“I still remember that day as if it was yesterday, every second from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep, and in every second I remember every scent I smelled, every sight I saw, every texture I felt. It lives in my head everyday like a leech in the back of my brain, always there, always remembered. Every word I spoke and every action I took led up to this day, and even the smallest deviation could’ve changed everything. But there were no such deviations, and what happened happened, and nothing that happens will change that. So I’ll recount the day exactly as it had gone, and exactly how it all ended.”
Sunrise bled tones of cyan light over the rich sierra, casting light that fought the darkness of the night as day broke over the peaceful Earth. Amongst the vegetation being lit up, so were the innumerable buildings that were etched into the mountain’s sides, their bodies curved to fit the angle at which they were built into.
They had red metallic bodies that were brightened by the rising supersun and pacing through the skyscraper were rivers of pods roaming the mountain city. The buildings had differing heights due to the differing altitudes at which they base resided in, leading to dips and rises of the traffic down and up the mountain range. With there being so many ranges close to each other, the city was impressively large, and also received great traffic as its odd geological placement mostly served as an attraction rather than a deterrent.
Below the traffic by the green surface of the range was a network of white hovering disks that traversed the mountains, and standing on those disks were groups of people as they were large enough to hold over ten people. All of the disks had holographic blue railings, which prevented the young children from being able to fall off.
There wasn’t as much tampering with the surface as there were no roads or sidewalks, rather the only built constructs were the highrises, although the trees had been shaved off to give clarity from the ground.
Among the people transported on the white disks were still crowds walking on foot, taking hikes right outside their homes as they had to walk up and down the mountains. Adults and children of varying ages roamed their home together just like they would any other day, as even early the city was bustling. Groups walked up to the red buildings, which had entries on the ground that let them get inside, although there were no parking lots on the ground.
One of the families walking was a mother and father bordering their young teenager boy, all going on a morning walk up the mountain as they would any other day. While making their way up the sierra, the boy raised his head towards the sky, peering tightly as if something had caught his interest up in the clouds.
He maintained sight of the clouds as from nowhere, an odd pulsating hum that formed a siren began to grow, so loud that they nearly startled the boy. He stopped walking when the siren kept getting louder, to which both parents also stopped.
The father asked, “What’s wrong Adrian?”, but he got no verbal response. After taking notice of his son’s gaze, he too looked up, and so did the mother as a massive shadow was cast over them, shrouding them in darkness.
Flaps became louder, so much that they shook the earth, and the titanic circular shadow eclipsed the city, depriving it of the sunrise’s greeting light. The traffic soon slowed down in response too, as the shadow gradually enlarged over the sierra.
Still with a petrified expression, the son stared up at the sky, and past the red skyscrapers surrounding him he stared at an entity up in the clouds, a colossal spherical object that gradually descended down, and as it drew closer, the people on the ground began shouting and running away in terror.
Disks raced away as the mother began shaking the boy, shouting at him but to no avail, for the son stood still with wide eyes. He was then picked up by the desperate father, who began running down the mountain, shouting as did the mother while the son stayed silent.
Above the city, the spherical entity descended closer, and upon nearer proximity its true form was better visible. Rather than it being a globe, it was composed of several spinning fleshy rings which constantly changed rotation, thereby causing the effect of a sphere. In the center of the rings was a truly disturbing sight, a single gigantic eye floating in the middle, staring widely at the city.
On the ground people ran as some pods started inclining dramatically to escape the traffic while others remained stationary as the giant entity approached the city, its eye occasionally blinking, and the closer it drew, the more clear its body was.
Along the rings of the entity were a myriad of smaller eyes, all alive as they blinked and moved, all wide and focusing their sight on the city as the entity descended from the clouds, so freakishly large that its central pupil was magnitudes larger in diameter than most adults.
But the worst was yet to come, as while the city was evacuating in fear, another spherical object’s silhouette appeared in the clouds, growing larger quickly meaning it was moving fast. The sound of flames started to grow from the second sphere as well, moving next to where the entity had come from.
Bursting out through the clouds, the second object was revealed to be a meteor with the diameter of a football stadium, hurling towards the sierra in a blazing trail.
Whereas the first intruder was freakish due to its odd form, this second intruder was terrifying due to its known implications, as sirens began to blare in the city among audible screaming from the panicked civilians. Pods started breaking off traffic and flying in chaotic directions, trying to speed away from the meteor which flew towards the city full of citizens on the ground, unable to leave the blast radius so easily.
