BOOM!
The first explosion tore through the Western market without a warning.
There was no declaration of war or any signs that something was up. Destruction just appeared suddenly like a natural disaster.
Stone shattered, shooting out into the air as fire rolled through tightly packed streets.
Boom! BOOM! Boom!
Bodies flung aside like debris, limbs being torn, ripped to shreds. Stalls, homes, and people were swallowed whole by the explosion that seemed to have no end in sight.
Shockwaves ripped the air from people's lungs before they could even form a scream.
Then the screaming began.
"Jonny! Jonny nooooo!" A mother fell to her knees, clutching a limp body, rocking back and forth as if the motion could undo reality and bring her son back to life.
"Baby sister! Sis! Sam, where are you? Where are you?!" a boy screamed as he ran through a cloud of smoke, calling out for his sister until he tripped. "Ow."
His hands scraped the ground and as the smoke cleared out, he shrieked.
He recognized that the hand connected to nothing. It was the same hand he had tangled his fingers with the previous day as they were walking in the market, looking for snacks to buy.
"Sam!"
He began crawling around, trying to find the rest of her body. Eventually, he found it, trapped under a pile of debris.
"Sam… Sam! We have to go. We need to get going!" he called out to her but — she didn't move. Her eyes were open, no longer blinking, the life in them no longer present.
People stampeded, their bodies crashing like pins.
Some tripped over their own foot.
Desperate to live, those who were struggling to walk chose to crawl.
Some were crushed into a fine paste. Others burned where they stood.
Bells rang widely, not in order, not even to warn people about the terrorist attack. It was just noise layered on top of the terror consuming the capital city of Valdonia, Valdonia City.
The capital was breaking. It wasn't only the Western market that was attacked. So was the Eastern market, the shopping strip, the housing areas, etc.
Above it all, Coco Costa hovered in the air.
Her expression was unreadable as she threw these violet-black star sigils from her palms.
"So many people are crying," she murmured softly.
Her hand lifted and she threw another star-shaped sigil.
The spot where the sigil landed, the street below, it folded inward, collapsing into itself as if gravity had chosen that one place to be crueler than the rest. A building nearby imploded, burying families who had been hiding inside.
Her hair was partially black with a purple layer on the underside. Her eyes, the ones that looked around the city with a strange expression, were also purple in color.
Sesto, the gray-haired half-blood werewolf, leaped down from the building he was standing on.
As soon as he touched down on the ground, he burst into laughter. The sounds coming out of him were feral, unhinged, and his body was already halfway transformed as fur tore through his skin. His spine cracked loudly.
"It feels nice to transform into my true form finally," a wolf head chuckled.
Going down on all four, he began sprinting like a wolf. His speed was impossible to follow with the naked eye, and just by running, he tore through a line of guards like paper.
"Too easy!"
His claws were so sharp that they rendered even the toughest armor useless. Bodies were thrown aside with brute force.
"Citizens of Valdonia City, scream!" he roared. "Let me hear it!"
And they did.
The one the two called "Conductor", Amadore Giovinco, stood untouched at the center of the chaos. He had a thin black baton raised in the air as if he was conducting a symphony no one else could hear.
Boom!
With each subtle movement, destruction followed. Explosions chained together unnaturally.
Boom! Boom! BOOM!
Another swing of his baton.
A shockwave bent a building.
Nothing about him seemed random. Everything seemed orchestrated.
The capital drowned in panic, creating a music piece that he had been wanting to listen to for so long.
The children who cried until their voices broke reminded him of the neighborhood kids with whom he grew up.
Parents threw themselves over the small bodies of their children, shielding them from falling debris with nothing to save them other than their flesh and desperation. Just like his parents.
Siblings clung to each other in the dark, promising each other not to let go — and sometimes, only one of them survived.
For several minutes, it felt like the world was ending for the citizens of Valdonia City.
Then, just as all hope seemed to be lost, the sky above answered.
A massive beam of light ignited above the city, cutting through all the smoke and ash like a miniature sun.
Descending from the center of the beam of light was a figure. They landed on the street with enough pressure to crack the pavement. Their presence was shortly followed by another, and another, then another, and another.
Barriers snapped into place midair, absorbing explosions that should have erased entire blocks.
Counterattacks followed instantly.
'The starwalkers are here,' Amadore thought, not panicking as he continued to swing his baton. 'Dozens. No… more.'
Up in the air, Coco's eyes widened just slightly.
"This many and arriving this face?" she muttered.
Sesto barely had time to snarl before a silver-edged spear intercepted him mid-leap, tearing into his arm. Smoke hissed as he recoiled, pain cutting through the frenzy.
"Silver coated with holy water?" he spat. "What the hell—"
Another wave of starwalkers arrived, some wearing insignia old enough to make even some of the toughest veterans in the army freeze.
One of them landed hard at the front line, cape snapping behind him as his presence alone forced the air to still. The captain of the First Order. Cyro's direct superior.
Even Amadore's baton paused mid-motion.
"…Interesting," he said quietly. What was this man doing here? There was no reason for the captain to be here in the capital city unless they were expecting this.
He shook his head. Impossible.
They had not expected this. This was just bad timing on his part.
They had responded with all these starwalkers because that's how many of them were in the city when they decided to attack.
'I guess they weren't telling a lie when they say that the capital of Valdonia is home to some of the world's strongest people,' Amadore thought.
Descending next to him, Coco, who had been chased by a group of people, asked, "How are there this many already?" Tilting her head, she narrowly dodged an energy beam that shaved just past her shoulder, obliterating three buildings in front of her.
Sesto, running as fast as he could to avoid the silver weapons, stopped just behind Amadore.
"How did they respond this quickly?" he growled. Coco knocked away a silver arrow just before it struck him on the shoulder. "Is it normal for there to be this many powerful people in this city?"
Amadore's gaze swept the battlefield. He pushed up his reading glasses and smiled, "Bad luck on our parts." There was no pattern or indication that their plans had been leaked.
It was just an overwhelming defense that was coordinated on the spot by qualified people.
Something did feel off but it was so minuscule that he didn't bother trying to put a finger on it.
"Are you—"
Conductor, I don't think—"
"Enough," he said calmly. The single word cut through the tension of the other two like a blade.
Coco immediately pulled back, using his back like a shield. Sesto hesitated for a second but snarled and obeyed.
"Although we didn't get as many as we were hoping," he said as he looked around. The destruction and death were only a quarter of what he assumed they were going to accomplish. "It's still plenty."
Waving his baton, runes appeared from the tip.
It quickly drew something while the group of starwalkers surged forward.
"Too late," he smiled as the teleportation circle was completed. The runes ignited and light swallowed the three members of the Fallen Choir. It tore them out of reality and hurled them to another magic circle that was prepared in advance, located in the city next door.
* * *
The captain of the First Order walked to where the three people had been.
Everything was over for now but fires still burned, smoke still rose, and there were still people who needed to be saved.
"To think that the anonymous tip was telling the truth," he muttered as he crouched and inspected the faint remnants of the runs that formed the magic circle.
Getting up, he had thought about speed-blitzing the man with the glasses earlier, but he had a feeling that it was better to let them leave than to face off with them at the moment.
He didn't even have faith that he could have stopped them from leaving if the glasses man tried his hardest.
They were prepared but still a little skeptical of the random tip that had no credibility to it, so they weren't as prepared as they could have been.
"Without the tip, so many more could've died."
That made him wonder, who was it that sent the tip?