Hey, y'all! Freelancer Josiah here with a brand new story. This is the prologue to it, meant to set the scene for the adventure to come. This one is, as I'm sure you can see, quiiiiite a bit different to Battle for the Pizzeria.
Now don't panic, I still fully intend on working on Five Nights at Freddy's stories; in fact, you may see something new coming from the Five Lives at Redding's EU sometime later today!
For now, give this a read and see what y'all think. This story is very much an experiment for me, to see just how good I can write action sequences and create a compelling story that isn't focused on one specific universe.
On with the show!
It is a new generation in human history.
In 2019, humankind was on the brink of disaster; increasing population had caused global famine followed by rioting and terrorism.
Worse still, the major superpowers of the world were unable to adequately deal with the situation thanks to corporate finance and interests preventing them from interfering.
Combined with worldwide natural disasters, the planet's population was living in a constant state of danger.
Humanity's future looked to be at risk.
In 2022, as a last-ditch effort to try and control the teeming populations, the United Nations rearranged their powers and became the Unified Earth Government. Their goal was simple; to reduce the tensions and stresses of the population through a combination of political discussion, diplomatic relations, and military strength.
The attempt failed, and the UEG slowly devolved into tyranny. Meanwhile, those surviving and outside of its scope of its control resorted to medieval feudalism and claiming territory from others to try and consolidate their power while also perpetually waging war against the UEG's armies.
The technology of the 21st century remained, and was continually turned into larger and more devastating weapons for the factions to fire at both each other and the UEG. The mutually assured destruction caused a standoff between the entirety of humanity.
The world seemed to be on the brink of destruction, until…
In 2025, a freak incident occurred within the Solar System. Two black holes formed in immediate proximity to each other. The gravitational forces they exerted on each other proved to be so extreme that they not only consumed each other but also tore a hole in the fabric of time and space.
Shortly afterwards, unidentified starships emerged from the gap. Believing them to be hostile, the forces of humanity set aside their differences to attempt to destroy the ships before they were able to reach Earth.
The human fighters struck first, destroying one large warship and crippling several more, before the unidentified ships fired back with weapons and technology far beyond what human science had been able to develop.
This began a long, brutal interstellar war. Humanity had only one safe point, however they were fighting to protect their home so in spite of the significant number of hostile ships emerging from the gap, they were unable to make major progress beyond Mars.
The war continued for another ten long years, during which human technology rapidly advanced in order to better combat their foes. Combined with the strengthened economy from warfare, this brought humanity out of its dark age.
Finally, at the ten year anniversary of the war, humankind had an official contact with the aliens, finally able to meet them outside of their armored suits and warships. What they found was a shock to them all.
The aliens were not unknown to humanity.
They were works of fiction, characters found within entertainment.
The first contact was with General Pepper of the Lylat Army, as well as the mercenary team Star Fox. After major confusion, humanity and the Lylatians met and discussed the situation.
As it turns out, the gap in time and space was actually a rift; a portal opening the way to parallel planes of existence, many of which existed in our own as little more than stories.
The UEG, once more controlling a unified Earth, entered into its first interdimensional alliance with Lylat, agreeing to trade both technology and understanding; as it turns out, Lylatians had a great interest in human culture and architecture, and agreed to trade technology for it.
As word spread of this, research was devoted to the rift; humanity wanted to know if there were more planes of existence besides our own and Lylat. After several months of sending transmissions through the rift, they had their answers.
Three signals transmitted replies within the first two months; Miles "Tails" Prower hailed from Mobius, a world similar yet different to our own. Duke Ian Dresari, hailing from House Davion within the 'Inner Sphere', which was found to be from a universe known as BattleTech. And finally, a signal from an organization calling themselves the Tau Empire, the second completely alien race that entered into an alliance with humanity.
During the year after these first three signals, alliances were forged between them all, adding in several new ones as they sent signals through the rift, as well as scientific missions to explore further into it and locate any further dimensions to ally with.
It is on the tail of these scientific missions that Rift Artifacts are first discovered and named. Further study of these Artifacts revealed that each dimension had its own items of power unique to its particular plane of existence, and yet fully functional in separate planes. Chaos Emeralds from Mobius, Clan Technology from BattleTech, and tainted/purified artifacts from the Tau's universe, later labeled as Warhammer: 40,000.
The discovery and revealing of these Rift Artifacts caused the UEG and the Dimensional Alliances to restrict the passage of items through the rift; only military or government personnel were allowed to remove anything without it being thoroughly inspected, and being caught attempting to traverse the Rift with an Artifact became a high crime.
This criminalization of Artifact transfer gave birth to a black market, spanning all known dimensions. The illegal occupation of Rift Running, smuggling Artifacts from one dimension to another without authorization, became a high risk and high reward job as corporations and private citizens clamored for the powers and abilities granted through the Artifacts.
However, the value of these Artifacts combined with the difficulty of collecting them caused tension within the Runners, and violent incidents between Runner starships became commonplace. This increase in violence, combined with the sheer magnitude of danger now facing corporations, caused a greatly increased demand in mercenaries to defend both Runners and corporations.
Mercenary work became second only to Rift Running in occupational value, and the highest paid mercenaries were often the ones with Rift Artifacts of their own. It became common to see mercenaries with Tau Pulse weapons, or swords enchanted with otherworldly powers from realms such as Tamriel, and seeing BattleMechs on missions fighting against Titan-class combat mechs or Armored Cores became commonplace.
The UEG and the Dimensional Alliance, although officially not approving of the activities of Rift Runners and Mercenaries, finally came to an unsteady agreement; keep Rift Artifacts out of the hands of the general public and don't actively attack government units, and the governments would leave the Runners and Mercs in peace.
Ten years after the war ended, a shocking number of dimensions had already been discovered, many of which had either been engaged in diplomatic relations or locked away as 'hostile realities' too dangerous for the public. Ironically, these 'hostile realities' became a breeding ground for pirates, as well as common staging grounds for Runner and Mercenary bases.
Despite the vast numbers, these bases became well known as common places for the greatest Runners and Mercenaries to convene, and it was often that visitors would see groups like Star Fox or the Black Knight Legion at them, resting and trading stories and advice. One such well-known Mercenary team was the Phoenix Coalition, led by Josiah Eldritch; a veteran of the First Contact War, and one of the most well-known names in the business.
The Phoenix Coalition, an organization including a four man elite Mercenary team and operating from a Lylatian Dreadnaught known as the Firebird, was one of the most skilled ground team Mercenary organizations known. The ground team was made up of Josiah Eldritch, a partially-cybernetic soldier and the leader of the Coalition; Myst na Volinsk, the ground team's fast-attack and hand-to-hand expert and half-vampire; Benjamin Rabbit, a tan-furred Mobian rabbit, the team's long-range and scouting expert as well as a master with a sniper rifle; and Brett Stewart, the former commander of a team known as X-Com and the ground team's heavy weapons expert. Supported by the technicians and engineers aboard the Firebird as well as their Artificial Intelligence, a "smart" AI named Issak, the Coalition was one of the most expensive and best mercenary teams in the Rift.
This is their story.
Prologue done! Review away and let me know what y'all think; should I keep going with this? Rework it? Scrap the whole thing and try it again another time?
Read and review!