Footsteps filled the empty streets. Ludwig Derleth ran with tears stinging his eyes and his younger sister, Liara, clinging to his back. Her right foot was badly strained after she tripped during their escape.
Ludwig forced himself to carry her in a piggyback ride even though his lungs burned and his muscles screamed with every step as he battled against exhaustion.
"Don't stop. They are catching up," Liara whispered. She was crying as she looked over her brother's shoulder. The image of their parents stayed fresh in her mind. Behind them, a horde of goblins was closing the distance.
'Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!' Ludwig cursed their misfortune in his head. He had no energy left to speak. His legs were about to give out, but he knew that stopping meant certain death for both of them.
Their luck grew even worse as they turned a corner. Ludwig skidded to a halt in horror, and Liara looked much the same. The only road forward was blocked by a massive wall of wreckage. It looked like the work of previous survivors who had built a barricade that now acted as a dead end.
"What do we do big bro?" Liara asked. Her voice trembled as hope vanished.
"I don't know," Ludwig said. He let out a heavy, ragged sigh.
He placed Liara on the ground and took a metal bar from the road. He stood in front of his sister and tried to remember a sword stance he had seen in video games. It was a desperate and hollow gesture. He knew these goblins were immune to every human weapon ever made thanks to the broadcast when it all happened.
His mind flashed back to New Year's Eve. Two weeks ago, rifts had opened in the sky and the earth. Mythical monsters poured out and destroyed major cities in hours. The military had tried to fight back, but bullets and explosives did nothing. The creatures were protected by something that nothing mundane could pierce through. In just fourteen days, every government on earth had fallen.
Only twenty minutes ago, these goblins had found the safe house where their family and many others were hiding. In their escape, their mother and Liara had tripped. Their father refused to leave their mother's side. He had shoved Liara into Ludwig's arms and made him promise to support his sister no matter what happened. Ludwig ran as his parents were torn to shreds to buy them a few measly seconds.
The remaining survivors spread out into groups and ran in different directions, hoping that they wouldn't be chased after, and that was where Ludwig's misfortune began. They choose to chase after Ludwig's family.
Ludwig raised the metal bar as the goblins lunged. Suddenly, a blinding light erupted from behind him. Something yanked him backward with incredible force. He tumbled through the air just as a goblin lunged at the spot where he had been standing. The creature was sliced into neat plates of flesh before it could even realize what happened.
Before he realized it, he was yanked back by something. His sudden movement caused the goblins to miss their attacks. One of the goblins was in the middle of lunging onto Ludwig and found itself being sliced apart into plates of flesh.
Ludwig stared in disbelief. He looked at the person standing where his sister had been. Instead of a frail fourteen-year-old girl that was his sister, he saw a girl her age with lustrous black hair reaching her thighs. Her outfit was a yellow and white lolita dress decorated with unfamiliar flowers.
"Who are you? Where is my sister?" Ludwig shouted at the girl.
The girl looked at him with a confused expression. "What do you mean? I am your sister."
The moment those words left the strange girl's mouth, it was like something finally connected in Ludwig's mind. The girl in front of him no longer looks like a stranger. Her face was more beautiful, but at a closer look, she was no doubt his sister, Liara.
'Ah, right, this is Liara, my sister. But what's with that outfit?'
Only moments ago, time had frozen for Liara. The goblins who were moving in for the kill were paused in time. In that stillness, a shadow of a spider descended from the wreckage above. The sight nearly made Liara pass out, but the voice of the creature kept her eyes open.
"I am Atropos, one of the sisters of fate." The spider introduced itself.
"We gods crave a new tapestry, and you fit the role of our weaver. Sign this contract by saying 'I accept' to become a magical girl, and you shall unlock the power within to weave the threads by willing the instruments to appear."
Liara looked at Ludwig's back in frozen time. She chose to protect the only family she had left.
"I accept," she said without a single doubt, and time moved again. The light of transformation enveloped her, giving her a new form, healed from the wound she sustained.
Strange power filled her body, and the name of this new form came to her the moment she transformed 'Lustrous Gosyppium.'
Following the instructions of her goddess, she willed her magic wand into existence. What appeared on her hand was a long silver needle with a fading string attached to the eye.
She channeled the strange power into the tool. With a sharp pulling gesture, she manifested a glowing string that coiled around Ludwig's waist to keep him out of danger.
Then she spun the needle in a wide arc, creating a shimmering web of threads in front of the goblins. The one that lunged where Ludwig was was instantly killed.
Despite this being her first time killing, she felt no guilt, no feeling for these monsters beside pure hatred for the sins they have committed against her precious family.
Ludwig watched as his sister battled against the goblins. She weaved through them with ease while piercing them through the heart with the needle one by one. With a pull she sewed their corpses into each other and created a neat amalgamation of dead goblins.
Suddenly the siblings heard laughter from afar. They turned their gaze to the top of a nearby building to see devilish creatures mocking them. One of the creatures burst into flames and vanished. Right after, it reappears beside Lustrous Gossypium.
Before the girl could react, the monster sent a punch enhanced by roaring flames into her solar plexus. The sheer force of the blow knocked her backward and sent her crashing into the wreckage. The wall that had blocked their path snapped in half from the impact.
"LIARA!" Ludwig screamed as he ran towards his sister under the mocking laughter of the monsters.
"No," he said as he looked at his sister in the wreckage. She was unconscious. The front of her dress was tattered, burned by the flames.
"I am Hades, God of The Underworld." The blue flame flickered, and Ludwig thought for a moment. In his years of playing video games and reading novels, he wasn't unfamiliar with this scenario.
"Am I gonna receive some kind of power, Lord Hades?"
"No, we can only bring out what already within, and you are an anomaly."
"What do you mean, Lord Hades?"
"Normally, a man shouldn't be able to have the potential nor the power. The laws of this world dictated that only women can wield mana. Yet you have both the potential and a power that fit my preference. Boy, I will offer you a contract that can save you from this predicament that you found yourself in. Sign it by saying 'I accept,' and you shall unlock the power to wield the Apocalypse by willing your magic wand into existence."
Ludwig didn't even ponder Hades's words for a moment and immediately said. "I accept."
The light of transformation covered his whole body as time resumed its course.
Mana filled Ludwig's body as the name of this new form appeared within the mind 'Equinox Spider Lily.'
After the transformation, Equinox Spider Lily looked down to see a black gothic lolita-style dress decorated with red frills. The most notable feature of the dress was a red ribbon tied into the shape of a spider lily located on the upper part of the chest.
"Eh?" A feminine voice blurted out of Equinox Spider Lily's mouth.