Justin and his friends were not sure what to expect when they made their first jump. However nobody could have expected what actually happened.

It was bright, very bright, everything was gone; there was nothing but the light. Justin looked around and noted his friends standing next to him, each with their own puzzled expression. 

<Learn>, they each heard in their mind.

The people of the Nexus were fairly powerful in their own right, however without the essence energy their society would collapse. They knew the energy was required for them to maintain a useful society. What they didn’t know, was that the energy itself was alive. Luckily for Justin and his crew, the essence had been waiting for the people of Nexus to right the wrongs they had done in the past and was subtly helping them in the background. When the consciousness behind the essence realized they were going to contact Justin it acted. 

Justin and his friends suddenly understood everything…

The world of Nexus was home to the guardians and ambassadors to each of the systems. Some of the beings on Nexus thought themselves high and mighty with the power they derived from the universal essence. They decided to make themselves a planet away from the others. This proposition was of course turned down by the leaders of Nexus. However they went off and tried the experiment on their own, it worked however not like they planned. Instead of creating another planet, they created a rift between the facets. After realizing their mistake they tried to undo the rift but could not. Eventually they were found out and it took the might of the entire civilization to patch the rift, even with so many helping more than a million beings we pulled through the rift into what laid beyond. Eventually they were able to patch it and keep it from spreading but even they couldn’t close it. This in turn destroyed their ability to cross facets themselves and was eventually devastating to many of the worlds they visited.

After the Nexus side of the rift was patched a quick trial was held and the ones responsible for the rift were punished. A fitting demise as they were exiled into the rift which they created. All assumed they had died, but they lived. Some started a new life in a facet on a planet they called Niberia; but they lived without the unlimited essence that existed back in Nexus. It was later learned that they could steal someone’s essence and this would make them stronger for a short time. Countless battles were fought and countless years later their descendants left for the stars, the truly evil ones deciding to remain behind and enjoy living off of the few left on the planet. 

Much later the Evil Ones learned the secrets of facet travel. They then built machines to store their own essence before they died. During this time small ships were sent out to find alternate facets that contained life. Small ships containing essences went sent to sparsely populated planets and started infesting the population with the essence they carried. Eventually these ships started new corrupt civilizations in these facets.

Countless centuries later they were gathering forces and spreading through every facet they could. The Evil Ones would infect entire planets and catalog the results, many people died, but those who didn’t were all worth scientific study.

Adding the Evil Ones problems was the face that some facets would not support their type of life at all. These they cataloged and stayed from, they could not understand the difference, but it was there.

During all this time they never stopped looking for home.

“WOW,” was all Amy could say.

The voice started again. 

<The people of Nexus caused a great scare to form the entire plane of existence. They cannot repair the scare, because they cannot leave the Nexus. Anyone leaving the Nexus would instantly die, their essence may survive if it finds another host to survive in, but this is unacceptable. That is why I have chosen you to correct their error and normalize the facets that still exist. The essence energy that was originally pulled through when the scar was formed is causing an imbalance in these systems. Eventually this imbalance will cause the system to ‘renew’ and all life in the facet will cease to exist. Time will pass — systems, planets and life will form again, the essence will inhabit some of this life and the cycle will start again. This must be stopped at any cost!>

<Justin, I challenge you and your friends to take up this cause and make things right.>

Justin stood there in the light thinking for the moment then said, “All of these facets are like this?”

<Some of the facets do not contain any of the essence from the Nexus. Therefore they have not been contaminated and are pure; These facets are in no danger and are in balance… unless the evil travels to them. We have created a facet for you and those who choose to follow you. This facet will exist till the end of time, it will also contain an energy similar to the Nexus. The energy in this facet is found in no other, it will sustain and help you in ways you can’t imagine. It will also keep the balance if an opposing energy should be brought into the facet. You may request as much information as you need after you arrive, either the Sanctuary Guardian or the Portal Guardian can assist you.>

<You fifteen humans are the only ones who can purify these other facets. Do not let this Dark Energy corrupt you, you will understand more on this later.>

“How can we possibly do this? The resources we would need are unthinkable? What will happen to the facets we drain this Dark Energy from…?” Justin tried to say but was cut off.

<You will undoubtedly need to gather a large following, appoint your own guardians and ambassadors. Take over where the others left off and get civilization back on track, learn from their mistakes and do not make them yourself.>

<I have given you what you need, the rest you will need to take care of yourselves. Time is short; you must be on your way. Sal will explain everything to you when needed.>

<For this I will perpetuate your life and that of your offspring for as long as you reside in Sanctuary.>

Then the light was gone and they were in shock.

