A panic-stricken woman, child in tow, rounded a smoldering building. Her hair was dark and tears welled up just beneath her magnificently blue irises. Her child cried and held onto her head with one hand as the ruby red fingertips showed through the constriction of her mother's embrace.

She exuded a sigh of relief as familiarity amidst calamity blanketed her. A man ran up to her as he climbed over the remnants of a casino wall littering the street. Before he could utter a word she hugged him and firmly pressed her lips to his.

"Daddy!" The little girl exclaimed through sobs as she hugged him tight.

"Wh-where were you, how did you get awa-?"

She led him into the quietest alley she could find and the group sank to one knee.

"I-it was incredible. I had no idea what was happening. Sadie and I were walking down the street and all of a sudden-"

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It was an ordinary night. Stirring of high-ranking members of a mysterious organization meeting in Canto Bight had been the talk of the town. Sadie was hungry and it was late so cooking was out of the question. Her favorite Mantell Mix stand was still open. You know Herun stays open all hours, that Ithorian never closes shop. So I took Sadie to get a snack.

Then it began to rain neon beams that obliterated or set fire to whatever they touched. It was a bombardment that nobody saw coming. The visitors brought death and destruction with them. It was chaos. Borl didn't make it, his family was trapped inside the wreckage of the Seaworth Apartment Complex. It's completely destroyed. The whole east street strip was laid to waste. As if that wasn't bad enough, dropships came. They carried troopers spouting some strange message. If you didn't agree or showed any sign of resistance there was no hearing, they just gunned you down. Three of them approached Sadie and I when we were heading back home. They cut us off and tried to separate us.

=======

"Yeah, then what?" The man eagerly questioned his wife.

"Did you do what they said?"

"I didn't have a chance to utter a single word."

The man twisted his head and raised a brow.

"One of them reached out to grab me but he froze in place and dropped to his knees right in front of me. When he fell to his stomach he had something sticking out of his back. It looked like an ornate skeleton in a seductive pose."

"What??"

"I-it was a handle, a dagger maybe. I don't know, it happened so fast. The other two fired their rifles into the night, all I could see were glowing purple eyes, piercing the black. He was like a phantom."

"A phantom?"

"Th-they kept firing, I saw this as a chance to get away but one of the men grabbed me and planted the barrel of a pistol against my temple. They demanded that the man in the dark show himself.. they were going t-"

She began to cry.

"He didn't let them. He stepped out of the shadow. His armor was as black as the darkness he used as cover and the purple lights brightly twinkled from pauldrons that looked like the heads of dogs."

"What did he do?"

"He walked up to them with his hands out as if he was going to surrender. Then I heard… I'll never forget the sound. It was the croak of a bird, like a caw. Like a streaking entity a bird swooped down causing the man holding me to momentarily lower his weapon. As he did, the phantom drew a pistol from beneath his long black cape and before I knew what was happening, purple beams streaked past my face and I no longer felt the man gripping me but I heard him fall. Frightened, the other invader began to run but the phantom threw something. A rope maybe?"

"A rope?"

"Yes, a rope. It wrapped around the soldier's ankle as he tried to get away but he couldn't, he just fell. Then this mysterious stranger began dragging him closer and closer as the trooper clawed at the ground. Then…"

"Then what?" her husband was entranced.

"The phantom ended him with one swift stroke. I remember seeing blood dripping from the blackened blade of some kind of curved sword. He then turned to me and with the deepest voice I think I ever heard, almost robotic in tone, he told me I was safe and to go home. My Savior, a man in black, I wanted to thank him. I never even saw his face. As quickly as he showed up, he vanished."

"Like a ghost?"

"You could say that, yeah, a ghost."

"Come on, we need to get to the shuttles, they're evacuating as we speak."