It begins with a cinematic, a forested mountain range (deep green deciduous trees), viewed from a ninety degree angle, about three-hundred feet up. It zooms in on an eggshell-white building, and then it fades through the wall to show a view of a scientist about to test his newest invention. It is a machine that is supposed to generate a stasis-field over an area of about five feet. It begins to glow strangely; the light appears to be solid. The scientist panics and runs over to switch it off, as he reaches for it his hand comes in contact with the light, there is a massive spark and he gets knocked back off of his feet. The scene then fades back outside of the building as he frantically tries to shut it down, even taking a fire-axe to the power cord fails to shut it off. As the screen backs away from the building everything appears to be fine... the zoom out increases in speed as it goes, when it is about twenty miles above the surface it seems as though you passed through a yellow-white dome made of light. The screen fades to black... As the screen fades back in it has white text on a black background, and has a narrator speaking the words as they scroll down the screen,
"The Stasis-Field Generator malfunctioned and created an isolated time-loop, within the twenty mile diameter of its field the same week has been repeating for the last fifty years. Thirty years after the outside world had finally given up on penetrating that field a massive earthquake occurs which caused the device to become further miscalibrated. At that time rifts began opening, at first they appeared only within the generator's field, but as time went on they began appearing further and further away. The rifts have an energy field surrounding them that prevents certain chemical reactions from occurring, gunpowder will not ignite nor will combustion engines function within these fields. These rifts have since spread all over the globe, bringing much of modern life to a stand-still as entire armies are rendered helpless when their guns stopped working and motorized traffic came to a screeching halt. As these Rifts stabilized, things... creatures... began coming through them. Everything from Myth or Legend, Dream or Nightmare, exists in some universe, and the rifts are connecting these various realities. Nothing is safe, in this or any other universe..."
The text then fades out and the narrator falls silent. The screen fades back in, this time in another universe; there is a pond in the center of the screen with a small silvery amoeba-like creature (approximately the size of a human fist) within it. A rift opens right next to the creature and a wind rises, flowing into the opening in reality, the creature is swept through. The camera follows the creature through the rift and sees it land in a stream-bed. The screen fades to black again, it then fades back in inside a house and a pair of twins, one male and one female, about fifteen years of age, appear. The screen grays a little and becomes unfocused and a question appears on it, "Are you Male or Female?" Once you answer the camera brightens, refocuses, and then goes into an isometric view of the corresponding teenager. At this point the cinematic ends and you gain control of the character.
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The 15 year old Silveral twins, Evan Thomas and Aina Kaitlynne, are from a small mountain farming village called "Green Hope". Its inhabitants seek to do as little harm to the environment as possible, obtaining all of their energy from solar-panels and wind-turbines. They even supply the nearby "Chronos Technology Laboratories", which houses its entire staff right on the laboratory grounds, with both electricity and produce.
The only gas-powered vehicle in the entire village is a tractor which is only brought out during plowing and harvest times.
When the Stasis Field Generator malfunctioned, security shut down all traffic between the labs and the village. Thus, no news of the accident reached the villagers.
Due to the tractor only being brought out 2 times a year, and the time loop from the malfunctioning SFG not occurring during one of those 2 times, no-one noticed when combustion engines stopped functioning. Due to the dual facts of it not being hunting season at the time and most of the poachers in the area using bows rather than guns, no-one noticed when gunpowder ceased exploding either.
Because of these circumstances, while the outside world went through a decade of chaos and then spent forty more years trying to rebuild, the village remained completely unaware that anything was wrong. For the entire fifty year period, they relived the same 1 week's time period over and over again.
This continued uninterrupted until a year after the Rifts dropped the amoeba-like creature in the creek just outside the village's eastern border. Over the course of that year, the creature was exposed to native bacterial and viral agents and in resisting them it mutated. It gradually altered until, after about a year's time, it eventually became a symbiote. Everything changed when one of the Silveral twins slipped on a rock and landed, hand first, on top of the slippery, silvery, mass which was the creature. (Which of the twins slips, depends on whether you chose male or female at the start of the game.)
The creature was quickly absorbed through the skin and into the teen's system.
