In the far reaches of the city, sirens screamed though the air.  Cars drove along the tarmacked pathways.  Motorcycles meandered through the obstacles and around corners.  Electric lights sped in uniformed paths, their multi-coloured, multi-shaped carriers lit by more electric lights overhead.

In the far reaches of this city, people were moving around.  They walked, rode and drove to their desired destinations.  Each person oblivious to the wider existence around them, unfazed to the plights of those in their vicinity.  They passed other people much like ships in the night; their fellow traveller's destination none of their own concern.

In the far reaches of this city, a street was lined with parked cars, blocking the view of the roads from those wanting to cross.  Safe crossing points were few and far between in this area.  Cars were not as plentiful as in other areas, but there were a considerable number.

In the far reaches of this city, on this dark and fairly busy street, lined with parked cars, a young man was standing by the roadside, talking on his phone.  There were few other people around, and the commercial buildings surrounding him were well lit.  Office blocks with security lights after workers had left for the day.  Convenience stores lit, displaying their wares for those anxious to purchase essentials at inconvenient times of the day.  Everybody around him disregarded him as just another guy, as unimportant as anyone else.  As he hung up from his conversation, he reached into his coat pocket, retrieving a pair of in-ear headphones from the fabric confines.  The street was quiet, no cars having passed for the previous minute.  He looked around, checking his personal safety, before plugging the jack into the socket and placing the buds into his ears.  He stood at the side of the road and took one last look around.  Still no vehicles passing by.  He looked to his handset and started to walk forward, swiping through to find the playlist he desired.

In the far reaches of this city, on this dark and quiet street, lined with parked cars, a weary driver was making his way home after a long and very hard day at work.  He had remained at the warehouse for an extra two hours that evening, ensuring that he could raise enough extra money to take his young wife and child on their first vacation.  She would probably be at home right now, preparing his evening meal, aware of his fatigue and doing her best to make the remainder of his day comfortable.  Soft music played in his car, keeping him company on this long journey home.  He focussed on the road ahead, the headlights lighting the clear pathway in front of him.

As Lay walked into the road, he failed to notice the oncoming car, scores of meters away from him, its weary driver controlling its destination.  His focus was on finding his playlist, finding his own musical companion for the journey to his own home, shared with his parents and his younger brothers.  He had visited a friend from University, having spent a few hours studying for his forthcoming exams.  The car sped closer.  Closer.  Closer.  The darkness of the night camouflaging Lay, with his dark jacket and black jeans.  He found his playlist, at the very same instant he found himself pulled backwards with force, almost stumbling onto the concrete floor, out of the pathway of the speeding bullet that could have ended his life.

He saw the lights rapidly passing his eyes, realising that whoever had pulled him back had saved his life.  His heart beat faster at the thought that this could have been his last moment.  He pulled his earbuds out of his ears and turned around to thank his saviour, only to find nobody there.  He looked to his left and to his right, and could see nobody walking away from him.  He looked behind him and in front of him, up and down, but could see nobody standing there.  No matter how hard he looked, he could not see another person in the street, not even in the shadows.  He slowed his breathing down to a restful pace, before returning to the road and crossing, placing his earbuds back into his ears and tapping the play icon on his screen only when he reached safety.  To the absent saviour who had prevented his untimely demise, he uttered under his breath a single, heartfelt word of "Thanks".

"You're welcome," whispered the young, slim blonde, standing in the shadows, close to where she had pulled him back.  She and her two companions watched as he walked away, assured of his safety and confident he would arrive home without any further mishaps.  A slightly shorter brunette pulled at the blonde's white long sleeved t-shirt, and the trio walked towards a nearby alleyway.  They looked around and, when they were certain nobody would see them, each pulled a pendant out from under their clothes.  The silver-pink winged heart charm that hung from the delicate silver chain seemed to glisten and reflect the moonlight, out of sight of the street lights.  As they took a firm hold of the charm in their hands, they stood in the closest circle they could, closed their eyes and disappeared into the night, a brief flash of pure white light and a quick whoosh of the wind the only evidence that something had disturbed this point.

-----

"That was close," Seohyun sighed, releasing her grip on her charm.

"Tell me about it," Hyoyeon agreed.  "He could have been killed."

"Yeah," Seohyun conceded.  "But I didn't mean that guy."

"Guys, I'm sorry, ok?" Jessica apologised for what must have been the ninth time now.  "I just ..."

"We know," Hyoyeon comforted her partner.  "But it's ok.  These things happen.  Even we angels make mistakes."

"But I almost cost us the mission," Jessica cried, as the trio walked along the off-white corridors of their landing bay towards the de-briefing room.

"Almost," Seohyun emphasised.  "Not quite.  Hyo's right; none of us is perfect, not in life or death.  We still succeeded, we still got there, mission accomplished.  Just be careful in the future, ok?"

Jessica nodded as the trio pushed through the double doors in front of them, walking into a dark-grey room full of people and semi-transparent video booths, with live video feeds being shown on each.  There must have been sixty-four angels of different heights, hair colours, lengths, races and creeds, each controlling one large, semi-tubular screen, thirty-two on each side of the room, across two levels.  There was a lot of chatter amongst them, the agents relaying messages through seemingly invisible headsets to places unknown.  To anyone who had never seen this before, it would feel like something right out of a science fiction movie, something possibly "Minority Report".  To Hyoyeon, Seohyun and Jessica, it felt like Tuesday.

"Jessica," a stern voice called from ahead.  The trio looked to find a shorter woman walking towards them, wearing a white blouse, black power-suit jacket, dark blue jeans with faded thighs, and a pair of black, white and grey sneakers.  The top button of her blouse was opened, displaying a similar pendant to the girls, again a silver-pink material.  She carried a semi-translucent board, which glowed a neon pink from one side, but displayed mission critical updates and messages relayed to her from commanders and agents.  The three angels stood firmly to their spot, almost to attention.

