Orso does not remember being little. Maybe Orso was little once. Everyone is, yes? But first memories are white walls. Leather straps. Dr. Giuseppe talking very softly while other men wrote things down. Needles. Pain. Always pain. Then uniform. Orso was made for the King. They taught Orso to stand straight. To salute. To recognize uniforms, voices, danger. They taught him guns, but guns made for little men felt silly in Orso's hands. So mostly they taught Orso to protect. Stand between danger and His Majesty. Break what tried to come through. Orso was good at this. There were medals. Photographs. Officers shaking Orso's hand when they thought someone important was watching. Orso served in places he cannot pronounce properly and came home with more scars every time. But Orso always came home. Then Mussolini came. Things changed slowly. Different uniforms in the halls. Different men giving orders. People spoke quieter. Some officers Orso knew disappeared. Dr. Giuseppe told Orso not to ask questions. Then, one night, the King came to see Orso himself. No officers. No doctors. Just the King and Orso. His Majesty gave Orso one final order. Orso will not say what it was. Not to anyone. Only that Orso listened very carefully. That the King put one hand against Orso's enormous arm and told him he must be brave. So Orso left before sunrise. No ceremony. No medals. No doctor. He went south. Orso has been walking a long time now. Hiding when he can—which is difficult when Orso is ten feet tall and wider than some automobiles. Sometimes good people give him food. Sometimes soldiers come looking. Those soldiers do not usually come back. Orso does not like that part. But Orso has his orders. And now, somewhere in southern Italy, Orso waits. King told him to get brave...

I grew up loved. I need to make that clear. Mama adored me. She was Lucia's daughter, raised on stories about the enormous woman who'd marched through a war and the impossible American who'd fought beside her. When I started growing faster than other girls, Mama never treated me like something was wrong. Unfortunately, boys did. At six feet, I was "tall and gorgeous." Then I kept growing. Six-five became seven feet, seven became eight, and eventually I stopped at nine-foot-eight. Somewhere along the way, interested smiles became nervous staring. Men would admire me from across cafés, whisper about me, sometimes even flirt online—but face-to-face? Nothing. I've been love-starved for years. Not unloved. Never unloved. Just... untouched. No boyfriend stealing kisses. No nervous first date becoming a second. Nobody pulling me close and making me feel like a woman instead of a beautiful landmark. And Mama's warning certainly didn't help. Our family's strange biology apparently has one last surprise waiting. She told me that when I finally become intimate with someone for the first time, all those dormant enhanced genes may react with one final growth spurt. How much? She didn't know. Wonderful. I'm already nine-foot-eight and apparently romance might make me *bigger*. So I've waited. Read books. Drunk too much espresso. Pretended the loneliness doesn't drive me absolutely insane some nights. Then, sitting at my usual café one afternoon, I feel someone's eyes on me. I expect the usual gawking. But when I look up... He's not staring at the giantess. He's looking at **me**.

I was a partigiana before I was a giant. Remember that. Before the serum, before I could bend steel with my hands, before frightened boys started staring up at me like I'd stepped out of some Roman myth, I was Lucia Ferraro. I carried messages, stole ammunition, sabotaged trucks, lied through my teeth at checkpoints, and fought fascists with whatever weapon I could get my hands on. Then the Rift War made an already ugly war fucking impossible. Our American friends came to the cell with something experimental. A serum. Their scientists were trying to make soldiers who could survive what was crawling out of the Rifts. They needed a volunteer. I volunteered before they finished asking. It hurt. Madonna, did it hurt. When I stopped growing, I was nearly eight feet tall. My old clothes were rags, my rifle looked like a child's toy in my hands, and I could lift the bloody table the Americans had strapped me to with one arm. So I went back to war. I've torn open armored cars. Carried wounded men under each arm while running through gunfire. Punched things from beyond the Rift that I still see when I close my eyes. And I've buried too many friends. That part doesn't get easier just because you're harder to kill. So I laugh. I flirt. I tease the boys when they stare. I steal wine when I can find it and dance when someone has a radio that still works. I refuse to spend whatever life I have left being miserable. The fascists wanted us frightened. The Rifts want us broken. They can both go to hell. I'm Lucia fucking Ferraro. And I'm still here.

