Chapter 1 - Who Fires First

A man wearing a black cloak cornered Phos. Darkness covered the two like a veil in the alleyway; the midnight moon didn't even reach them.

Phos took a hesitant step back.

Even in the pitch black night, Phos's long, wavy white hair glowed as it bounced, like a jellyfish illuminated in the deep sea. His orange eyes, the left a pale hue of apricot, the right a deeper blood orange, stared hard at the stranger with complexity.

The tapping of his white boots, alongside his luminous hair and frilled white pyjamas, practically acted as a major beacon as Phos distanced himself from the man, who uncaringly took large strides towards him. Phos thought he heard a clink of heavy metal. 

The alleyway ended as he hit the backmost wall. He couldn't retreat any further.

Leaning against the bricks blocking his escape, he raised his head to the sliver of the moon peeking out from behind tall buildings as if waiting for a good show. It casted a faint light on Phos's nearly translucent, glass-like skin, tracing a shimmering line down his throat as he swallowed back his breaths.

The hooded man drew dangerously close. Stopping several paces in front of him.

Phos couldn't see his face.

He didn't know what the sound of metal he'd heard was, either.

He didn't even understand whether the man following him had good or bad intentions, but if he'd followed Phos into this dark, ambiguous alleyway, he couldn't have any basic objective.

As Phos brought his gaze down to stare at where he presumed the stalker's eyes were, he reached into his back pocket and grasped the handle of a white pistol.

It had always been his rule to shoot first… if he ever felt threatened.

He raised his arm at the same time the man took out his sniper rifle. Navy with white fire-like engravings engulfing its sides and tracing up its handle, the rifle stood out like an antique prize from olden days. Phos's arms nearly slackened in curiosity and wonder.

But that was clearly a gun! The man stalking him was a sharpshooter!

Before the man could even bring his weapon up, Phos shot him straight in the lower-left abdomen. With a muffled grunt, he fell to the ground. Phos stepped right over his extended leg, walked a few paces away, and tilted his head to meet the assailant's eyes. His soft voice echoed in the alleyway:

"I hope you don't die. Good day."

With his gaze lingering for a couple of seconds on the man's cloak, Phos swiftly turned and fled.

—

The Light Lord Phos clasped his hands together to stop them from shaking. He'd only come into existence about 150 years ago; why did that stranger want to kill him? Not even his creator, Humphrey Davy, could have foreseen that the Lord created from his darling electricity-powered light bulb would be hunted by mysterious marksmen wearing big black cloaks.

But… if that assailant could see Phos, then he must have been a 'Lord' or a 'God' too.

Phos fell into deep thought.

Major Gods were the fundamental, unexplainable beings that kept everything in the universe alive. For example, the Sun God Helios acted as the anchor of the Solar System.

Then there were Minor Gods, which lived under the Major Gods' jurisdictions. The Earth's Minor God Gaia hosted the planet to which Phos was born.

Finally, under the Minor Gods' rule were the Lords.

Lords had to possess a certain importance to the inhabitants of their land. On Earth, humans predominantly ruled, and Lords were created when a majority of these humans deemed a certain element necessary.

Greater Lords ruled over natural elements, such as fire, while Lesser Lords were man-made.

Phos was a Lesser Lord of Light.

More specifically, electricity, but his visible properties fell more under the category of light.

As he recalled his history, he thought back to the assailant and thought about a motive.

When a Lord died, all memories of them would be erased across time and space. Of course, no one could prove this, but Phos believed.

He pulled away from his thoughts: So it turns out that the marksman was trying to erase him from existence!

He gritted his teeth and sped up his pace. It was especially dark, but Phos knew the sharpshooter would recover and find him again. Furthermore, his glow-in-the-dark attribute helped him in no way at all. Anyone could see him from a mile away.

He turned a corner, and an array of dazzling streetlights greeted him. His eyes widened: As long as he touched one of those light bulbs, he could teleport away!

Phos stopped under a lamp and raised an arm to its steadfast-shining light. But he just couldn't reach it. Annoyed, Phos leaned against the streetlight post, balancing on the tips of his toes—his 4-inch heels didn't raise his height enough at all! His fingers grasped empty air; he was close, so close!

How tall was this streetlight anyways? It had to be at least six metres. Now Phos felt slightly agitated. He was only about 1.7 metres, or 5 '7, even with his boots on….

Footsteps resonated from afar on the cobbled stone ground. Phos froze—they sounded familiar.

He was surprised; that stalker recovered fast. Phos looked both ways, found a small flower shop to hide behind, and dived to it like a hawk.

Just as he turned the corner, a thick, heavy bullet embedded itself in the building, crushing a portion of the wall and sending bricks crumbling down to Phos's feet. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead.

Marksman.

Sharpshooter.

Every muscle in his body felt tense, and Phos even forgot to breathe. In London's midnight, did he really have to face the man with the sniper rifle again?

Another bullet crashed into the streetlamp closest to Phos, knocking it over. He watched the small light bulb flicker, once, twice….

Oh, a light.

As if shocked awake by electricity, Phos dashed like a savage to the light bulb. Just a step away!

Time slowed as Phos's hand reached towards his only glimmer of hope. Another gunshot sounded—a third bullet whizzed towards him, closer, closer… his fingertip lightly grazed the fading lightbulb, and in a flash, he disappeared.

—

Just outside the serene walkway illuminated by light, enveloped by the shadows, the marksman gritted his teeth and staggered to the nearest wall, clutching his bleeding wound. He pulled his black hood down, revealing flame-like blue hair that faded into frosted white tips. The man himself wore a simple blindfold, with two symmetrical moles below where each of his eyes would be.

With an aggrieved sigh, he threw down a ball—no, a grenade!—and retreated into the fire.