The Twins

The Brother cheers as he watches Lain shoot a laser clean through the skull of a freaking Kaiju, killing it instantly. The thing is, appearance wise, best described as a mix between whale and snapper turtle. Its body is long and ends with a finned tail like that of a humpback whale, but the thing has six massive and trunk-like legs that end with earth rending claws that dig into the soil with every step that carries its gigantic body forward at deceptively quick speeds. The thing’s head is like that of a snapper turtle, adorned with a beak that could crush almost anything, and finally, on its back is a massive, layered shell that covers the majority of its back until just before the end of its tail.

Describing the thing as a moving mountain would be the most apt description however, as the thing is literally carrying around a small mountain’s worth of earth on its back, having just pulled itself out of the ground after being woken from its winter hibernations. It even has a whole forest growing on its back from where trees had started to spread after it had buried itself in the Earth’s soft soil.

And now, it is dead, killed instantly by a single attack and leaving the ground shaking just from falling on its belly.

“Ahaha! Sister, did you see that? It was like ‘pew!’ and then it died!”

The Sister looks at her Brother and sighs. “Brother… Should you really be getting excited about her getting even stronger?”

“Hmm, why? I mean yeah, she killed the Goblin. But as long as she keeps turning more people into Demons and getting others to be able to use magic, then we should be fine with our energy concerns, right? And if we have to, we can always-“

The Sister interrupts, “No Brother, that isn’t what I meant!”

“Then what is it?” The Brother asks as he tilts his head, sitting comfortably on his favorite couch in their home, located on a branch of the //World Tree, hundreds of meters up in the air.

Scowling at her idiot Brother from her recliner, a glass of iced tea and a boylove manga on the table beside her, the Sister explains. “You idiot! If she gets too strong, then what’s to stop her from actually coming here and doing all those… things, she said she was going to do to us!?”

The Brother pales a bit but puts on a brave smile. “I’m sure she was just exaggerating… She wouldn’t actually… Anyways! Even if she tried, the //World Tree would protect us! She can’t beat a god.”

“Not yet, but what about in ten years? A hundred? What about a thousand!? We’re immortals, Brother. I’ve been looking though the tree’s memories, about the Demons…”

“Yeah…?”

“The last Demon King was known to hold grudges that lasted millennia. Contracts and promises must be fulfilled, it’s in their blood. Their minds are hardwired to it! And that includes swearing revenge against your enemies!”

“Wait…”

“Yes.”

“No…”

“Yes!”

“Oh… Oh shit! Sister, she going to… Oh, oh no! All those things she said!”

“Yes! Yes, damn it!”

“Ahhhh! Shit, shit, shit! Ok, what do we do? Can we kill her?”

“No, we can’t kill her!!! Without the Goblin King, we need her! The Fox is isolated to Japan and is still picking up the pieces of their society, the Dwarf is a baby, the Orc won’t accept our calls because he is too busy being a daddy, the Giant is too far away from everyone else, the Fairy is literally just a foot tall and getting high off of mushrooms, what the hell is she going to do? Throw flowers at her and lead an army of bees!?”

“What about that Mermaid you found?” The Brother asks. “Had she made any progress?”

“No… She got eaten by a Leviathan and then it tried to bite one of the //World Tree’s roots and got killed. She’s dead dead…”

The Brother sighs, “Dang, there goes my hopes for underwater cities. Would have been fun to visit…”

The Sister then asks, “What about that crazy bird girl you found? She isn’t too far away, right?”

The Brother just shrugs and shakes his head no. “She’s no good either. She’s isolated and won’t leave that church of hers. Wouldn’t even accept my calls either, calling me a false god... No major groups of human survivors anywhere near her for her to turn either, and even the nearest is just a group of bandits.”

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The Sister panics and holds her head. “Ahhh! We’re so screwed! I told you we shouldn’t have led the Goblin King to her! I told you! But you just wanted to have your fun watching them fight. ‘We need the extra energy, Sister. We need it.’ Ahh! I shouldn’t have listened to you!”

“Hey! It’s not like I knew this was going to happen! I just thought that-“

“You thought!? Because of you, we’re going to have watch our backs for the next who know how long, for a pissed off Demon Queen that wants to turn the both of us into her bitches! And we can’t do anything about it because she is our only reliable source of energy now!”

Sighing heavily into her hand in defeat, the Sister collapses into her recliner. Not wanting to piss off his Sister any more than he already has, the Brother tries to reassure her.

“Sister, even if she is stronger now, we still have time until she will try to reach us. Like you said, we’re all immortals, it could be thousands of years until then. Let’s just try and make peace with her. We can try and make friends, and maybe, after a few decades or so, maybe she will forgive us?”