In the son’s wide iris’s reflection was the plummeting meteor while he’s carried by his father, and in the reflection of the rocky meteor a subtle purple flash appeared over its surface, and following a moment later a sky blue streak raced up on the surface in a circle, and then began to move in rings similar to the all seeing entity, zooming around the rocky meteor while leaving behind the thick visible residual trail.
Racing against time, the blue streak circled around the meteor which flew downwards with a flaming trail of its own. Soon the meteor was shining blue itself from the density of the trail. Similar to the eye rings, the trail also changed rotations constantly to cover more ground.
More and more the streak ran around the meteor, cracks began to form on the surface of the rock, getting larger exponentially as the immense friction of the sprint was starting to degrade its integrity, chipping at it as larger cracks branched off into more.
Right as the meteor seemed just about to crumble, another purple flash appeared over the streak’s head, causing the head to vanish right as the entire meteor shattered into multiple fragments, still falling fast but now no longer as huge.
The fragments continued to fall as another purple flash appeared below them, and suddenly a massive net of the sky below the fragments also flashed purple, as a strange hue was cast over the sky.
When the fragments flew through the net, they were struck by vibrational shocks that shattered them into more smaller fragments, being broken down into still being far larger than a pebble but now a fraction of their former magnitude.
All of the many fragments continued to drop towards the city on the hill, but just before they could strike the top of the red skyscrapers, all of them suddenly became suspended in air, freezing and losing all the momentum they had.
A faint green light hovered amongst the meteors, and seconds after they all froze, they suddenly flew upwards, as though being catapulted by an invisible source. They all soared towards the entity in the sky, which faced the rising shower.
Midway through the meteor shower’s ascent, a blue ring flashed ahead of the shower, and then appeared a gigantic silver ring that hovered in the air at an angle following the meteor’s trajectory, large enough that all of the meteor fragments were heading through it.
Filling the ring was a translucent blue wall of energy, like a net, which hummed quietly as the meteor fragments approached it fast.
By passing through the blue net, all the fragments suddenly accelerated enormously as though being shoved inside the net, soaring with incredible speed and striking the entity in a barrage, all of which hit the target with a massive burst of rocky smoke. As the smoke covered the entity, the silver ring flared blue before vanishing, all of the commotion occurring above the citizens who never stopped running.
However, as the smoke settled and dispersed, it revealed the entity still in the air, seemingly unharmed. Its rings kept moving as the central eye glared at where the fragments had struck it, contracting as though upset that the meteor was dispelled.
High up in the air far above the frightened civilians, Intrepid ascended in a green streak, soaring towards the entity. Her eyes were sharp and focused as she reported, “That hardly did anything, what even is that thing?”
Joining next to Intrepid in her rise towards the creature, Tachyon rapidly spun his arms in a circle as well as his legs, consistently maintaining wind tunnels with a sky blue tint off his limbs to push himself up. His head was raised to analyze the entity, and he remarked curiously “Looks like an angel, I think.”
Next to Tachyon drifted Eidolon, her body translucent with a purple cast as her dimensional presence was reduced below the threshold that her body would carry weight, providing her the power of being unbound to it and thus giving her the ability of flight even if it meant not being fully physical. She stared up at the same creature before apprehensively debating, “I thought angels were pretty people with white wings, this looks like a demon.”
Soaring beside his team, Furcifer dawned a silver sleek exoskeleton on his body, which had flight capabilities that rocketed him up with a blue trail of exhaust off the frame. His arms gripped an assault rifle tightly as he also gazed at the creature, earnestly noting “We need an actual plan, regardless of what we’re calling it. Do we know anything about it? That eye in the center might be a weak point, can someone try hitting it?”
“Sure thing, let me try something,” answered the fifth teammate, and racing past all four of them was the azureus comet, bolting towards the angel in the sky, taking action.
At the head of the comet was Meditat, who held his right arm back, and his hands emitted blue flames which formed the shape of a long rod several times his own height before it was erected as a great silver javelin with a sharp radiating orange tip. The end of the rod lit up as though having a motor of its own, and Meditat aimed the javelin right at the angel.
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He then grunted in exertion and threw the javelin forward, which then launched further by a blue burst from its end like a rocket, zooming straight for the central eye’s pupil.
In the air the javelin flew towards the angel, set on a course between the rings as it was aimed perfectly to strike the eye unobstructed. It flew straight past the rings just as planned, and soared right for the pupil to puncture it when it was suddenly redirected backwards and flew straight back where it came from, diverging from its target as though being flicked by an invisible force.
