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In
1978 a portal was found, stumbled upon when three friends fresh into college attempted to create a Halloween joke,
using a small, harmless-looking device one of them had found. The roaring of
wind and flashing of stark-white lightening opened up to an orange sky above tall, polished buildings made of the smoothest
rock they had ever seen. Entwined beams with feathering foliage, reached up to
the two suns. Crystalline waters flowed fresh from mountains so high they
touched the clouds and drew jolts of the palest lightning from the atmosphere.
The friends knew they had found something spectacular.
They made a pact to keep it secret and protect the serene beauty of the world and the species of remarkable humans
inhabiting it.
Curiosity and desire for knowledge kept them practicing, in secret,
things they should have left alone.
As the
months passed, the physicist friend of the three claimed to discover exactly what mixture of chemicals tore open
the portal and learned how to harness it into capsules to keep the ingredients from interacting until a dimensional doorway
was needed or desired and the capsule broken. The created capsules were remarkably similar to the original one discovered
innocently.
While
all but a few people on Earth were oblivious to what the maturing scientists had discovered, the people of Tiernaine weren't
so blind. They eagerly crossed the threshold to Earth, a world with mysteries
and excitement not offered at home.
Four Earth years later, a son was born to one of the scientists and his wife.
This man's view on life and on his dealings with Tiernaine began to change.
The sovereign of Tiernaine deemed it necessary to create guardians for enforcing
the laws she set to patrol the use of portals. Not just anyone would do.
A Guardian had to be perfect; strong
and intelligent; the best of both Tiernainian and Earthling. Experiments
to create human hybrids by mixing and manipulating DNA were begun. The sovereign appointed one of the original
scientist from Earth to head the project.
Two experiments, file named E6 and E7, created life.
The conscience of one man caused a rift in the original alliance
of the three. Murders were ordered, families destroyed. Ultimately, the forced locking of the dimensions was accomplished by the erasing of information, and
the knowledge of Tiernaine was to be buried deep, so deep it would vanish forever with the death of two men as old age claimed
them.
But as with most things done amid greed and overconfidence the worst would
take years to reveal.
The hybrid Guardians grew;
E6 locked in a lab seeing nothing more than one room while he was taught how to use his powerful body and intelligent psyche
to kill. The other was stolen. E7 grew with the love of parents and siblings
for twelve years only to be captured and caged. Daily training perfected the skill of the deadly hands and sharpened
the cunning mind.
But creatures of such magnificence could not be kept confined forever. They would escape; one in his 19th year, intent on destroying and then ruling the
worlds that created and imprisoned him and one a year later, willing to do what it would take to stop him.
The entire human species is caught in the middle and oblivious to how
close they are to extinction...
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