The Attack

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The Order of the Holy Magicians (otherwise known as: Ω) spread through Midgar under the cloak of darkness. At the stroke of 3:00 AM, they channelled their collective powers and cast the spell of Mental Resistance on the Lethe River. By morning, the Ω had returned to their homes in the Black Forest.

A few hours later, the city of Midgar woke up to find that the Lethe had been frozen during the night. A small boy woke up an saw the river from his bedroom window. Confused, he rushed downstairs and tugged at his mother's apron as she was fixing breakfast. "Mommy, what's going on?"

"I'm making you some bacon," she answered. "Is that alright?"

"The river isn't moving!" He turned and headed for the door. For a second he paused to consider grabbing his coat but it looked warm out so he left it where it was in the closet. Indeed, when he stepped outside he confirmed his thought that the weather was normal for late May and quite warm. He leapt through the yard the the edge of the river. It clearly wasn't moving. He tossed a rock and it bounced a couple times before skidding to a stop. By now, his mother had followed him outside and was watching what he was doing. The boy tested the river with the weight of one foot and it easily supported him. He walked a few paces onto the ice.

"Don't do that, honey!" called his mother.

He looked downstream to the city and saw dozens of ships of war that looked as if they'd recently been loaded with supplies. "What are all those ships doing there?" he pointed out to his mother.

"Honey, the ice is dangerous. I need you to come back to the shore right now." She ignored his question, but when she looked no immediate answer popped into her head. There was no way the city was mobilized for a war. Who would we be attacking? she asked herself.

Throughout the day more and more Midgarians discovered the river and echoed the sentiment that an attack had not been organized. The ships were closely inspected for some type of mischieve and no pranksters stepped forward to claim responsibility.

By the evening, the water had mostly thawed and the mayor made an announcement to the city. "God works in mysterious ways, and this is a clear message from Him to freeze all military conflicts until such a time that our enemies would act aggressively towards us." This reason was enough to appease the citizens, and they went to bed that night with intentions to return to normal life the next day.

Meanwhile, as the world slept that night, the Ω made a visit to the town of Dale which had been working the previous days to fortify their town's defenses against attack from the citizens of Midgar. By the next morning, the string of events that had been building to an inevitable war between the two cities was nothing more than a faint dream to the citizens of either of those cities and the Ω drank hearty goblets of brandy knowing they had saved the lives of thousands with their efforts.

Original photograph taken by Wikimedian "Oscar" on May 15, 2007 in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The image shows the fireline commemoration of the May 14, 1940 bombardement by Nazi Germany known as the Rotterdam Blitz. Though negotiations between the Germans and Dutch had led to a command to abort the bombing mission, the planes were already en route and most never received the updated order. The attack against civilian targets was a turning point that led to retaliation by the British against non-military German targets.

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