"Tae," Jessica started, before their confronter raised her hand to silence her.

"Hyoyeon and Seohyun are right; we're not perfect.  Mistakes happen.  Don't let it happen again." Taeyeon instructed.  She waved her pointed finger between Hyoyeon and Seohyun. "You two.  New mission.  You," she pointed to Jessica, "are on Star Watch.  Every night for the week."

She her heel and walked away with purpose.  Jessica sighed, the prospect of a night, watching a five-by-four video wall, each individual monitor showing feeds from the planet below.  Most of the feeds were uneventful, especially if you had been sent there as punishment for screwing up a mission.  Jessica hadn't done anything immensely problematic.  Except allow a very handsome young human male to distract her attention for long enough to lose track of her charge.  Her charge, as it transpired, being the very reason they had been sent to the ground in the first place.  Her charge being the very core of this mission.  Her charge who was very nearly taken by The Fallen.  She shuddered in memory, reminding herself that she deserved Star Watch.

The Fallen, as Jessica had learned at the Academy, were once themselves angels.  However, in the beginning, the Powers that ruled Heaven fought on every turn.  The older and superior Power banished the younger from Heaven, where the younger created another realm, where others who would surely be banished under the older's "tyrannical" rule would be found and help to overthrow the ruling party.  One by one, fallen angels arrived, but not from banishment.  They fell for reasons that had never been discussed in Jessica's training until their second year.

They fell for love.

They had found humans on Earth, as they watched events unfolding before them, that they grew to love deeply and purely.  The love they felt was stronger than what humans would deem "true love", and caused scores of angels over the ages to walk to the edge of Heaven and leap.  But many of the angels fell to their demise, finding themselves in this realm with the banished Power.  Finding themselves unable to return to Heaven, they remained with Him.  Until one day, one angel leapt and did not fall to damnation.  She was saved.  Her human love noticed something falling from the clouds and stared.  When he noticed a being falling from the sky, he ran and jumped, catching her, clutching her from mid-air, her unclothed body landing on his covered torso, his arms preventing her from falling to a most hideous fate.  Upon seeing this woman falling, his mind questioned why she would be doing such a foolish thing.  When she landed, his heart refused to listen to an answer and felt blessed that she had done so, for now he knew what love felt like.

It was this moment that made the angels realise they were not all damned for eternity.

As you can imagine, this was quite rare, especially when dealing with humans.  They cared about their own future and their own selves more than what happened around them.  More often than not, however, they just did not see the falling angels.  To see the angels, a human had to see the love emanating from its body.  That was what gave it life.  And, more often than not, humans could not grasp the concept of true love, and the angels fell, their faith in humankind betrayed forever in one moment, their destiny written for them.  As The Fallen grew in numbers, the younger Power taught them that the elder could have saved them, as He had done on occasions before.  Over time, The Fallen believed Him and pledged allegiance to Him, vowing to assist with overthrowing the rule of Heaven.  To do this, they attacked humanity, they tried to corrupt humanity, causing the angels to defend and to protect.  Over time, their methods became more complex and refined, with other-worldly weapons created that could severely harm an angel's spirit beyond repair.  It sparked a war that has never ended, The Angels against The Fallen, Good against Evil, Love against Hatred.  And the human Jessica had admired at the expense of her charge, she could have sworn had seen her.  She believed for a moment that this meant she had found love.  Love that could have had catastrophic consequences.

Jessica quietly and obediently departed for her post, as Hyoyeon and Seohyun followed Taeyeon to the Hall.  No information about the new mission was given to any of them, except that Jessica would not be taking part.  She reached the Star Watch Gallery and took up her post, waving her hand over the crystal orb in front of her and picking up the headset that lay next to it, placing it on her head.  In her sunset coloured booth, she could see video feeds from different corners of the Globe: China, Australia, Russia, America, Brazil, anywhere.  Families, children, parents, people in love and people alone, all filled her field of vision.

"Jessica?" a male voice asked, tapping her shoulder.

As she turned around, a friendly, older guy presented her with a small basket, full of muffins, cookies and with two bottles of water.  Inside was a card, which she took.  "You know you deserve this," it read, "but that doesn't mean I won't look after you."  Jessica smiled to herself.  As strict as Taeyeon could be, she was very fair and she did love all of her cadets.  She, Hyoyeon and Seohyun were still in training, transporting to Earth solely for small missions to assist the Elite forces.  Taeyeon had other cadets under her command, eight in total, and she loved them all.  Her Unit was one of the most disciplined and loyal, with other leaders complimenting her on her work.  She never went by the book, she was fond of bending rules for good reasons, but she never broke them, and she was true to the cause of the defence of Heaven and Humanity.  Nobody was more loyal to the cause than Taeyeon.  Jessica looked back at the monitors as they showed no signs of danger, crossing her legs underneath her whilst sitting in her very large, curved chair, reached forward to her basket, picked out a muffin and started to pick at it.  Occasionally, she would wave her hand in front of her, pointing at one of the monitors, focussing the audio into her ear so she could hear what was happening.  One of the better things about being an angel was that language was not a problem.  On Earth, Jessica spoke fluent English and Korean, but here she spoke every language known to every species of creature in existence, even ones she was not aware even existed.  She had died three years earlier, and arrived at the Gates with every other soul that had passed on, making firm friends with Seohyun, as well as Sunny and Sooyoung, two other cadets that had joined her Unit.  Very quickly, the nine Unit members became close friends and would always look out for each other.  As the quiet events unfolded in front of her, Jessica leaned back into her chair and watched, wishing that she was on the mission with her friends too.