London.
The city's wet pavements reflected the glow of neon signs, streetlights, and brightly lit shop windows beneath the dark night sky — although the hour was already late, the bustling capital showed little sign of slowing down.
Traffic rolled steadily through the streets, with cars, buses, and taxis weaving through the crowded roads. The sidewalks were alive with movement as shoppers carried bags through the city, couples walked side by side past restaurants and cafés, and groups gathered around brightly lit shop displays.
"Uwaaaahhh!"
The cry of a baby suddenly rose above the noise, drawing a few glances from the pedestrians moving along the pavement. Among the crowd was a young couple walking with a stroller, the man carrying several large shopping bags while the woman pushed their crying child through the crowded sidewalk.
"What's wrong, honey..."
The woman quickly stopped walking and bent down to gently pick up the crying baby from the stroller. Cradling the child against her shoulder, she softly rocked her back and forth in an attempt to calm her down.
"I told you this would happen..." the man let out a tired sigh as he watched. "It's the weekend, everywhere's busy, and now we're trying to shop while carrying half the bloody city and watching Leila at the same time..."
"Last I checked, I'm the one who's been looking after her," the woman rolled her eyes without looking, continued trying to comfort the baby while pedestrians passed the three of them, giving brief glances at the crying child.
Meanwhile, the man let out another tired sigh, lowered the shopping bags into the stroller, and slowly began pushing it forward again.
"Hey... Stacy..."
A couple of steps later, hearing the strange tone in the man's voice, the woman turned slightly, only to realize he was no longer walking beside her. Looking back, she saw him standing frozen in place in the middle of the pavement, staring upward with his mouth slightly open.
"Zack... what's wrong?"
As the words left her mouth, she also followed his gaze upward toward the night sky.
Unbeknownst to her, the people around them were doing the same too. Like a chain reaction, one person looking upward made the next grow curious, and gradually the busy streets began slowing to a stop.
Even the cars along the roads were halting one after another, horns already blaring from some of them while drivers and passengers alike leaned out their windows and raised their heads toward the sky.
"My God..." the woman murmured under her breath, not even realizing she had begun clutching her baby a little too tightly against her chest. Her face was filled with shock, as though she were seeing something unbelievable.
Her eyes trembled slightly as lines of green and crimson light reflected within them, the source being the two enormous jets of light colliding high above beneath the dark clouds.
Their glow lit up the night sky like daylight, painting the clouds in two colors never before seen together. To the people below, the sight was both mesmerizing and terrifying.
Before long, nearly the entire city was staring toward the sky, when suddenly, a thunderous blast slammed against their eardrums, followed immediately by a powerful invisible shockwave.
Some were thrown directly to the ground, and screams erupted immediately afterward, followed by the blaring of vehicle horns and the sound of windows and glass shattering.
The shockwave from the collision in the sky finally descended upon the city, tearing through the streets like an invisible tidal wave and even cutting power to parts of the city.
"Uwaaaaah... Uh-Uwaaaaah..."
Whether it was the shockwave itself or the sudden eruption of screams and noise around them, baby Leila burst into even louder tears while Stacy finally came back to her senses and hurriedly looked around.
People were screaming and groaning while others had already begun running through the streets in panic. Near her, some were still sprawled across the pavement while others struggled back to their feet clutching their ears in pain, even Zack, and the moment she spotted him among them, she rushed toward him without hesitation.
"Zack! What the hell is going on?! Why are people holding their ears?!" she yelled loudly over the deafening noise.
With a pained groan, Zack grabbed Stacy's hand and slowly stood back up. His first instinct was to look toward Leila and check whether she was safe, and once he saw the baby was unharmed, he finally looked at Stacy, only to realize she seemed strangely unaffected by whatever had just happened, looking more puzzled than hurt.
"I'm okay... but Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?!"
"Was what? Never mind that right now, can you walk? We need to get to the car!"
