As the sun set over the city of Anduruna, the district of Calypsa was one of the first to be cast into darkness. As the shadows of the hills of Ruskol loomed over the area, many businesses closed down as others began their nightly shifts. As the sun lowered further, the light of glow orbs started to dot the streets. Residential streets quieted down as the dreamkeepers made dinner and other nighttime preparations, but the urban streets stayed busy with the foot traffic of those happy to be getting off work and those unfortunate enough to have to work a night shift. One of the latter was Daniel Loumann.Daniel looked to be a cross between a goat, wolf, and a healthy dose of anxiety. He was scrawny, but still capable enough to have landed himself a position at the Calypsa CCA District Office. His time there had thus far been chaotically uneventful; he had been called out to deal with petty theft, graffiti in an alleyway, and a store owner saying that he “saw some shady characters standing outside”. The tired look on Daniel’s face faded slightly when he noticed that finally reached his destination at the District Office. As he clocked in, he heard a familiar voice yell from the next room.“Daniel, we almost thought you weren’t gonna show up tonight,” The voice was that of George Trenton, a CCA officer who headed nighttime operations at the District Office, “You know, me and the guys were just placing bets on whether you slept in or just quit.”“Unfortunately, sir, it looks like no one wins this time.”“Heh, you know I’m just messin’ with ya, kid. Grab a seat and find something to do; it looks like it’s gonna be a slow night.”George was older than Daniel, but not by more than a couple of decades. He was a moose whose brown hair was threatening to turn grey, but had decided not to yet out of fear of retribution. George himself gave off the first impression of seriousness and grit that aided him in exacting authority in the field, but Daniel knew him well enough to know that his friendliness was sincere.Daniel took a seat at an empty table and surveyed the room around him. The room itself was slightly dingy, with only a few glow orbs providing dim light to illuminate a barren landscape of tables, chairs, and supporting pillars. Across the room were two other junior officers casually chatting with each other, both having chosen to mostly ignore Daniel from the day he was hired. In another corner of the room were two shock troopers, or “safety troopers” as he had been obligated to call them on the job, who were silently dealing cards to one another in some sort of game that Daniel didn’t care enough about to learn. Suddenly, a loud ring filled the room, causing everyone’s heads to shoot up in surprise. A data scroll hanging on the wall began to display a message, which was quickly relayed by George.“Alright, looks like we’ve got reports of a domestic disturbance, with indications of possible power usage,” One of the shock trooper’s ears perked up at the sound of those last two words.“You two,” George pointed at the shock troopers, “You’re coming with me, and Daniel’s coming as well.”One of the junior officers objected, “Why Daniel? He’s the youngest out of all of us, if there’s actually power usage, he could get hurt!”“Don’t start acting like you give a damn about his well-being all of a sudden, Riana,” George responded, “You know as well as I do that these power abuse reports are usually complete bunk, and Daniel needs the experience of at least moving around and getting on location way more than either of you two do.”Riana sat down with a dejected sigh and George looked over at Daniel.“C’mon kid, we got a job to do.”As Daniel made his way to the site of the report, he felt uneasy. He had been with the CCA for such a short time, and he felt vastly underexperienced compared to those currently surrounding him. In addition, he was being called out to a report of power abuse. Power abuse was taken extremely seriously within Anduruna, with the punishment for abusers usually being lifetime exile. Being called out to a report like this made Daniel even more nervous than he usually was, but George flashed him a reassuring smile.“Don’t worry, kid, you’ll be fine. Like I said, these reports are usually noth-” His voice trailed off as he eyed the house now in front of them. The front door had been broken in, but the house was completely silent. “This must be the place. Stay behind me, we’re gonna have to go in.”George sent off the neighbors that had begun to gather to find out what was happening and led Daniel and the troopers into the house. The house itself was dark and eerily quiet. Daniel held in a gasp as his boot crunched over the remains of a shattered glow orb. Suddenly, one of the troopers stopped and nudged George on the shoulder.“Hey, there’s some sound coming from a room at 2 o’clock,” she whispered, “Sounds like it could be heavy breathing or talking.”George nodded and motioned for the group to follow him as he found the door. He tried the handle and found that it was locked, so he stepped back and kicked the door at its handle, breaking it open. The two shock troopers flashed their springers into the room, ready to fire.