Though the continental teen didn't entirely understand why Chicago didn't want his help this time, he knew better that to press the matter. Mom had taught him that everyone had their own reasons for doing what they did, so he had to respect that even if they seemed a bit strange to him. Still, if that's how they wanted it, they really needed to make their buildings out of stronger stuff next time. He only raised his voice a bit, and that had apparently been enough to light a fifth of the city on fire. Hopefully they'd get around to doing that sooner than later - he wasn't getting any smaller, and not all giants were as careful as he was.
With no particular destination in mind, the 14-year-old headed off north, lifting his foot so that he could step forward into Wisconsin. That simple, elementary act, one so basic as to not even register in most peoples' minds, set off a chain of cataclysmic ripple effects across most of the Midwest. Just the slight anticipatory press of his foot on the ground shot the gathering mountains around his soles up several miles. An entire stretch of land slightly smaller than Czechoslovakia was forcibly pressed down, the overwhelming heat and pressure sending molten clay dribbling down vast vertical chasms that had opened up around the unfathomable mass. As the foot lifted up, a tsunamic wave of displaced wind blasted outwards for dozens of kilometers, tearing through the already blasted landscape like a famished mutt. For several minutes, the sky above Chicago was replaced by an unrelenting ceiling of flesh coated with grime and the remains of long-gone landscapes and cities, trapping the city in a premature night. Up above, meteoric drops of sweat the size of districts intermittently rained down from certain points along the sole, forming dozens of new saltwater lakes along the few bits of flat land that still remained around the city.
In any other age, such a series of unprecedented calamities would be met with existential terror in the face of what would almost certainly be the end of the world. Instead, a mix of indifference and resigned acceptance permeated among the people of Chicago, who didn't even bother to look up as they went through the usual procedure. The lights flickered on with barely a second of delay, cutting through the muggy, humid darkness as the masses made their way towards the nearest unoccupied buildings. Most of the city had been rebuilt and reinforced with the latest in anti-earthquake mechanisms and heat-and-force resistance material, allowing everyone to retract inside and bunker down as they engaged in another long, protracted battle against Rumo's not-so-natural disasters. Once the last civilian had made it inside, steel shutters slammed down over every possible entrance including the windows, completely locking everyone down. The only people still allowed outside were the battalions of emergency respondents that were sent out to put out active fires and clear out whatever debris they could, knowing full well that at any moments, their efforts could be rendered moot by an involuntary twitch from the teenage uber-giant. The ballistic weapons remained armed and trained at the overcast skin-bound sky, ready to fire in case one of the sweat drops happened to fall near the city or the sole end up getting a bit too close for comfort.
No one could quite recall how things turned out this way. For years, giants had been a ubiquitous part of life. It was simply accepted that every once in a while, someone would go through a more intense growth spurt than usual and end up bursting through their homes, and that was the way things were (a decent number of homes had installed retractable rooves as a preemptive measure). However, historically most giants only ever got to be around the size of skyscrapers, reaching a couple thousand feet tall at the very most. It was only relatively recently that heights had started getting more absurd. Even then, it hadn't happened all at once; there were the occasional stories about a giant whose toes dominated the skyline of Beijing or who could use Mount Everest as a headrest, and before anyone knew it, Earth had become the domain of living continental gods. Rumo wasn't even the biggest among these modern-day deities, but he was definitely up there.
Because of them, the Earth had very quickly been reduced to a fallow, bog-like shell of its former self. Just about every bit of land was a wasteland of cavernous footprints, handprints, and other impressions, with only the major cities and certain designated areas being relatively spared. Close to 90% of all life on Earth had been wiped on in the worst mass extinction event since the End Permian. The only reason there was even still life left on the planet, let alone any vegetation, was due to thorough wide-scale preservation initiatives enacted before Rumo was even born, with several sites dedicated to housing different species from all over.
Over time, humanity and giants had come to an arrangement of sorts with one another, where certain bits of farmland and cities were marked as strictly off-limits and not to be stepped on by any giant exceeding two miles or so, and in return, the giants would be left alone to do as they wished. So far, by miracle upon miracles, the giants had been more than willing to reciprocate. For smaller giants, it made some sense: they didn't want to get crushed by the living continents like everyone else, and a nuclear arsenal had proven to be the most effective means of getting their attention, so it was in their best interests to leave the cities alone. For the continentals, it was more difficult to tell why they went along with this. Was it because of a lingering connection they had with humanity or was it simply because there was no real reason for them not to comply. Either way, it meant life could more or less continue under a thread-bare, barely tentative peace. That didn't stop incidents from occurring, of course; no one could forget the time Seattle had ended up trapped within the narrow space between Rumo's butt cheeks, nor could they forget the dilapidated, soggy ruins of the Himalayan mountains from the time another giantess - Kumi, Arthek recalls - had gotten sick.
All things told, it was a less-than-ideal state of affairs, but Arthek had managed to get by so far. He'd long accepted that whatever happened was completely beyond his and the rest of humanity's control, so he was content to do what he could to survive and otherwise go along for the ride. Unfortunately, the mandatory curfew left Arthek trapped in his own cafe, so there wasn't much for him to occupy his time with. Well, there was his current patron, but the poor guy was shuddering and shaking like a dried-up, pale leaf under the grimy table. It didn't look like he was about to let himself be coaxed out of there any time soon, so he effectively had nothing but the glare of the silicon light from his custom-made hanging lamps to keep him company.
Guess he might as well check up on the news, then. The rugged cafe owner went over to the counter and bend down, shuffling through some concealed boxes before pulling up a remote. When he pressed the red button up front, a flatscreen tv tucked in a prominent corner of the cafe tentatively flickered to life, showing a real-time news reel tracking Rumo's current trek through North America using distant satellite imagery. Most broadcast these days were almost totally dominated by breathless updates about every microscopic (or perhaps the better term would be macroscopic) twitch these continental giants made, along with general updates regarding the giants that were least as big as cities. A lot of careers were built on predicting exactly where they would go based on observations of their daily habits along with whatever knowledge was available regarding personalities and other relevant factors. It was important to keep abreast of such things, as depending on where you were and what giant was heading your way, it could mean the difference between dealing with Armageddon for a few hours and dealing with it for several weeks.
From what Arthek could tell, Rumo had almost made it over to Wisconsin, and he hadn't even completely his first step. It wouldn't be long before Chicago had to deal with the resulting impact. Though Rumo was generally careful about making sure to keep his landings soft - so much so that most had to wonder how he managed to shift his weight around such that he didn't end up sinking into the core - there was only so much that could be done when your feet were the size of entire countries. As soft as he may try to make the impact, it was still going to send millions of tons cloud of dust, ash, and obliterated rock rocketing into the stratosphere.
In general, Arthek Chynoweth didn't know what to think about his nephew. He barely knew the kid, and yet for whatever reason, Rumo felt a specific need to come over and pester Chicago every week. He wasn't even born in Chicago - he'd gotten the baby pictures from his brother while he was living in Mexico - but something kept bring him back anyway. It wasn't like Rumo was lonely, either: everyone knew about that one giant he hung out with, the one who effectively had all of Russia to himself as a warm bed, so his size wasn't isolating him from anyone. Something was bringing him back here, but he'd be damned if he had a single inkling as to what.
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthek saw Rumo finally step into Wisconsin. Time to hold on for the ride.
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