Zack shook his head hard, trying to clear the painful ringing inside it while groaning again. Stacy did not seem to have felt whatever had slammed into him and the others around them, though he only frowned at the thought briefly before beginning to run beside her toward the parking lot.
Getting away from the chaos was the couple's only priority, especially with little Leila there, though all around them people could still be seen stopping to stare upward instead of fleeing.
Here and there, people stood with their mobile phones raised toward the sky, their curiosity clearly overtaking any fear of the unknown as they insisted on recording whatever impossible thing was happening above the city.
The first shockwave was only the beginning, while deafening booms and thunderous cracks now echoed continuously, and the bizarre lights above only grew more outrageous as time passed.
On the other hand, the police seemed to have come out in full force now to control the chaos, though they did not appear very successful just yet.
The sounds of "Move! Move!", "This way! This way!", and whistles were now mixed into the chaotic noise, making it impossible to tell one sound from another.
At one point, there was even a serpent that appeared to be made of fire itself twisting through the sky, its blazing body illuminating the clouds and even the city below as it let out a deafening roar.
Then, an even larger coil of water erupted upward from the River Thames like a massive stream before the two collided violently.
Zack and Stacy had been running for what felt like forever now, or at least trying to, because the chaotic streets packed with fleeing pedestrians and stalled vehicles had turned it more into pushing and squeezing their way forward than actual running.
But even they could not help pausing when that ginormous serpent of fire suddenly illuminated the entire city.
They were quite far from the iconic river that flowed directly through the city, but even from the distance, they could clearly see the equally enormous tornado of water rising from the distance like a gigantic pillar.
"Oh God... Zack, what the hell is going on up there?!"
Stacy said breathlessly while staring upward at the violent scene, the sheer scale of it making her entire body feel small and insignificant.
"Your guess is as good as mine... take a look over there." Zack suddenly pointed upward toward the sky where two tiny points of light could be seen, the source of those massive jets of light constantly streaking across the heavens.
They were moving unbelievably fast, but every now and then they descended low enough for the people below to vaguely make out humanoid silhouettes.
"Do you think they are angels?"
"I don't think angels fight among themselves. If anything, it's probably an angel and a devil... but I'm just glad most of their fight is happening high in the sky, otherwise this city would already be in ruins by now. Come on, we can't stop."
After saying, Zack grabbed Stacy once again and pulled her across the street amid the endless blaring of horns and traffic that had already come almost completely to a standstill.
The couple continued shoving through the chaotic crowds for a while longer, Zack at the front clearing the way while Stacy followed closely behind carrying Leila. Then Stacy suddenly felt something, perhaps it was a mother's instinct, because the moment she looked upward, her eyes trembled after seeing something enormous plummeting toward them from above.
"Zack! Wait..." she quickly grabbed him, but it was already too late, because in the very next instant, a loud crash exploded right above their heads before Zack instinctively pulled Stacy and Leila beneath him.
Too late, yes... then again, Zack could not have pulled Stacy and Leila beneath him if it truly had been. It seemed whatever had fallen had indeed crashed down, just not actually onto them.
Slowly, the couple raised their heads and saw that some kind of invisible wall had stopped a massive glass window along with a slab of concrete from falling onto them. They assumed as much because huge chunks of glass were still hanging motionless above their heads instead of dropping, while faint reflections of light revealed the outline of an invisible construct.
"What are you waiting for?! Hurry up and move!"
They were pulled out of their shock by the sound of someone shouting, and when they turned their heads, they saw a man in a police uniform standing beside another man who was also wearing some kind of... well, uniform.
His, however, looked nothing like law enforcement gear and more like a costume, because there was a literal half-cape draped over one shoulder.
The most bizarre thing was that the man was holding what appeared to be a stick with its glowing tip pointed toward them, or rather just above their heads.
"Move!"
"Y-yes... sir. Yes, sir."
