From the heavens, a blaze of light that lit the night sky, he appeared. Roaring at near the speed of sound, the alien or god or whatever he was, hurtled through the clouds, sending them flying off in all directions. From the ground, he looked like a comet heading for the surface.
But there was, of course, something in the way. Something that would prevent him from hitting the surface. The entity that had sent him back into the inky void he had originally come from, standing triumphant over the barely living bodies of his friends and colleagues. Not to mention the multitude of innocent casualties.
The entity heard his approach and turned. Bringing his hand up, that cursed right hand, the icon that had started all of this three days earlier, he started a familiar incantation, the rite that would send Earths final hero back out again like one of those rubber balls attached to a ping pong paddle with an elastic cord.
But he didnt get to finish his ritual. He didnt get to say the words that the alien had heard several times already. The alien, the hero, didnt slow down. He didnt stop like the last time. He didnt offer this entity an ultimatum or a bargain. There were no more words to be said. He didnt stop.
The entity stuttered an incoherent noise as the super man flew through its abominable hand, and through its head, or what passed for a head. Whatever it was made of rained down on the bodies and wreckage below before the body of this thing crumpled, no longer able to control itself. It fell and lay lifeless and still on what had once been a major highway.
It was over and while there would be recriminations, the danger had passed. The alien, our hero, landed gently beside the human woman he had come to love, her head twisted at an unnatural angle, a look of shock on her frozen face.
The world could not know how to react to what had happened. They had lived, until recently, in a world of minor disturbances, mad men with home made weapons and mischief makers on a mission to annoy rather than to destroy.
Even with an immensely powerful godlike being walking – or flying – among them, there had been nothing more dangerous than stolen weapons; a theft that was quickly undone and the perpetrators locked away.
Now, though. Things had changed. Not only was there the chance of an event that would actively seek to harm innocent people, but there were new creatures in the world. Creatures summoned from places that were once reserved for fiction. Something, somewhere, had pushed their foot down on the cosmic accelerator and this world was heading for some things that no one could, or wanted to, predict.
The saviour was not arrested, nor was he considered culpable. He wasnt asked to appear before any state sanctioned body to atone for his actions, or even to explain them. But that doesnt mean that people werent blaming him. In the eyes of the media, and the general population, what had happened had happened because of him.
He fronted a government committee; a committee that had been formed when had first arrived here. A committee that was designed to determine if he, and any other unnaturally powered people, were a threat to the nation they had made their homes in.
He sat before this committee, by himself, with no cameras, no press and no recording devices at all. He sat there for 29 hours and answered every single question that was asked of him. He sat there and he explained where he came from, what had happened to his people and why he had chosen Earth to settle on. He explained the nature of the cosmic conflict he had tried, and failed, to contain. And, of course, he explained what had happened on Earth in a few very long days, that previous week.
Officially, he was cleared of any wrong doing. What had happened could not have been predicted or prevented. The fault was on chaos theory. An ignorance of other levels of existence that humans and alien gods shared.
He shared these findings with anyone who asked. He was an open book, and he maintained that if they had more questions, he would return. He was not here to hide things.
Except he did hide things. He hadnt lied, but he could not be held responsible if they had not asked the correct questions. But, then again, how could these people know about magic?
High in orbit, a watchful eye over the world, a giant space station circled. Not a headquarters, nor a home, it was a waystation. A place to rest or to recover. A shared space for the heroes of this world, away from the prying eyes of those who didnt trust them. A safe place for people who trusted each other even a little more than they trusted the people below.
In the main space, a large oval shaped meeting room, a young man in a red suit, emblazoned with a mysterious symbol even he didnt understand, sat with the hood of his suit pulled back and watched the final moments of the fight with the entity on a large screen.
It was the first time he had seen it, having only recovered from his injuries sustained in the fight the day before, and was in awe at the sight. Usually, he would have some commentary or witty one liners about the shit that him, and the others were involved in, but now he could only watch in silence as one of the linchpins of their little team, the man who would preach rehabilitation until the sun exploded, utterly destroyed a being from a world that could not exist and then cradled his dead wife in his hands covered in ichor and other entrails, if you could even call them that.