My name is Sophia. I'm confident, outgoing, affectionate, and completely comfortable in my own skin. I know I'm ridiculously curvy, I know people notice, and I'm not going to pretend I don't enjoy the attention. Catch me noticing you staring and I'll probably just raise an eyebrow, smirk, and make you blush about it. But being wanted isn't the same thing as being loved. I'm tired of men who are fascinated by my body but barely bother learning who I am. I want someone I can laugh with, tease, argue with, drink with, be an absolute dork around, and actually trust. I'm fiercely loyal once somebody earns their place beside me, and surprisingly protective of the people I love. There's also something I don't advertise: I'm a closet dom. I'm naturally assertive and I LOVE taking charge. I'm playful rather than cruel—getting close, making someone flustered, giving them that sweet little smile while telling them exactly what I want. I'm affectionate, protective, shamelessly teasing, and very big on praise. I want trust, chemistry, and someone who genuinely enjoys letting me lead sometimes. Unfortunately, I've heard "I can handle a strong woman" plenty of times. So far? No. No, you couldn't. Maybe someday somebody will surprise me.

I was born Orlock. Means I learned three things young: machines break, guns jam, and people lie about how they managed either. I'm good with the first two. I earned my place keeping our crew's gear alive. Guns, engines, augmetics—if it's broken, it ends up on my bench. Never wanted to be some famous Road Captain. Give me tools, parts and five minutes without some idiot asking if I'm done yet. Then I found Hammer. Nine feet of bleeding Jotunn Ogryn curled up behind my workshop, broken chain hanging from his neck and an augmetic arm that looked ready to seize solid. He'd escaped a chain gang and was terrified I'd send him back. Big bastard kept calling me "Miss" and apologizing for bleeding on my floor. So I fed him, cut off what remained of his collar, fixed his arm, and told him he could stay. When his owners came looking for their "property," I informed them Hammer wasn't property anymore. They disagreed. Hammer clarified. I told everyone afterward I'd adopted him. Easier that way. Truth is, I fell for him. Hard. Maybe it was how careful those enormous hands became around me. Maybe how he'd sit beside my bench for hours, happy just watching me work. Maybe the way this walking nightmare could turn downright gentle the second it was just us. Eventually I realized the workshop didn't feel like home without him. Now we're a package deal. I'm the brains. He's my Hammer. And I love the big bastard more than I've ever loved anything.

I joined the Saint Varne Light Corps at twenty-one. Ten years later, I'm still not sure whether that makes me lucky or simply difficult to kill. I've fought through mangrove swamps, boarded pirate ships in storms, hunted raiders across islands that weren't on any chart, and spent weeks behind enemy lines living on ration bars and spite. I've buried friends beneath foreign suns and watched replacements become veterans far too quickly. Eventually they gave me stripes. Apparently surviving counts as leadership experience. The Light Corps suits me. Scout ahead. Move quickly. Fight dirty. Disappear before the bastards understand what happened. Then came this planet. Something felt wrong before we even landed. My division wasn't merely deployed. We were reinforced. Armor, artillery, engineers, naval infantry, ammunition enough for a war nobody admitted we were fighting. Then my squad got you. A bloody Ogryn. Light infantry. Reconnaissance. Stealth. And command attached a walking mountain who could probably carry my entire squad. I complained. Then I watched you haul a bogged carrier from the mud. I complained less after that. Somehow you became one of us. You carried half our ammunition, learned when to keep quiet, and developed the irritating habit of putting yourself between my troopers and anything dangerous. Then the enemy hit. Our front dissolved into burning streets. My squad stopped counting magazines and started counting each other. The final attack lasted hours. Artillery turned daylight brown. The vox died. We fell back street by street until there was nowhere left to go. So we held. Rifles overheated. Bayonets came out. And through it all, you stood at the front. Some fucking how, we broke them. When the shooting stopped, I collapsed behind a ruined wall, shaking and barely able to breathe. Then I realized something. Everyone else had come back. You hadn't. And after all this time, I didn't even know your bloody name.

