Two women are running for their lives.
Under a dark moonlit sky in the streets of the Charr capital city Black Citadel, they managed to gain some distance from the Charr that were in pursuit. There were perhaps a dozen of them, maybe more. Azelia Heartshaper was less than ten feet ahead of Tesla Taiyou. Although their window of opportunity to leave this world is less than five minutes away, this definitely wasn't the time to be thinking about that. Right now, they both share only one thought... survive!
Entering the central Imperator's Core section while wiping more sweat from their eyes, the two turned around one corner, leading to a corridor on a downward slope, curving inward. A thick iron door is open from the halfway point down, bloodied and with a bit of rust. Some of the beasts chasing them crashed into nearby walls as a result of their fast momentum dashing on all four limbs. The delay was very brief, if noticable at all. Azelia and Tesla are scared out of their minds and these creatures are madly driven towards the smell of their fear.
Dashing past the door and into a small room, Tesla stopped to close it as quickly as she could. Even with her warrior strength, she struggled to budge it with very little success. "Az, help me with this!"
After keeping herself from crashing against the back wall, Azelia rushed over to her aid, adding all the sylvari strength she could muster. The closing process was slow but effective. The Charr were very close to their location. With seconds to spare, the door was fully closed as Azelia shoved the two sliding locking bolts into place, one close to the top and another near the bottom.
The creatures viciously assaulted the door with their bare hands, trying to break it down. Startled by the impact, Azelia and Tesla got away from the door, in partial embrace for comfort, hoping the door will protect them. A single torch in another corner of the room, propped high on the wall, is their only light source. If the door gives in, there is no escape for them.
A few of the beasts managed to put some good sized dents in the iron door. After more minutes of terror, the pounding ceased. Perhaps the monsters gave up and are scrambling to search for another way inside. One of them howled, sounding like a feminine demon. Grateful that the door held, the two made their way over to the torch and sat at the wall to finally settle down and catch their breath. The room turned out to be the Citadel Stockade, which holds prison cells and a couple of inactive furnaces.
"You okay?" Azelia asked.
Tesla paused before answering. "I think so... not sure if that big one swiped my back with his claw."
Azelia stood up. "Let me look you over to make sure." Helping Tesla to her own feet, she examined her whole body from head to toe, on all sides. "I don't see anything."
Tesla then checked Azelia for injuries. "You're good." They both leaned back against the wall, resting. "How much longer do we have?"
Azelia reached into a pocket on the inside of her multicolored leaf skirt and unbuttoned it, pulling out a small electronic device the size of a deck of cards, but half as thick. It has a timer at the top, counting down towards zero, along with the current time and date. She checked what the timer currently displays. "Less than two minutes."
Tesla closed her eyes for a moment, relieved to hear that. "Thank the Six."
"I was hoping the first parallel world we come to would have been nice and pretty."
"So did I. But instead, we ended up on a world where everyone of all races turn into savage bloodthirsty Charr at night."
Azelia paced around in place while stretching her neck and arms, keeping the timer in hand. "It was so scary watching those poor Quaggan children go through that."
Tesla heard a low groan coming from one of the holding cells, startling both women. She removed the torch from the wall and carefully walked over to the cell. A man in Charr form is inside it, resting against the back railing. He is critically wonded and wearing Seraph armor that has been torn and ripped due to the extra body mass.
Azelia walked over to the cell, curious over what Tesla was seeing. "What do you think happened to him?"
"I'd guess he was attacked before transforming and locked himself in here." The shiny faint glare of two collar rank pins caught Tesla's eye. She knelt down to one knee and moved the torch to see it better. One pin is the rank of Captain and the other Royal Protector. Gasping, there is only one person that she knows who holds that title. "It's Logan Thackeray."
He began to softly and slowly whimper like an injured animal. Azelia looked back at the timer. "Thirty seconds."
Tesla reached into the cell with her free hand and gently stroked the side of Logan's face. He made no attempt to harm her. In fact, it almost seemed like he recognized her. She was trying not to cry. Azelia put a hand on her shoulder. "They can't hurt him any more. He's safe here."
