight when they finally arrived, and the princess-goddess ignored
her meal while they came closer. When they were on the edge of the town, the
ropes connected to the tarp were pulled taut, and the tarp was unveiled. A
statue of the Aztec princess stood there, carved out of the finest marble. The
likeness was precise, carved by masters of their craft.

The tiny people of a nearby city had constructed it in an effort to appease
her. It was exactly the same height as she was, and it was the most beautiful
work of art anyone had ever seen. The condemned criminals cheered, hoping the
goddess would spare their lives because of the special occasion. They were in
for a rude awakening.

"I'm going to swallow all of these criminals," the goddess said, "and I want
the neighboring towns to bring me their criminals as well!"

When Gonar translated this, the people cheered, but the criminals who would
soon end up in the belly of the goddess remained silent. As she licked her
lips, they wondered in unison what it would be like to be eaten alive by a
mighty goddess. Some of the criminals bragged that it was an honor to be
swallowed by such a beautiful goddess, too proud to admit the truth. They were
all terrified, but there was nothing they could do.

The goddess reached down and grabbed the first victim, sqeezing his leg as she
thrust him onto her massive tongue. She tongue wrestled him for a few moments,
working back to her throat, then she swallowed him. Her bare belly could be
seen beneath her golden brazierre, and the people wondered what drama was now
taking place within, grateful that they had never been foolish enough to break
the laws of Microterra.

Hundreds of barrels of wine were brought to the town square, and the goddess's
goblet was filled to the brim. By the time she had eaten half the criminals,
she was drunk. It was then that horses could be heard in the distance. Could
it be more gifts? No, it was soldiers! Soldiers armed with catapults, and bow
& arrows.

The goddess went out to the battlefield to confront them. The catapults fired
as they came into range, and the archers took their positions. Dozens of the
arrows pierced the girl's skin, and javelins dipped in hemlock were thrown,
and hit their mark. The goddess tried to pull the arrows and spears out, but
for every arrow she removed, ten more hit their mark to take their place.

She stomped on the catapluts, and hundreds of soldiers lost their lives that
day. Catapult after catapult were crushed under her sandals, but the archers
and spear-throwers continued to march forward. She was able to stomp some
archers and men carrying spears, but not before their weapons found their
mark.

After about twenty minutes, the combination of hemlock and the wine she had
drank took their toll, and she passed out. It was like thunder when her body
hit the ground. Still not convinced she was dead, scores of archers shot
hemlock-dipped arrows into her arms, legs, and sides. No area of skin was left
unmarked. Within less than an hour, she was dead.

There were some who mourned the Aztec goddess, but most were glad and rejoiced
at her death. No longer were they under the sovereignty of the mighty maiden;
at last, they were free. For several days work crews removed the articles of
gold and silver as they buried her under a mountain of dirt. As time went on,
her worshippers demanded a fitting burial for the goddess girl, so stone
bricks were hewn and fitted together to make a pyramid temple to cover her
body.

As the decades went by, those who were alive at that time passed it on to the
new arrivals of the reign of the princess-goddess, and generations later, when
other giantesses arrived from Earth to conquer Microterra, the Aztec goddess
was remembered as the most bloodthirsty goddess ever to rule their tiny land.