Storm clouds laced with lightning swirled around the top of the skyscraper, turning day into night as the gathered crowd watched. On the twentieth floor terrace, four men in gray jumpsuits, clutching high-tech wands, stood in front of the opening gates. An opening that shouldn’t have been there and led not inside the building but someplace else. One of them stepped forward to meet the emerging figure: a dancer clad in shimmering flames, with eyes of molten lava.
“In the name of this city and our world,” the man shouted in the face of roaring winds, “I must ask you to…”
“Are you a god?” interrupted the intruder. It sounded like rolling thunder.
The man exchanged glances with his teammates. “N-no…?”
“Then die!” declaimed the dancer, sweeping the terrace with electrical arcs from outstretched hands. They scrambled for cover, crying out in pain whenever limbs of light found them anyway, as debris clattered against the railing.
It took them a moment to notice the onslaught had stopped. Another figure now stood in front of the gate, holding up a brilliant barrier.
“They don’t like gods much around here,” the newcomer’s voice echoed, long hair glowing like the sun. “You wouldn’t be the first one humans have killed.”
Four battered men gathered around their newfound ally, brandishing their weapons anew. The wands flashed angrily, buzzing.
“Yeah! Like the lady said,” said the apparent leader. To the others he asided, “Proton packs to maximum power.”
“I think he’s a man,” muttered the one to his left, blinking behind round glasses.
“Works for me,” declared the one on the right, wiping sweat off his black brow.
The fourth stood there nervously, looking between the two supernatural beings.
“I am the Destroyer,” the dancer proclaimed, fingers crackling with electricity again. “Choose your doom.”
“Very well. Eat protons!” Four particle beams lanced out, but the Destroyer wasn’t there anymore. She somersaulted over their heads and landed lightly on the edge of the terrace. Twenty floors down, the crowd pointed and shouted as lightning arced between nearby facades, casting down chunks of masonry. The one with the glowing hair raised hands again, and then both gods were at each other’s throats with long fingers of fire.
“Incoming!” warned the bespectacled man, indicating the open gate. They turned to see indistinct shapes fly out, whipping the air with snakelike limbs; their wings had teeth.
Without another word, all four men got to work. Each particle beam caused one of the creatures to come undone while two more took its place. Soon a swarm of them circled over the terrace, when they didn’t swoop down to street level. Shouts from below turned into cries of panic. Overhead, two human figures went around each other in the air trading blows that made the building shake: one a dancing flame, the other framed by flowing robes. The leader’s wand angled upward.
His teammate raised a sweaty palm. “Boss, wait. If you banish the wrong god, the other one will fry us alive.”
“W… what about the gate?” asked the timid one.
“Good thinking!” exclaimed the fourth, pushing up his glasses. “Whatever is keeping it open must be right past the portal.”
“B… but how do we close it?”
The leader stared at them, then grinned. “Remember when I told you, never cross the streams? It’s time we break that rule.”
All four faced the same direction again, shoulder to shoulder, as cracks spread across the stone gargoyles guarding the roof, and debris rained down.
“Aim for that burning… thing on the other side. Ready? One, two, three!”
A quartet of particle beams shot through the gate. Where they met, the fiery landscape began to lose shape. Fumes billowed out. Flying demons shrieked but kept their distance; Neither man backed down as the long-haired figure fell in a tangle of veils, his glow extinguished. They did falter when the Destroyer also descended to loom over them, arms moving hypnotically, but held fast.
Then whatever was building up into the portal reached critical mass. They had no time to react before it burst outward, turning night into day again, with a roar that drowned even the rage of heavens.
It only lasted for a fraction of a second. Somehow the gate was a smooth wall again, heavy clouds already thinning out. Only a dancer-like shadow on the brickwork remained of the intruder; her minions unraveled into wisps of smoke, quickly scattered.
“D… did we win?”
One of the men wiped his brow; another, his glasses.
“I think so,” said the one they called boss. He looked around. “Yes! We won!”
They examined each other, then the ravaged terrace. “What a mess.”
“Let me help,” said the one in flowing robes, hair glowing again. They hadn’t seen him recover. He gestured, and gravel flew up to become solid stone again, cracks dwindling to nothing in an instant.
“Not bad for a quick fix!” stated the black man. “So you’re a god too, huh?”
“Yes, and I should be on my way, before your mayor decides I’m also a threat. Good thing I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
He turned to leave. Only one of the others spoke up. “W… wait. What’s your name?”
The luminous god rubbed his chin. “Well, if that was the Destroyer… You can call me the Maker.”
They filed down the twenty flights of stairs in silence, while outside a solitary sunray moved in reverse, climbing into the sky.
“By the way, boss. Next time anyone asks if you’re a god? Say yes!”
THE END
2024-12-28