Prelude

In the polished wooden halls of a certain library, within a certain room, sat a certain young man, at a certain desk, writing a certain story. Well, more accurately, he was typing it. Handwritten documents were a relic of the past, after all. The young man, deep in concentration, appeared to be at an impasse in his writing, pushing a pair of thinly framed glasses down to pinch the bridge of his nose, his face contorting into a concentrated, yet clearly frustrated expression. With the only break in the silence of the book-filled room being the calming, steady ticking of the clock in the corner of the room, you can likely imagine how the sudden BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!ing of a device on the desk startled the youth, disrupting the peace and causing him to nearly leap out of his seat.

"What in the world..?"

His shock was justified, of course. Most wouldn't know it, but the device on the desk currently assaulting the man's ears with a noise akin to a smoke alarm had never once activated, not in many, many years.

Without missing a beat, the youth regained his composure and called for someone. "V! You might want to come take a look at this. I think we have a problem on our hands." Seconds later, a girl who appeared to be about the same age as the man burst into the room, munching on some sort of unidentified snack.

"What's the occasion, Boss? You normally tell me never to disturb you when you're writing! And what is that annoying noise?"

The young man, who the girl called "Boss", suppressed the urge to scold the girl for the undignified way that she was spreading crumbs all over the floor, and gestured towards the device.

"That incessant beeping noise is being caused by this little thing. Something's gone wrong."

The girl appeared to be sufficiently bewildered by this as well, though it didn't exactly seem that way, as she continued to chew whatever snack she was munching on. "This ol' thing? But it's never gone off before! Doesn't that mean… wait, what does it mean again?"

The young man sighed. "That's an anomaly alert. It means that someone else besides us is messing with the universes in a way that wasn't intended. Which is supposed to be our job."

The girl began choking on the mystery snack before finally getting it down and swallowing. "I-Isn't that bad? What do we do?"

The young man sighed again, though this time in concern rather than exasperation. He furrowed his brow in thought. "Yes, of course it's bad. No one else is supposed to be able to even touch other universes without the power of this place. As for what we do… That's a much harder question to answer. As far as I know, there was only one recorded time in this library's history when this alarm went off, and the record of that incident is all but lost. Our only option is to…" He trailed off.

"Is to what?!"

"Is to manually search for the source of the anomaly and find out what happened ourselves. We have no information on what caused this, and this device only alerts us that there is something wrong, not where, what, or how it happened."

The girl threw her arms up. "But that could take forever!"

The young man shook his head again, sure of himself this time. "But it's our only option. Our biggest disadvantage right now is lack of information. I recommend you start packing your things now, V. This could take a while."

Let's stop there for now. While the tale of the bespectacled young man and his spirited snack-loving companion is a very interesting one, it is not why you are here today. No, you are here today to experience a much different story… and while you may believe you have already heard versions of this story in the past, rest assured that you have never heard this variation. Now, let's set the stage, shall we…