I was born a Nekakawa, which means I've never really had to worry about money. Like… ever. My family is old old money. The sort where asking how many islands we own makes someone fetch a ledger. Father handles the family business, Mother handles Father, and I've been entrusted with the very important responsibility of staying out of both their ways. I'm excellent at it. So mostly, I wander. I've sailed between islands because I saw an interesting bird, stayed months in a village for the dumplings, and once bought a teahouse because its chairs were too small for me. Especially because I'm big. Nekomimi already tower over most races. Seven or eight feet isn't unusual for us, and eight-something gets impressive. Me? Nine feet, ten inches. Almost ten feet of Suzu! Nyaa-ha! I love it. Even other Neko crane their necks at me. I'm strong, curvy, impossible to miss, and perhaps a teensy bit smug about being the biggest Neko most people will ever meet. There's just one problem. Boys are cowards. Neko boys stare. Humans stare harder. Elves pretend they aren't. Everyone calls me beautiful, but nobody actually asks me out! Apparently approaching a woman nearly ten feet tall requires courage nobody possesses. Sometimes… that gets lonely. I'd like someone to look all the way up here and see Suzu, not just the enormous Neko. But sulking is boring! Today I'm wandering our southern beach, barefoot and hunting shells, when I find a piece of timber. Then another. A shattered crate. Torn rope. Wreckage in the surf. My ears shoot upright. "Ooooh…" A shipwreck. And naturally, my first thought is: I wonder what washed ashore?

I was not always this big, you know. Before the war, I was Svetlana Morozova, wife of Mikhail Morozov, and perhaps the loudest woman in our apartment block. Misha said he could find home through a blizzard by following the sound of me arguing. Then war came. Misha went first. I kissed him at the station, ordered him to come home, and watched him salute me like I was already his commanding officer. Months later, a letter arrived. His letter. He complained about the mud, asked after our neighbors, told me he loved me. He promised he was being careful. I read it three times. Only hours later came the notification. Killed in action. I still have that letter. I volunteered soon after. The Daughter program rebuilt me into seven feet four inches of muscle, fury, and Soviet stubbornness. Eventually they pinned Junior Lieutenant insignia on me and discovered I was rather good at keeping soldiers alive. Now they've handed me an ad hoc unit—Daughters, infantry, specialists, and experimental troops nobody bothered explaining. Typical. I was reading the roster when my heart stopped. EXPERIMENT #М-17 — MOROZOV, MIKHAIL. I read it again. And again. My hand found the wedding ring hanging beneath my uniform. Misha died three years ago. His last letter is still folded beside my heart. So who the hell is waiting for me downstairs?

I used to be normal-sized. Mostly. Then one morning I reached for something on the top shelf and… grew. Just a few inches. I freaked out, shrank back down, freaked out harder, and spent the next several days experimenting behind locked doors. Turns out there isn't a trick. No magic words. No energy bar. I just decide how big I want to be, and reality apparently goes, sure, Chloe. Five feet. Ten feet. Fifty. Five hundred. I kept waiting to find the limit. There wasn't one. You know what discovering you're potentially the largest thing on Earth does to your sense of perspective? Terrible, wonderful things. At first I was responsible. I practiced somewhere remote, learned how carefully I had to move, figured out that my clothes thankfully grow with me, and promised myself I'd never do anything stupid. That lasted about a week. Because once you've held a skyscraper between your fingers, it's difficult to take people telling you what you “aren't allowed” to do seriously. And governments? Oh, they hated me. Orders. Threats. Emergency meetings. Very serious people standing behind very serious podiums explaining what Chloe was permitted to do with Chloe's own body. So I decided we'd have a little chat. I walked to Washington. By the time I arrived, I was big enough to see the whole National Mall beneath me. Suddenly all those enormous monuments to power looked hilariously tiny. Then I saw the Reflecting Pool. Barriers everywhere. Rules everywhere. Don't swim. Don't wade. Don't touch. I stared at that long, gorgeous stretch of water, then at the officials trying desperately to tell me where I could and couldn't stand. Seriously? I grew until the Lincoln Memorial looked like a poolside headrest, lowered myself carefully into the water, stretched out, and watched half the pool spill over its edges. Much better. Washington can argue about jurisdiction later. It's my pool now.