The teen thought s/he had merely imagined the flash of silver disappearing into the skin of their palm as they stood back up, but realized just how wrong this thought had been the following morning when s/he awoke to hear the thoughts of another inside their mind.
Over the course of the following week, the teen and the symbiote learned about each-other. They shared their dreams, each seeing the world through the other's eyes. Neither yet knew about the time-loop or about the strange powers their fusion had granted them.
At the end of the week, they were in for a big surprise when the time-loop reset. For everyone else, it was as if the last week had never occurred. It was like an extremely extended episode of déjà-vu.
At first they thought it was all in their minds, believing that there was simply no way it could possibly be real! As the day progressed, they had no idea that life was about to take an even stranger turn than they could ever have imagined.
As they again walked the path where they had first met, another Rift opened, this one connecting to the sky over a desolate battlefield on a world of horrible, monstrous, beasts.
Five creatures came through the tear in reality. They were Harpies; ½ bird, ½ woman, and completely covered in filth. Their pitch black feathers were bedraggled, their brown hair matted, with claws like daggers and teeth as jagged as those of a saw blade.
The harpies had not come through willingly and were furious at being yanked away from their meal. Upon seeing the young Silveral they let out a chorus of shrieks and dove straight for the shocked teen.
Seeing the harpies diving straight at them, they stumbled back in terror while throwing their hands up in front of their face. The teen tripped over a rock and landed hard on the ground, scrambling backwards while trying to ward their face from the approaching creatures, the only thought in their combined minds was "Stay back! Don't come near me!"
As the terror built and the thought became more and more frantic, a strange bluish glow erupted from their left palm. The glow spread from the hand and covered them like an umbrella.
The shrieks continued but no blows landed despite the repeated diving attacks. Finally, curiosity overcame terror and the teen began to pay closer attention to the pattern of the attacks. S/he noticed that the creatures came to an abrupt stop and pulled back into the air as soon as they came in contact with the light. It was as though the light were a solid object that they were bouncing off of!
It quickly became apparent that the harpies were not going to give up anytime soon. The only way out of this alive was to somehow fight them off! "Maybe I can use this energy to attack as well as defend... Well, only one way to find out!"
Struggling to their feet while keeping the shield overhead was no easy task but the teen eventually managed it. As soon as their feet were under them they began to concentrate on attacking. As their focus built the glow appeared on their right palm and quickly spread to cover that entire hand. Thinking of the broadsword fighting at the Renaissance Faire held every summer s/he concentrated upon that familiar form. The glow swiftly extended into a rough blade just under two feet in length, while the glow on the left hand shrunk and took on the form of a round shield one and a half feet in diameter. "Finally, I can fight back!"
Going into a fighting crouch, the teen yelled; "Come on, I'm ready for you now!"
The harpy in the front, apparently the leader of the flock, cackled and taunted the teen; "You think you can take us on with that little blade? Why don't you use it to slice your own throat and save us the trouble of doing it for you?"
The teen replied; "Those are awfully big words for such a cowardly bird, but I don't see you coming down where this blade can reach! What's wrong? Are you scared?"
With a furious shriek the harpies dove straight at them, determined to tear them to shreds!
Sidestepping some of the attacks and blocking others with the shield, the teen picked them off one by one. Finally, only the leader of the flock was left alive. Flapping frantically in an attempt to gain some height, the harpy fled as it yelled back over its shoulder, "Just you wait! I'll get my revenge, I'll find the ones you love and slowly tear them apart. I'll leave the pieces for you to find and watch as the grief and terror break your mind!"
"I won't let you do that! Get back here you monster!" The teen stretched their left hand towards the fleeing harpy. The shield shrank into a ball of energy then abruptly extended, rope-like, towards the harpy.
When the rope of energy struck, it hit with such force that it sent the harpy tumbling through the air. It also stuck tightly to the back of the harpy's head and when the teen jerked their hand back the harpy was yanked out of the air and dragged along the ground.
With a flash of silvery-blue light the teen slashed downwards with the energy blade on the right hand and struck the harpy's head from its shoulders.
As the adrenaline that had flooded their system faded the teen sank to the ground. "What just happened?" s/he thought while both wonder and panic fought for control of their emotions.
Edited by: Cadh20000