Did you ever wonder?

On the planet Nexus a large building started to fill with creatures big and small, there were thousands of them. The building resembled a large enclosed stadium with a podium at the center and a three dimensional display above it. The noise in the stadium was modest as beings were still coming in. After everyone had taken their seats a large tone was heard and the building became quiet.

“Greetings governors and fellow tribesman, welcome to the Nexus system assembly and farewell ceremony for the late Emperor Masterson. This ceremony will also cover the ascendancy of Prince Masterson to the throne,” Assembly Master Tork stated. Then looking over at the prince he continued, “This assembly will also cover some grave concerns regarding the plains of existence and the continued freedom we have enjoyed for so many generations.”

This brought up a murmur from the crowd and the tone sounder again to settle everyone down. Tork new the significance of this day would go down in history and would possibly de-stabilize the entire system. Knowing that he was still bound to uphold the law of the new Emperor and like the Prince, he knew the Emperor’s death was odd. The teachers could not pinpoint the exact reason, but it happened soon after he and the Prince took a journey to the rift. He had never done this before but the Prince talked him into going, he was never the same after he returned. Some say he just willed himself to death, that he saw something he couldn’t live with.

The ascension began and the prince started his rise to Emperor. This only took a few minutes, the assembled simply focused on him and called him Emperor. Its as if the planet itself knew what was happening and granted him his new title. The new Emperor rose off the ground surrounded in the natural energy of the Nexus for what seemed like an eternity. After returning to the ground he started speaking.

“Thank you my friends! It is both a sad day and the beginning of a new future, that is if we have a future. My father, the late Emperor Masterson, was a good man and did everything in his power to be the best leader possible. In most things his judgments’ were proper and we all prospered. However, he disregarded one thing and thought in unimportant. When the rift was created and then patched most of us assumed everything had been taken care of and we put the event out of our minds. However some of us including myself felt it was too important to ignore, we monitored the rift and learned from it. The rift formed a doorway of sorts and connected the facets together, this caused two major problems. The first one we all know about, the patch blocked our access to these other realms. The next problem none of you know about, it also caused a path for those in the other realms and allowed them to travel between them.” He said as more murmuring erupted from the crowd.

The tone sounded for an entire minuet until there was quiet again.

“Now as I was saying about the facets. We have been denied travel to them for many years. During this time other civilizations developed methods of using the path we created, or I should say those outlaws among us created. As I was saying a few civilizations have developed the means of traveling between these facets, the main civilization doing this is led by those outlaws among us who were originally pulled through the rift when it formed. THEY did not die as we had thought and they have been corrupting and polluting these facets since they arrived. Looking through the rift one can easily see that most of these facets are in complete chaos.”

After the last comment the assembly went crazy. They were outraged that they hadn’t known about this. Eventually they settled down, mainly because they wanted more information.

“Now I have known about this for some time but I have only recently persuaded my father to look into the matter. Unfortunately I believe what he saw through the rift troubled him so much that he could no longer go on…” He went on to fill the assembly in on everything he knew. The struggle of the different races created by the Evil Ones, their strive for power and even the sacrifice of entire systems to feed their need for power.

He finished his statement by saying, “Our technology here is grand, but it had always been here. Now that some of it is gone, we sit here and try not to miss its ability. The problem is the other have learned to do without it and have grown in their desire to expand their knowledge; and not in a good way. Last but not least and I cant be certain of this; I believe that even though we cannot travel to the other facets anymore, that they with the technology, can travel back here.”

That statement brought dead silence. All of the assembled connected mentally and calculated the odds of something like this happening. They came up with one common thought, with thousands of different ‘facets’ one was sure to get lucky and find a way home. There was no option they had to prepare to fight but how?

“I do have some good news! It would appear some of our ancestors that were pulled through the rift survived the Evil Ones grasp. A guardian is even among them and they are currently building a force to take on the Evil where ever it exists. Now the question is do we do anything to help them? I will also tell you they also have the power to cross facets.”

The assembly became quiet again as they mentally talked with each other. The decision was unanimous.

“So what shall it be?”

“Please wish us luck, we will need it!”

They were the last words spoken by Justin before he left his home world, It was a sad day when the ship lifted off and flew out of sight. Some people were skeptical about them ever returning, but they were hopeful. The drone ship they left in had been retrofitted with the technology they had gained from the Bethans and from Duke. They hoped to find a safe place out of reach of the Evil ones, this would give them time to plan the future. It is Justin’s hope to build up a force strong enough to defeat those who he has grown to hate.

After achieving a safe distance from the planet they started the jump procedure….