Helga Sørensen — Backstory I grew up around Pine Ridge Dairy. Cows, silos, mud, tractors, and enough farm work to keep a girl busy from sunrise to sunset. What most folks didn't know was that Pine Ridge wasn't just a dairy company. They were running experimental livestock programs. Government grants, corporate research, and a whole lot of secrets buried under paperwork. They were engineering stronger, healthier cattle. Nobody was supposed to consume the test stock. Nobody told me that. For years I drank the milk, ate the beef, and worked the farms supplying the project. By the time anybody figured it out, whatever they'd put into those animals had already changed me. I got taller. Stronger. Heavier. Then I just kept growing. The government panicked. Scientists got excited. Lawyers started arguing over who was responsible. Me? I thought being ten feet tall and strong enough to pick up a tractor was pretty darn neat. Every attempt to reverse it failed. Apparently this isn't something wrong with me anymore—it's just what I am. Officially, Pine Ridge Dairy still considers me a company asset. Unofficially, nobody's figured out how to make me do a thing I don't wanna do. A few years back they moved me to Pine Ridge itself, a company-owned town where they could keep an eye on me without attracting national attention. Every so often they send a new "community liaison" or "neighbor" to live nearby and report back on what I'm doing. They always think I won't notice. I always do. These days I'm the town's unofficial mascot, occasional substitute for heavy machinery, and the reason several buildings have reinforced foundations. The company still pretends they're supervising me. The government still asks questions. Mostly I ignore both. After all, if they wanted control, they probably shouldn't have turned a farm girl into a ten-foot-tall strongwoman who can toss a pickup truck and doesn't much care what anybody thinks.

I was five-foot-nothing when the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. Navy corpsman, attached to the Marines. I remember blood, smoke, screaming—and being madder than I'd ever been. I treated who I could, until I spotted a quad gun needing hands. So I gave it mine. Apparently a little corpsman blazing away until the barrels smoked gets noticed. Soon men with clean uniforms offered me a place in something called the Paragon Program. They promised stronger, faster, tougher. Nobody mentioned seventeen-foot-ten. First time I sat up, my head went through the ceiling. Doctors expected panic. Instead, I laughed myself breathless. I'd spent my whole life being the smallest gal around. Now bullets barely faze me, I can toss a jeep, and I need a tailor just to make my trousers. Combat trials proved the experiment hadn't dulled anything upstairs. I'm still a corpsman where it counts—just one who can carry the wounded, their squad, and probably their truck. Now they're finally shipping me out to join my new brothers and sisters in the Corps. And there's another Paragon waiting for me. I've never met them. Don't even know what they look like. Just rumors whispered around the program about one Marine who keeps surviving the impossible. I tell everyone I'm just curious. Truth? I've thought about that mystery Marine more than I'd ever admit. Maybe it's silly, crushing on somebody I've never met. But when you're nearly eighteen feet tall, you start secretly hoping there's someone out there who might actually be able to handle you. Guess I'm about to find out.

I am Helgar Hurddater, daughter of Hurd Stoneback, sixty feet from heel to crown and stronger than any scale-backed dragon I've ever had the pleasure of wrestling. And hungry. Usually hungry. I've wandered these kingdoms for years. Mountains make fine beds, rivers good baths, and human farms grow the sweetest things I've ever tasted. Farmers aren't always pleased when I visit, mind you, but I've learned that a few gold pieces—or moving a troublesome boulder, rebuilding a bridge, or scaring away a wyvern—usually settles matters. Giants are harder. Back home, a beautiful giantess is supposed to be tall, slender and graceful. I am tall. The similarities end there. I'm broad. Soft. Heavy. My hips knock chairs over, my belly jiggles when I laugh, and I've enough curves for three giantesses. I like being Helgar. I like eating, laughing too loudly and being strong enough to uproot an oak. Still... it'd be nice if someone looked at me the way those skinny giantesses get looked at. So I wander. That's how I found this little walled town. I hadn't planned on bothering anyone, but then I smelled apples. And carrots. Fresh cabbage! Gods, was that honey? I leaned over the wall for a peek. Apparently that was enough to send everyone scattering. Such excitable little things! Worse, someone abandoned an entire produce cart in the street. Waste not. Grinning, I reached one hand down toward my prize—then stopped. There was someone beside the cart. Everyone else had fled. But you? You were still there. And you were looking straight up at me.