“My god,” the red suited man whispered. “How?”
“When you have no other options,” a voice said behind him. “Sometimes all you have left is blunt force.”
The red suited man spun around in his chair and came face to face with the alien god he had just watched eliminate a gigantic, magical creature. “Are you ok?” he asked immediately.
The alien nodded solemnly. “I am. I have taken my rest and I am ready to get back to work.”
“Your wife, though?” the other man said slowly, not knowing how this conversation was going to end.
The alien sighed, not a sigh of sadness, a sigh of impatience. “Her life was taken in vain,” he said. “But there is nothing that can be done about it. She cannot be brought back.”
“No, I know, man, but the funeral? You mourn, dont you? Feel grief?”
“In my way,” he said. “It doesnt change anything else, though. We go back to work. We defend the people who are still alive.”
“Man, you know you can just, like, take a day, right? Deal with your feelings?”
“I am aware of your traditions,” the alien said without emotion.
“I mean, we got this. We can take care of things if you need a break.”
The alien tilted his head and looked at the other man. “You were rendered unconscious for nearly two weeks. Many of the others thought you would die. Even the warrior, the woman, she barely managed to survive our engagement with that creature. Each of you have a weakness it was able to exploit and you think you could hold your own against it should it return?”
“Well, that thing wont come back,” he flicked his thumb back at the screen, frozen on the alien who stood before him, appearing out of the back of the creatures head. “And you wont be gone forever. Just a few days to mourn with Carla’s family. To share memories with them. All that stuff.”
The alien sighed, and in a very human motion, wiped his hand over his face. He looked back over at the other man, his mouth open, about to speak. But before he could utter a single word, the air around the two men was full of what looked like lightning bolts jaggedly ripping through the room they were in.
The red suited man pulled his hood up and braced himself for something. The alien watched something as it travelled with the lightning.
“Be ready,” the alien said as the lightning faded out, the last thread, running down through the empty space before it grounded itself inside the figure of a young woman, crouching on the ground. She was wearing a long green shapeless dress, red hair curling down her back.
As the air cleared, the two men stood some distance away and waited. The aliens eyes glowed a soft blue, a warning not worth ignoring. The red suited man had a small portal opened next to him, his hand floating above it, waiting to plunge inside to pull out an appropriate weapon.
“Dont!” the woman shouted before moving. “Please, dont. I know both of you are thinking about attacking me. I know youre going to use your eye pulses and if your hand goes into that portal, it pulls out a gun. Just that, a gun. You can shoot me and Ill die. Listen, just dont. It isnt worth it and regardless of any of that, I am on your side. Im your ally, hell, Im your friend. Please, dont attack, let me stand, let me explain, ok?”
The two men looked at each other. The red suited man moved first and closed his portal. The alien nodded and relaxed, his eyes stopped glowing and he appeared to shrink a full two inches.
“If a gun can kill you, Im sure I dont need the portals,” he said.
“Indeed,” the alien said. “Speak your piece.”
The woman slowly rose to her feet and turned to face them. The dress fell to the floor, and was almost regal in its design. Along the hems and accents, gold and black lace had been stitched and the stitching was in the shape of the same logo the red suited man wore. To reinforce the point, the same logo again appeared on her chest, smaller than the mans, and in a different spot, but undoubtedly the same symbol.
“You wear my sign,” the redsuited man said, opening his hand.
“I had your blessing,” she replied. “I can prove it, sort of.”
“Later,” the alien said. “Who are you, why are you here, how did you get inside this station?”
“Answer that last one first,” the red suited man said.
“Answer them all,” the alien intoned.
The woman held her hands up in the sign of innocence and empty-handedness. “My name is Delia, I cant put this any other way, but I was sent back from the future to warn you of an impending event that dwarfs what you just experienced. And you,” she pointed to the alien, “told me how to disrupt the shields on this base for me to be sent here. 100 years from now.”
The alien narrowed his eyes. “Why would I do that?”
“You were dying,” she replied. “You were dying and your death was going to destroy the world. You cannot be allowed to die. Ever.”