All of a sudden, the javelin was racing straight for Meditat, given far more acceleration after the knock, as it only took a couple seconds to reach its target. He instinctively raised his arms, and constructed a metal wall in front of him to shield himself right before the javelin struck it, resulting in an explosion from the discharge of the volatile tip.
Caught in the explosion, Meditat temporarily tapped out and began freefall as the wall he erected vaporized into blue flames. He began accelerating as he plummeted towards the Earth, his arms hung above him as he was disoriented from the self inflicted strike.
As Meditat dropped towards the ground, a purple flash appeared over him, and he suddenly was caught in the black and purple arms of Eidolon, who held him bridal style after hastily reaching for him. She was more opaque now as she needed to be able to hold him, and looked down at his face with a gentle tilt.
Held warmly, Meditat lowered his head and tilted it to meet Eidolon’s gaze, reacquiring orientation as his savior was standing on vibrating purple air, which helped support them.
They gazed at each for a moment, and Meditat nodded his head, to which Eidolon dropped her arms, and Meditat boosted sideways and raised back up, approaching the other three of the group who had passed him, quickly joined in a flash by the fourth who became more ghostly to continue flight.
After reaching the squad and slowing down his pace to match theirs, he returned his gaze at the angel and reported, “Looks like it has some sort of telekinesis like Intrepid, that would explain how it managed to hurtle an entire meteor. But if it has that ability, I’m not sure how we’re supposed to put it down. Also, seeing how it’s spherical and has eyes everywhere, I doubt we could flank it from behind.”
Above the angel which glared at the five, the clouds started to darken rapidly, as the light of day was quickly fading even in the early morning. An ominous crackle of lightning clapped, and suddenly downpour began from above as a storm was quickly initiated.
Flashes appeared above the angel as thunder roared, for it seemed the angel was beginning to become enraged by the efforts of the group.
Below the angel but approaching it, Intrepid cast an invisible umbrella, causing the rain below her to freeze in place until she passed it, continuing this procedure as it meant she was never hit by any of the raindrops, thereby leaving her dry.
A soft sigh came out of Tachyon before he commented, “I think he’s mad, or she…or it?”
“We can flank it,” stated Furcifer, who was still studying the angel as they were getting closer to it, and thus needed a plan quickly if they weren’t going to stop.
Meditat glimpsed at Furcifer perplexed, but wasn’t able to interject before Furcifer elaborated, “I have a plan. Tachyon, I need you to run around this ‘angel,’ make it focus on you from all sides, but to do that I can’t have you flying like that so I’ll need Meditat to make a course for you. I also need Intrepid to sustain hold of him, don’t suspend him but follow his movements, I need you to do that so it can’t throw Tachyon off. Then, Eidolon, both of us are going to go for the eye, I’ll need you in front as a flank so I can get close enough to it.”
Intrepid cracked her neck to prepare, and she reflected, “Trying to hold onto Tachyon will be a handful, but I’ll do my best.”
Tachyon frantically asserted, “Yeah, please do, I don’t want to be flung away, or worse.”
“Meditat, ready?” primed Furcifer, turning to face him who was right beside him still.
Soaring up alongside the team, Meditat nodded his head, and stretched his arm out. Blue flames launched out of his hand in front of Tachyon before changing direction, becoming slimmer and wider like a road before continuing up towards the angel.
As the road continued to constantly extend, it solidified into a white platform that hummed softly as it levitated in the air to stay off the ground.
Intrepid then aimed her hand at Tachyon, and while nothing changed as he was still moving on his own, she had grabbed hold of him. She nodded her head, staring at Tachyon through her glowing green eyes, ready.
After funneling himself up a few more feet, Tachyon threw his arms forward, offsetting his orientation backwards but setting it aligned with the platform. His shoes stopped spinning and instead grabbed onto the platform as he started to run, to which he stopped spinning his arms as well and focused on sprinting up in a blue streak towards the angel at a far greater pace.
White loop formed around the angel as the blue streak followed right behind it, racing around the angel as Meditat continued to form the track, letting it branch in multiple directions and connect with itself to give more space for him to move, bending the track to make sure the runner would be visible to the angel to let it try tracking him.
Utilizing the branching paths, Tachyon split off into several streaks, generating mirages to become even more confusing as now there were several of him running around the angel, which hovered perplexed, its ring spinning as its central eye kept bouncing in its sclera to try tracking the runner.
All of the eyes along the rings also started shifting around, trying to capture sight of Tachyon, which was becoming a more strenuous task even with its all seeing perspective. However, it successfully managed to glance at Tachyon for a split moment, which was just enough to make its attack.