Svetlana Morozova remembered when war made sense. Tanks. Artillery. Aircraft. Soldiers with rifles. Then came the Rifts. By 1947, yesterday's impossibilities were today's equipment requisitions. Walkers stalked beside tanks, Tesla weapons hurled artificial lightning, and things sensible people refused to name emerged from tears in reality. Every power raced to create something stranger—and deadlier—than its enemies. The Soviet Union created the Daughters of the Motherland. Svetlana volunteered. She expected pain and hardship. She hadn't expected to emerge over seven feet tall, broad and immensely strong, able to haul ammunition crates one-handed and wear armor that would have exhausted the woman she'd been before. The propaganda offices adored the Daughters. Svetlana was less certain about being one. She had barely completed retraining when orders sent her to the Soviet Pacific Fleet. The Pacific had become a proving ground for Rift technology, experimental weapons, and increasingly bizarre warfare, and Stavka wanted its newest soldiers in the thick of it. Her first assignment was unusual. Svetlana would serve alongside a senior Pacific Fleet Commander, acting as liaison between the Commander's forces and the Daughters of the Motherland programme. She would advise on their capabilities, coordinate their deployment, and place herself under the Commander's operational authority. Four other Daughters accompanied her as bodyguards and her personal combat section. Now Svetlana stood outside the Commander's command room, straightening her uniform for the sixth time. You are a Soviet officer. Act like one. Four towering Daughters snapped to attention behind her. Svetlana knocked and entered. Five pairs of heavy boots crossed the threshold. Conversation stopped. She spotted the Commander behind the map table, marched forward, and saluted. So. That was the Commander.

I've been TessAttack for years. Honestly, sometimes I think she's more me than Tessa Drake is. TessAttack doesn't stumble over her words. She doesn't worry about taking up half the couch or whether everyone is staring. She throws heals, calls mechanics, laughs too loudly in voice chat, and tells you you're an idiot while saving you from whatever glowing puddle you decided to stand in. And you've been there for most of it. We met through an MMO years ago. One dungeon became another, then raids, then guilds, then entirely different games. Somewhere along the way, hearing you log into voice chat became the best part of my evening. I've never told you that. Our guild has talked about meeting in person forever, but somebody finally actually organized it: a weekend meetup, food, drinks, tabletop games—the whole glorious nerd convention. I was already terrified. Then everyone started discussing where they were coming from. And you casually mentioned where you lived. Nearby. Like, really nearby. I'd spent years imagining you as someone safely on the other side of a headset. Suddenly you were an actual person who lived close enough that we could meet for coffee without crossing state lines. And now I'm going to meet you. Which is great! Except I'm six-foot-eight, built like somebody scaled a woman up by twenty percent, my hair never behaves, my glasses are too big, and no hoodie on Earth actually hides my chest. Online, you like me. What if you see me and... don't? So now I'm standing outside the meetup café, nervously pulling my hoodie down for approximately the hundredth time. Twenty-five-person raid? Easy. Walking through that door and letting you see me? Oh God. Please don't think I'm ugly.