After a short pause, Tesla placed the torch on the concrete floor and stood up. Azelia rechecked the countdown and took a few steps closer to the bare back wall, pointing the timer towards it. "Three... two... one..."
She pressed a round touchscreen button. A short beam of light beamed from the top of the timer and against the wall. A portal vortex opened. Logan was trying to widen his eyes, astonished seeing it. Tesla glanced back at him with sympathy.
"Tes, come on. We have to go," said Azelia.
Tesla faced back towards the portal and entered it. Azelia paused to take one last look at him as well before entering herself. The vortex closed moments after. It was truly the most beautiful thing that Logan has seen. And the last thing he will ever see.
Unless you look at their profession armors, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart, aside from their short black hair and big silver colored eyes. Asuran identical twins Ellie and Lynni Videll have really outdone themselves. They are the inventors and co-creators of the Parallel Vortex Projector (PVP), as well as members of the guild Unified Heroes of Tyria (UHoT). The inspiration to design the PVP came from fellow Asuran guildmate Diina Dia, who also happens to be an inventor. But then again, so are all Asurans in general. Some are just more creative than others.
Diina's latest creation was going to be tested three months ago, in an attempt to send UHoT co-leaders Selene Lion and Azeena Videll back in time to prevent the awakening of the elder dragon Zhaitan. The events that followed resulted in the timejump technically never occuring. Yet those who were part of it still clearly remember what happened. It has never been explained how they do.
The twins were in Diina's krewe at the time. They wanted to expand on Zojja's multiple timeline theory but in a different direction. Instead of dealing with alternate timelines, the idea is to be able to travel to other parallel worlds while remaining in the same time and place, where each world has its own unique history, as well as being able to safely return to your own homeworld whenever desired.
For example, a world where clean air is toxic to the Sylvari... a world where each person must perform a specific action every day or die... a world where the Charr wear polka dot pajamas, playing with hula hoops and ride small dragons as mounts.
That last one would be quite interesting and amusing to see.
It is late evening at the twins' lab in Metrica Province. Just like most other labs in that area, the building has no doors and is exposed to the wilderness. Lynni is on a computer terminal, with Ellie impatiently pacing behind her.
"Something's wrong. I can feel it," said Ellie.
"Will you calm down and sit already, before you wear out the floor panels?" Lynni replied.
"They should have returned two hours ago!"
Lynni facepalmed while sighing. She hopped out of her chair. "Look, I'm sure there's a logical reason for..."
Before she could finish, the sound of a vortex opening was heard from a back room of the lab. "The portal!" they both said in unison, and then hurried over to there. Tesla was the first one to emerge from it and is visibly upset. Azelia came out a few seconds later and the vortex closed behind her. The timer's countdown is blank.
"Praise the Eternal Alchemy, you're finally back!" Ellie told them.
"Tesla, are you all right?" Lynni asked. Without saying a word, Tesla walked out of the room and left the lab, not making eye contact with anyone.
"She will be fine," Azelia assured them. "Just needs time to herself for a while." As the trio went to a small conference room and sat down, Azelia set the timer in the center of the table and stretched her neck again.
Lynni took the timer to see whether or not it is damaged. "How did the test run go?"
"Had a few problems with the timer," Azelia said. You could hear in her voice how tired she is.
"Such as?"
"You told us we would arrive in the same time and place as we left, and that we can safely return in one hour. When Tesla and I got there, it was almost an hour later, at Black Citadel and the countdown started at three hours instead."
Lynni glanced over to Ellie with a puzzled look and handed the timer to her for examination. "That's very strange, as well as explaining for the delay. But I don't recall writing any code to make this able to program itself."
"Neither of us did. We will need to upload its logs for further review," Ellie said.
"Oh, by the way... the world you were in, what was it like?" Lynni asked.
The Sylvari took a deep breath. "Let's just say it was really bad, we never want to go back there again and leave it at that. But I'm sure Tesla wouldn't mind taking another trip with me if you can get the timer straightened out. Maybe we'll end up somewhere better."
Ellie nodded. "I agree. We should all get some sleep and one of us will be in contact with you both first thing in the morning."