Stanley fell to the ground, his powers stopping all of a sudden, his body losing all reasons to keep moving. He slid along the floor, creating a small trench of the ground where he hit a building and crashed inside.

He felt pain all over his body, and little by little, he was losing consciousness. He could feel himself slipping despite the pain that covered his body.

What was going to happen now? Was he going to die? Was he going to restart all over again? Was he going to have to fight it all again, without any way to get out of this time loop?

Was he fated to have to repeat it over and over again?

His mind dimmed even more, even as he tried to remain awake. He had to stay awake. He had to run away.

A distant part of his mind told him that he had people to save. Fred, Vera, Sol. They were still back there. There were so many others who needed to run away. Nobody knew they didn’t have any more time.

’I need to...’ he thought. ’I need to save...’

Even as he thought that he could no longer hold onto his consciousness and slowly drifted into blackness. As he did, he felt the ground shake and then everything did go black.

* * * * *

Towering walls of flames rose on the eastern side of East Vanli. The flames rose dozens of meters into the air and seemed unnatural. They didn’t look like actual flames, but just a glowing wall of air that was also red hot.

To anyone who cared, it was just fire. Flying vehicles flew over the wall, running away. But those who didn’t have one were forced to remain behind on the ground. They screamed and cried for they had been told what was coming.

Their cries were soul-wrenching.

People had gathered at the edge of the city, wishing to flee from the terrorist attack they were warned against. Not many had believed when they came, but seeing a wall of fire block their exit, they were forced to cry only.

Many people tried to use their powers. Some send air toward the firewall, some water. Some even tried to control the fire itself, but to their surprise, they couldn’t control it.

Many had powers that were useless in this situation, and a few of them didn’t even have any. All of them were stuck in that place.

A few had managed to leave, to go past the wall, but their burnt bodies had been thrown back every time. They were all scared and crying. A wall of fire blocked their path on one side, and a threat of a massive bomb on the other.

People were pushed and a lot were already getting singed from being too close to the wall. Even then, people kept coming, the crowd unknowingly killing the ones in the front by pushing them into the firewall.

Their cries meant nothing.

The woman on the outside who kept the flame wall going looked confused. Why had people suddenly come out running, screaming shouts of a terrorist attack in the city? How had they known that a Nova was going to act here?

As far as she knew, the information was known to just a few select people.

Whatever the case was, it had been happening all over the city, and she had received a message telling her to stop or kill all that she could. Her powers didn’t extend to the sky, but she could stop people that were on the ground.

She would do her job and pray the Lightning Nova do his job. She wouldn’t like it if she had to kill the young handsome man because he made a mistake.

Then she heard an explosion and all sounds drowned in its wake.

* * * * * *

A man in his early 30s stood tall, watching the people surrounding him fight with each other. He looked to the sky where plasma bullets killed anything that flew, shot from the men he had dominated on the ground.

He made them fight the others on the ground too, and there were hundreds of dead bodies that lay on the ground. He moved through the battlefield, not fearing a single attack, and reached a female soldier who had a hole in her stomach and was quickly bleeding out.

She would die within half a minute.

The man took her head and suddenly the wound healed. A scar would remain where the hole was, but the woman had been healed. Of course, she was also dominated at the time.

The middle-aged man stood up and started walking away. The female soldier he left behind quickly took up the weapon that was next to her and started shooting at the people and in the air, now targeting those that she was just doing her best to protect.

The middle-aged man moved through the place, healing wounded people, dominating their minds and causing them the fight for him.

More than once or twice, he was shot in the head or in the chest, leaving holes large enough to kill him instantly. However, those holes healed almost instantly, and the man continued as if nothing happened to him.

At some point, he felt the ground shake and looked toward the city. A glow of light appeared in the sky, and the man looked surprised.

It was way earlier than the time they had decided upon, but it had happened nonetheless. The bomb had exploded.

* * * * * *

A wall of... nothing covered multiple roads outside the city, one that rose almost to the sky. Vehicles had slammed onto it and fell into the people gathering below, killing many.

Nobody knew what the wall was. They couldn’t see it and the feel of it was hard. They just knew that there was something there, and if they approached it, they would be stopped.

A youth stood outside the invisible wall, himself hiding in the folds of that which one could not see, hiding from the world. From inside, he could see the city and people wishing to get out.

A few did get out, but they fell into pieces not far from where he stood. Even the cars in the sky fell to the ground in pieces.

His eyes turned toward the sudden glow of light and saw then he felt the ground shake. A smile appeared on his face at the sight of that.

"That’s a welcome surprise!"

* * * * * *

"I was supposed to be in Freenox City right now, hunting down the man that killed my brother," Raven said with hostility in her voice, looking at the man next to her.

In front of her, monsters of ink-black bodies, with 5 limbs attached to a bulbous spherical shape at the center roamed the ground. There were hundreds of them, hundreds upon hundreds.

"You can go there after this," the man next to her said.

He was her master, so despite who she was, she tried to remain calm around her. Not that she could kill him or anything.

A small, lanky monster stood by her side, more humanoid than the other crawlers, both in shape and size.

It was nearly 3 meters tall with a large head, a human-like torso, strong legs that it stood on, and two arms that were long enough to drag on the ground.

From time to time, its hands would move like a whip, reaching far into the distance, and destroying all cars that flew in the sky.

"Good boy," she said softly. She could feel the anguish it felt on the inside, but it couldn’t disobey her command. It could only do what she asked of it.

"Hmm?" she turned around immediately and noticed the large glow of light. Without hesitation, she pulled shadows from the ground that grew like tendrils and covered them in a dome.

She felt a shockwave hit the cover, but nothing passed through it. Then, she threw it all backdown and looked at the aftermath of the explosion.

Smoke and dust rose in the distance, covering most of the city. Sounds of cries rose from everywhere, all so very deafening. Raven looked slightly surprised, but not so much either.

"I thought it was going to explode in 2 more hours," she said.

"I thought so too," the man said.

"I hope a lot died in there," Raven said. "Let’s go. I don’t want to miss my chance to chow down on these souls."

One by one, the crawlers arrived near her and dropped into a pool of shadows, where they would remain hidden until they were needed again. The unique monster next to her dissolved into the shadow as well, and Raven walked toward the city.

Soon, the feeling of souls attaching to her started filling her and in her enjoyment, she killed the people who tried to flee too.

Oh, how good it felt. So much better than what she had done back at her farm. She should’ve always done this.

* * * * * *

News of the day would soon spread through all communications and the city would be filled with people trying to save those they could. Most of the people caught in the blast would have died, but the ones who survived would be saved.

This event would go down in history as one of the darkest times in history, and the Incident would go down as one of the most heinous criminal attacks. Joined forces would soon start hunting down any individual they assumed had anything to do with this event.

A new wave of fear would take over United Voras. Fear of the ones that hid in the shadows.

Fear of the Nova.