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A chill breeze brought gooseflesh to the surface of Samuel's skin though his insides burned hot as coals, as if he had just passed through a faulty microwave that burns the inside while leaving the surface raw.  The portal was exhilarating, and more than a little disorienting just as he was warned it would be.  This hot n'cold feeling he hadn't been prepared for however, and his gorge rose in his throat from the sensation.  Leaning over he put his hands on his knees and took long measured breathes of deliciously pure, crisp air to compose himself.  

     He was free, having just broken out of Queen Ruby's terrifying hell.  There was a cold wind on his face and he listened to the shrill sound of gulls calling to one another.  Somewhere nearby the calming sound of waves washed ashore.  A fertile scent of grass and rich soil filled his nose as he gazed out over the large plain he had appeared in, a wall of trees forming a barrier along the far side.  Even now he couldn't believe it had really happened.  Accepting the gift from that unusual, mysterious woman had been a desperate gamble.  The more he thought about it the more he was certain she must have been a giantess in disguise.  The woman may have looked human, but there was an air about her that definitely was not.  He felt like prey before her, alarmingly so, and a feeling like that could only mean one thing.  You don't feel that vulnerable even when facing the claws of some wild beast.  Perhaps it was that uneasiness which deterred him from wishing to refuse her offer. 

     The portal actually working was even more evidence for his suspicion.  He was delivered from Queen Ruby's hell, what kind of magic could accomplish such an impossible feat... just who was she?  He'd only met her one time, approaching him in a cowl so he couldn't see her face and offering him a way out.  A chance to slip through the gates of hell unseen and make a chance at something of a life again.  The risk was astronomical, Queen Ruby discovering he possessed even a faint thought of escape could have gotten him flayed in a way that could have lasted days.  

But freedom, isn't that worth any possible consequence in the end?  

     The portal was beginning to weaken, but wasn't closed yet.  Samuel didn't wish to be anywhere near it incase something else were to come through after him so he put his back to the water and began to make his way across the plain toward the tree line.  His clothes were nothing more than rags and he was already getting chilled.  It would be best he find some shelter before it got much colder out. 

     He might have gone a hundred yards from the portal before a deep rumbling began trembling through the earth beneath his feet.  Glancing up he saw the heavens darken and obscure through a haze of smoky colors.  An electrical current filled the air sending his hair standing on end as an ominous breeze buffeted him from behind.  A pit of dread opened in his stomach a moment before an expanding wall of force sent him sprawling to the dirt.  An unfortunate gull was caught in the current and burst into flames, spiraling into the ground before Samuel as he turned around to witness the dreaded black horns pierce through a much larger portal than his own, not far from where he had come.  Queen Ruby had wasted no time in tracking him down.  

     Before he could even begin to swallow the gravity of his newfound situation another wall of force pushed in against him from the other side, blistering his skin in its wake and igniting every gull in half a mile's radius to fall crashing to the earth in screeching balls of flame and feather.  This force was even greater than Queen Ruby's and sent animals careening from the area in a flight of terror as a huge gothic styled knee-length boot broke through the other portal and shook the trees violently as it stepped heavily onto the plain.  A delicate hand wrapped in a black arm warmer followed as the alluring, yet fear inducing silhouette of Cosmic Queen Lillian broke through the portal in a rippling wave of energy.

     Her glance was just a fraction of a moment, but it was enough to chill Samuel to the marrow of his bones.  When Lillian saw her sister standing beside the dissipating portal Samuel had come through, her dark lips parted into a cruel, shameless smile.

"It would seem the portal worked, dear sister, exactly as I had suspected it might."  Lillian spoke in her dark, yet smooth as velvet way.

"I had been doubtful of it, you are right.  I didn't think she could succeed and yet there the portal is.  Small as a disgusting worm stabbing itself into my realm."  Ruby replied in a voice barbed as it was beautiful.  Impatiently she whipped her hand with a sharp snap of her fingers and Samuel's portal burst into a shower of sparks as it was violently dismissed.  Turning she faced Lillian with a glower on her face that spoke volumes of her disapproval of having her realm violated this way.

"I know dear sister, it was a brazen act infiltrating your realm like this.  This girl is strong, cunning, and seemingly resourceful.  I am really looking forward to the chase, don't you agree?" 

     Lillian could feel the fire from her sister's eyes and it sent warm chills up her spine.  She loved it when Ruby got this way.  So volatile, her temper simmering just below the surface, threatening to boil over and blow the lid and the realm to pieces.  But it wasn't yet time to set her loose venting that anger.  That could wait until they had this treasonous little bitch in their clutches.  It wouldn't be difficult to find this slippery rogue giantess if Lillian applied her cosmic powers behind her search, but this way was much more exciting.  And besides, she wouldn't want to rob Ruby of the delight of finding her and whipping the smug little bitch to her knees.  

     It wasn't often the Queens were so openly challenged in such a manner from the lesser giantesses.  In truth Lillian was quite curious to discover what it was that set this one off so fearlessly.  Or more to the point, if she wasn't actually receiving a hand from another Queen.  But that thought was just delicious if not too hopeful.