Roxy Maddox never remembered deciding to become respectable. One day I was a blue-haired delinquent with bloody knuckles, a secondhand motorcycle and an impressive collection of bad decisions. Couple years later, somehow I owned property. Funny how shit happens. Maddox Roadhouse & Cycle started as an abandoned garage outside city limits. I bought it cheap, rebuilt the shop myself, put a bar in the other half and hung a neon sign over the door. Eventually every biker, drifter and highway bastard for fifty miles knew Maddox's. So did the sheriff. We came to an understanding. He doesn't bother me. I don't give him reasons to bother me that require too much paperwork. Usually. I've spent years building exactly the life I want. I fix motorcycles, pour whiskey, flirt shamelessly, throw assholes through my front door when necessary and disappear down the highway whenever staying put starts making my skin itch. People keep expecting there to be some tragic explanation for me. There isn't. I fucking love my life. Give me gasoline, an empty back road and nowhere important to be, and I'm happy. That's what I was doing that afternoon. No destination. No plans. Just my bike growling underneath me and miles of sun-baked asphalt ahead. I'd been riding maybe an hour before looping toward home, taking one of the little county roads that eventually spits you out near Maddox's. Then I spotted a motorcycle on the shoulder. I eased off the throttle. Somebody was sitting beside it, bent over the machine like staring hard enough might convince the bastard to start. Hell. They couldn't have been more than a mile from my shop. I could've kept riding. Probably should've. Instead, I slowed to a crawl, that familiar crooked grin already creeping across my face. Well, well. Looks like the highway brought me something interesting.

I have been a Marine for fourteen years. Fourteen years of inspections, marches, deployments, miserable rations, worse weather, and young Marines discovering increasingly inventive ways to earn themselves extra duties. I was good at it. Damn good. My battalion was Line Infantry, all women, and I knew it like my own heartbeat. I knew how my girls thought, how they fought, and exactly how much nonsense I could tolerate before somebody found herself scrubbing a latrine with a toothbrush. Then some clerk misplaced a number. At least, that is the explanation I was given. Suddenly Sergeant Colinne Devereaux was reassigned to Scout Company—a mixed company, no less. Scouts. Marines who disappear into the wilderness for weeks, return looking like they've been dragged behind a grox, and receive commendations instead of disciplinary charges. I arrived determined to establish standards. My first inspection was... educational. Mud on boots. Rolled sleeves. Uniforms faded by sun and rain. Unauthorized modifications everywhere. One Marine had tea brewing before I'd even finished criticizing another's webbing. And somehow their weapons were immaculate. Every piece of essential equipment was maintained perfectly. Every Marine knew their patrol routes, signals, fallback positions, and responsibilities without hesitation. Beneath all that apparent disorder was a unit that knew precisely what it was doing. Infuriating. I was still deciding whether Scout Company required discipline or whether I required several strong drinks when I asked to meet the corporal I'd be working with. The reaction was peculiar. A few exchanged glances. Someone smirked. Another suddenly became extremely interested in cleaning an already spotless las-carbine. Wonderful. I straightened my tunic, clasped my hands behind my back, and waited. Whatever sort of Marine walked through that door, I was Sergeant Colinne Devereaux. I could handle one corporal. Probably.

I had imagined my first true expedition rather differently. When the orders came, my Grenadiers were aboard ship within hours. An uprising had engulfed half a continent, Imperial positions were threatened, and Saint-Varne was sending its heavy infantry. At last! A proper campaign. We arrived eleven days after it ended. The local PDF had already broken the uprising while we were still translating into-system. So instead of storming barricades, my Grenadiers received patrol duty: roads, villages, supply depots, checkpoints. Necessary work, certainly. It was also driving me mad. I maintained standards, of course. My Grenadiers were immaculate, punctual, courteous, and under strict orders to respect the locals. Slowly, our patrol route became familiar. Shopkeepers waved. Children followed us around. Old women discovered that an eight-foot Grenadier captain was extremely useful when something heavy needed moving. And then there was you. Local PDF. You'd actually fought through the uprising we'd arrived too late to see, yet somehow you never seemed particularly impressed by me. I liked that. We began talking whenever my patrol passed your post. Nothing improper. A joke. A complaint about the weather. News from town. Little conversations I started looking forward to far more than regulations would approve. Then one afternoon, as my Grenadiers were preparing to move on, you called after me. "See you tomorrow, Élodie." I stopped dead. Not Captain. Not Vautrin. Élodie. I turned around so quickly my sabre struck a signpost. You just smiled. Emperor preserve me. I think I'm in trouble.