“You think she will forgive us for leading an army of Goblins that wanted to eat her people, straight to her doorstep? Just be like, ‘Sorry, it was just a prank, bro.’ Yeah, I’m sure that will go great…”

“Well not like that, obviously… we could, I don’t know, try and help out here and there? Try to get her to like us, instead of hating our guts?”

“Oh, great. So, when she comes to turn us into her personal sex toys, she will then at least ‘like’ us, instead of just hate fucking us… great!”

“I mean, the least we can do is try! Not like I am any more excited for this as you are!”

The Sister just sighs. “No, no… You’re right. We have to try something. Worst case, we could always just run and hide… Hmm? Hey, Brother, she is doing something. What is that?”

They both return their attention to the sky over the base where Lain is currently hovering in the sky, her arm raised towards the heavens, a pulsating bead of super condensed black mana held aloft in the palm of her left hand. With each passing second, more and more mana is being pulled in and condensed within a single point, so much of it flowing in that all the surrounding mana, regardless of type, is being pulled in as well until the sky becomes devoid of all mana. Even the raging mana storm that had been formed by two monarchs fighting, begins to be sucked into the bead of trapped energy, clearing the sky and finally allowing the light of the moon and the stars to find the Earth.

And then she crushes it, allowing the little bead of power to go out of control as it collapses and rips a hole through the fabric of space. The Twins gawk as they look down at the miniature blackhole that had just formed in the Earth’s atmosphere, reeling back in surprise and fright as they find Lain looking up at them and smiling, her divine eyes clearly meeting theirs despite the fact that this should be a one-way observation.

Things quickly fall apart from there. Gravity inverts as vehicles and monsters, Goblins and anything not nailed down, starts to float into the air. Goblins that couldn’t get into hiding are lifted away by the hundreds of thousands, kicking and screaming and flailing as they are dragged through the air by gravity's cold and uncaring hands. Monsters roar and try to claw for the earth and anything else they can possibly grab, but are simply dragged away no matter how big or powerful they are. Car alarms go off as their wheels leave the ground, and a team of tank operators quickly abandons their vehicle as it is also lifted away. Artillery emplacement are soon to follow, the shells floating through the air and spilling out of crates as the massive guns are fairyed away into the sky. Surprisingly though, none of the people seem to be affected, being able to run for cover and panic even as every object near them is carried away.

She floats there in the sky as all these things goes fly past her to be sucked into oblivion, hand aimed downward as if is she is somehow able to control the pulling forces of gravity and decide what will and what won’t be taken. An angel of death deciding who will live and die with the wave of her hand.

Next, once the base had been cleared to her satisfaction, she directs her attention to the two remaining Kaiju that were approaching from the east. One, having sensed danger, has already turned tail and is fleeing back towards the ocean, but the second, a crab so large that you could build a small city on its back, it continues to charge forward without thought, being too aggressive to prioritize its own survival.

With the force of a blackhole focused on it, it soon finds its powerful and long legs being lifted into the air. It tries to fight back and dig in, but it only manages to leave trenches in the ground before it is lifted away, its large body tumbling end over end as it is caried away to its death. Its massive body breaks and falls apart in the sky as it is pulled and compressed into the singularity, not even its chittering screams managing to escape from its pull as there is nothing but a deadening silence.

Now, with all threats removed, she turns her attention to the Earth itself.

“I will protect what is mine.”

The Sister’s eyes widen in shock as she sees large sections of forest and earth being pulled away from around the outer edge of the base, whole chunks of land, a hundred meters wide, simply being torn out piece by piece as they are pulled up and devoured by the blackhole.

Starting as a ring around the base and its expansions, the Earth is stripped of its flesh several acres at a time, great portions of land being lifted into the air like flying islands before breaking apart in the air and being sucked away into oblivion. With each passing moment, the ring grows and expands, its depths being dug deeper and deeper until underground caves and springs are exposed to open air, as more and more land is violently ripped away until the base is left as an island surrounded by a deep canyon that is only growing deeper and wider with each passing moment.

The Demon Queen is smiling, her sharp teeth showing as she looks down at the destruction that she is inflicting upon the world, but more so, because she knows that what is hers will now become unassailable. A single island that is all hers, an unquestionable border line marking her property.

Now, she just need to remove any remaining threats.

…

The Twins panic, not knowing how to deal with a literal blackhole sucking away the Earth’s crust. They don’t know how far the rampaging Demon Queen will go to protect her little island from everyone else, how much she will destroy before she is satisfied or even is she plans on destroying the world. They don’t even know if she has the power necessary to stop it herself, or if she is merely limited to directing its power.

So, they do the only thing they can think to do. They turn to their god and beg for its help.

And.

It answers.