Zack pulled Stacy who was carrying Leila out of there, though they did not immediately start running again. After creating some distance, the couple could not help but look back, just in time to see the man holding the stick wave his hand, causing those massive chunks of debris to rise and move before being violently thrown toward the side of the street.
They had undoubtedly just been saved from being crushed to death, of that much the couple was certain, but how exactly it had happened, neither of them could understand. It looked almost... magical.
"I-I'm not hallucinating, right?" Zack asked slowly while swallowing a dry mouthful.
"Unless we both imagined a man magically throwing away a pile of debris bigger than a car, then no... you're not hallucinating."
The couple spoke to each other in low voices, but were once again pulled out of their momentary daze when Leila started crying.
"Why are you still standing there for?! Get out of here!" the police officer yelled at them before he and the other man in the strange uniform ran off toward somewhere else.
From the looks of it, the two seemed to be working together as a team, though what kind of team it was, Zack and Stacy had no idea. Nor did they have the time to ask, because little Leila had been crying nonstop and they still had not even reached their car yet.
In fact, the place where they had parked was not actually very far, but because of the congested traffic, people running everywhere, and fallen debris blocking certain areas, they had been forced to take countless detours. On top of that, they had to carry Leila and make sure she stayed safe through all the chaos, which only slowed them down even more.
By now, they were panting heavily, covered in sweat, and had been running nonstop for what felt like an hour, maybe even longer, they could no longer tell.
Eventually, they finally arrived at their destination, but it still did not make them feel any better. The parking lot was just as chaotic as the streets outside, with people running everywhere and vehicles desperately trying to force their way out.
Frantic shouts and loud horns filled the area, and worse still, a huge chunk of concrete had fallen onto the entrance, blocking half the way and leaving only enough space for a single car to pass through.
"Now what?" Stacy asked between heavy breaths.
"Come on, at least staying inside the car is better than being out in the open," Zack told her before once again pulling Stacy along and beginning to run.
However, it seemed their bad luck was not over just yet. In the very next moment, from the corner of their eyes, they saw a streak of red light shoot down from the sky directly between the walkway where they stood and the parking lot across the street.
BOOM!
The ground shook beneath their feet as whatever it was slammed violently into the concrete. A cloud of dust billowed upward, and as luck would have it, the point of impact just so happened to be an empty area in the street.
"Zack... Zack, look..." Stacy whispered shakily, tugging at the back of Zack's jacket.
He turned back toward her and saw her staring upward with that same stunned expression he had already seen far too many times tonight. And before he knew it, he was looking up as well.
All around them came low murmurs and whispers as the street seemed to fall strangely quiet for a moment. It was not only the couple staring upward, but all along the road, people had stopped, while the cars that had been frantically coming out from the other side had also come to a halt. Some drivers had even stepped out of their cars, and basically everyone had their heads tilted toward the exact same point in the sky.
They saw a man doing something utterly impossible — standing in midair. Slowly, almost lazily, the figure drifted down toward the cloud of dust as though gravity simply did not apply to him.
His long black coat rippled faintly in the wind, but apart from that he looked perfectly calm, both hands tucked inside his pockets like floating was the most natural thing in the world.
He did not descend completely, but stopped a few feet above the ground before lazily waving his hand looking like he was swatting something away.
The murmurs around the street grew louder, but the man did not seem to hear any of it. He never once turned his head to look at the crowd, his attention focused solely on the dust cloud, or rather where the dust cloud had been, because it had parted apart the moment he lazily waved his hand.
Instinctively, everyone's eyes then fell toward the small crater that had now been revealed. Slowly rising from within it was another man... no, that could not possibly be a man, nor even something human.
What kind of human had a mouth like that, so wide that the corners nearly reached its ears? Its teeth could hardly even be called teeth, looking more like rows of sharp fangs. It did not have a nose, and its skin was paler than snow.
It wore a dark robe covered in dust, obviously from the fall, and torn in more than one place. The most impossible thing was that they could not see a single trace of blood on it. Any normal person would have been turned into minced meat from a fall like that.
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