     Samuel wanted nothing to do with that look written on Queen Ruby's face, the biting callousness of it alone was enough to shorten his breath, and when her eyes slowly lowered down toward him the blood coursing through his veins chilled several degrees as it ran from his face.  Lillian followed her sister's eyes to the quivering man lying on the grass below, clearly paralyzed by the oppressive weight of the Queen's energies.

     "Why do you think she chose him, who is this one?"  Lillian asks Ruby as she studies the pathetic man between their boots.

     "He is a mortal called Samuel, but there's nothing so special about him.  I couldn't say why he was chosen.  That rat of a woman had to know I could track any soul bound to my hell effortlessly.  It makes no difference whether the soul is still in my realm or not.  To me he's just a nothing, a complete eye sore who thought to escape my hell."  Ruby answers as the heat of her anger begins to curl the grass around where Samuel lies.  "I'd melt him if he were even remotely worth the effort."

     "No, I wouldn't say he is nothing."  Lillian replies, her sister's head snapping up to meet her eye with a questioning, if not threatening brow raised.  "What he is dear Ruby, is a message from our arrogant transgressor.  She's saying she can infiltrate a realm at will and take what doesn't belong to her.  She knew he would suffice to deliver that message, that is all."  

     "Then she's a fool as well as rat, I'd sooner find her than continue this silly game.  My whip is getting too anxious in wanting to taste her flesh."  Ruby reiterates as she runs her hand down the coiled black scourge hanging from her side. 

     "Yes, there is that, but first what to do with him?"  Lillian asks, lowering her eyes once more to Samuel, who lied trembling uncontrollably in the grass. 

     "What about him?  I'll send him back to hell and tear him apart at me leisure."  Ruby replies, the smoking grass around Samuel turning black and decaying even as she says it.  The thought was enough to make Samuel pass out on the spot.  Going back to hell, and what's worse he'd be going with the promise of being in Queen Ruby's foremost interest upon her return.

     "It might be we should answer our rogue giantess with a message of our own.  A promise rather, for it may be she's even watching this now.  Though I bid you not go looking for her just yet dear sister, I wish for this chase to continue a little longer.  It's such a rare experience, and I'm finding it quite enjoyable."  Lillian offers as Ruby looks on in interest.

     "What do you propose?"  Ruby asks.

     "I propose we give him what we give to all rogue giantesses who get in our way.  He's the first mortal to ever escape your hell, and very likely the very last.  He at the very least has distinguished himself as someone worthy of receiving a high honored end."  Lillian answers with a smile full of cruel enjoyment.

    "Aha!  You're saying we should crush him together is that it"  Ruby expresses with sudden realization "yes that is something for the pathetic humans to write songs about.  Samuel the Dual Crushed it will be called, the cretin who escaped from hell and found himself beneath the boots of not one, but two governing Queens of the universe.  Not any mortal can make such a claim!  I love your proposal, lets do it."  Ruby exclaims as the mischievous fire of her eyes warms the very air of the plain.  

     Samuel's head is a torrent of despair as the two Cosmic Queens move toward him, the weight of their combined energies pressing him even deeper into the blackened grass as they slowly raise the sole of their boots over his prone, violently shaking form.  As the treads of their boots hover in the air far over him the minute traces of energy left behind by millions upon millions of souls who have perished beneath them over the centuries beats down upon him like its own gravity.  A distorted, and tormented cacophony of pain and anguish so thick its become physically manifested within the very treads of the Queen's boots.  Acting as a chilling prelude before the fall of the Queen's step, it's been said a mortal's soul will often break beneath that heavy strain even ahead of the imminent crush, eliciting a total break down of emotion and reason.  

     Before the sister Queen's boots touched Samuel he had been driven mad, ripping at his own face until the heavy soles pressed him into the earth.  The horror that lied before him upon his return to Ruby's hell would be hard to compare to the agony he felt as his bones were broken and splintered to pieces beneath the sister's merciless press.  The boots mashed his vulnerable flesh into the the tight spaces between their rigid tread where it was torn and mixed into the muddy soil as the boots dug deeply into the rock and dirt.  

     Ruby bathed Samuel's soul in flame as she crushed it back into her realm of hell to await her return and the grasses around the sister's boots caught fire upon his passing.  When the crunching of his body had finally stopped, the plain had already been reduced to a smoked out, charred remain marking his grave site forever upon the earth.  Having been kissed by hell itself no grasses nor animals would ever return here again.  Satisfied they'd given Samuel a death worth remembering the sisters left the plain in an obliterated state soon after, in hunt for the one who brazenly spirited a soul out of hell.

    

Somewhere deep in the woods a woman in a heavy wool cowl crouched on a limb and looked out at the blackened remains of the plain left behind by the sister Queen's departure.  In the middle of it the crushed and still smoking skeletal remains of poor Samuel poked up through the scarred soil where their boots had rendered him to pulp.  Beneath her hood her eyes glimmered with delight as a smile found her lips.  She'd gotten their attention alright.  The games were just about to begin...

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