Thunder deeply roared in the high sky right when Tachyon felt a light push against his body, however he remained on the platform and was still able to run. He sighed in relief, knowing that he just experienced an attempted attack but was under the protection of his ally.
He kept moving with no need to slow down, his sprint projecting afterimages behind every step made as he stuck to the plan of looping around the creature, fearless as he had his trust in his team who’d keep him running.
Flashes of lightning flickered while Meditat lingered by the eye across from Intrepid, both aiding Tachyon’s cover as Eidolon approached the angel in front of Furcifer. Meditat kept both hands up as he rid parts of the track and added new ones, granting diverse courses that kept changing Tachyon’s movement patterns as he ran looks around the eye, getting closer and further at random all at once as the eye tried to track countless mirages.
Bolting towards the angel in a straight line, Eidolon raced forward, right towards the complex white maze surrounding the angel.
Behind her, Furcifer aimed both of his arms at the creature, his head up straight staring through Eidolon’s translucent body, able to get a clear sight of the angel.
Darting between the blue streaks of the runner, then through the eye-filled rings of the angel, Eidolon held both of her arms out just like Furcifer, assuming the same stance to perfectly cover him. She dove straight for the angel, whose central eye twitched right at her, glaring at its target before attempting to throw it off.
However, Eidolon didn’t budge, and instead she soared straight through the eye unaffected, but also not affecting the eye like an illusion.
Right behind the illusive decoy now appeared Furcifer, who extracted all four of his gauntlet’s blades–both from each arm– the exact quarter second before it pierced the eye. All four blades plunged straight through the pupil at the exact moment that lightning cackled as a blinding flash appeared over the leader, and in that moment he had pierced the angel.
Right upon the four points of impact in the pupil, red spots appeared before following with veiny cracks that gradually covered the eye like branches. Struck by the blades channeling the same energy that brought inhuman powers to so many billions of people and formed the system that defied prior science itself, the angel was overwhelmed by power even beyond its own nature, as once again the blades managed to pierce anything they touched.
Furcifer pivoted his body to place his feet on the eye, his fists touching the eye as he drove his blades as far deep as he possibly could. He then kicked off of the eye, ripping his blades out, and gliding backwards as the entire eye became red, and soon all of the eyes around the rings became red too.
In great agony, the angel’s siren grew incredibly loud and screeched as though in pain, as the eye lifted straight up and the rings started moving at increasingly greater rates.
At the tip of the white trail, the platform turned away from the angel and started diverging away from it after the creator witnessed the angel’s reaction. One blue streak followed the diverging path away from the angel as the rest then ceased, and both Meditat and Intrepid started drifting away.
Screaming through its otherworldly siren, the angel’s rings cracked with golden light shining through. More cracks rapidly appeared over its rings surrounding the blood covered eye as the team distanced from the creature.
Trying its best to hold out, the angel hollered as it was filled with cracks, but ultimately it exploded in a blinding golden light as the siren hit one high pitch and stuck with it throughout the duration of the flash.
As the light dissipated, the pitch experienced a decrescendo, and once both the light and pitch died out it was revealed that there was no more angel in the sky.
Being caught by the exoskeleton’s flight systems, Furcifer stopped midair in his self throwing kick, and hovered in place before he was then joined by the sudden appearance of Eidolon beside him accompanied by Intrepid who calmly flew to their side.
On Furcifer’s other side, the white platform curled behind him and stopped right next to Furcifer, and sprinting on the platform was the blue streak before reaching the end and stepping off. At the head of the streak was Tachyon, who started rolling his arms and legs again, once more using wind funnels to keep himself afloat.
The white path used by Tachyon promptly was set ablaze and was erased, followed by Meditat hovering beside Tachyon, as all five of the team faced the place that the angel was over.
All five looked ahead as the heavy rain came to an abrupt stop as did the thunder and flashes, and a few seconds after light began piercing the whitening clouds. The weather seemed to quickly calm down, allowing the cyan rays of sunshine to return to the sierra over the saved city which was nearly wiped out if it hadn’t been for the speedy arrival of the five.
Intrepid softly smiled in relief now that she didn’t need to stop the rain, and the rest of the team breathed deeply as they were also all able to now relax, for the battle was over.
Together the team hovered side by side in the bright blue sky, light shining down on them from above as they were able to bask in the sunlight and victory all at once, and it felt refreshing especially so early in the morning.
But the day had just begun.