“Put your hands in the air and cease all power usage immediately!” George yelled, but his angry demeanor faltered slightly when he saw what was in the room. On one end of the room were two bodies wearing dark masks lying next to each other, either unconscious or dead, with burn marks both on them and the wall behind them. On the other end of the room was a teenage boy and his unconscious mother. The mother looked like she had been shot and was bleeding from a wound in her arm; the boy knelt beside her and had a pale green halo above his head that dimly lit the room, signifying power usage. The troopers saw this and aimed their springers at the boy.“Please, please don’t shoot me. I need to use my power. It’s the only way that I can save her,” the boy pleaded, “She won’t make it to a hospital in time, you have to let me heal her!”As he spoke, green wisps flew from his fingers to the wound on his mother’s arm, the edges of which seemed to shrink slightly, the red of her blood being replaced by the white of her fur.“I’m sorry, son, but you know the rules,” George spoke with a recitatory tone in his voice, “Step away from her and stop using your power immediately or we will be forced to use force.”“Please, you don’t understand. She will die if I can’t help her,” he raised his arm up in front of his face, blocking the glaring light of the flashlight used by the shock troopers, “Just give me a little more time, and you can arrest me and get her to a hospital. Plea-”Suddenly, one of the troopers fired and struck the boy in the chest. He fell backwards to the ground in a heap.“What the hell,” Daniel yelled, “Why’d you shoot him! He was just a kid, he wasn’t going to hurt us!”“You don’t know that,” replied the trooper firmly, “He was raising his hand at us, I wasn’t about to let us end up like those two poor souls over there.” He motioned toward the masked bodies.Daniel felt the firm hand of George grab his shoulder, holding him back from moving toward the trooper.“It’s not worth it, Daniel,” George muttered, “You two, head back to the office and report what happened. I’ll deal with the paperwork once I get back.” He turned back towards Daniel and lowered his voice. “Listen, kid, we’re gonna be a bit late back to the station. I wanna have a talk with you first.”George sent the troopers on their way and called in for a medical team on his data scroll. Once they had arrived, finished taking care of the bodies, and left, George grabbed Daniel by the arm. Daniel did his best to not meet George’s gaze, but became confused when he saw George flash a smile out of the corner of his eye.“Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be anything disciplinary,” George said reassuringly, “But we’re probably gonna have to get somewhere a little more suited for conversation.”Daniel followed George as he strode down streets with a pace as if George had had to walk this way many times before. When they stopped, they were in front of a small bar. George held open the front door and motioned for Daniel to step inside with a small chuckle. The inside was cozy, with a fire inside warming up what was otherwise a typical looking bar. George took a seat at the bar and Daniel sat next to him. George held up two fingers and the bartender nodded, and slid two bottles of fermentae in front of George and Daniel.“Hope you like shayed, cause that’s all they got here,” George said with a grin before placing the bottle to his lips.“It’s… fine. I’m just so confused why you brought me here, to some random bar, to yell at me.”“Kid, I already told you I’m not gonna yell at you. I just felt like the conversation we need to have needed to take place away from all the hubbub and prying eyes down at the office.”“Conversation? Conversation about what? The innocent kid I just saw get shot in front of me?”George sighed deeply and brought his hand up to cover his mouth as he spoke.“Not technically innocent, but yes, about him.”“Fine, he wasn’t technically innocent, but he was still just a kid who was trying to save his mom after a home invasion. And… we just killed him.” Daniel held back tears at his recollections of the night’s events.“I’m not saying that I take any pleasure or pride in what happened back there,” George said, his eyes moving down toward the bar and into his bottle, “But what happened back there was an unfortunate necessity of how our society and our job functions. Our job is to keep order and to keep peace. Part of that is keeping control of power abuse and preventing it at all costs.”“But why? I don’t want to disagree with the CCA, I love them, I always have, and I’ve wanted to be a part of them my whole life, but it all just seems kinda nonsensical right now. Why did he deserve to die?”“He didn’t deserve to die, no one does, but he needed to die, in order to maintain control. Imagine what would happen if we decided to show mercy, if we hesitated for even a millisecond, and he used his power, even accidentally, to kill me or you or one of the troopers. There’d be chaos. You can’t suppress news like that. Next thing you know, every single delinquent, gang member, and wannabe rebel on the streets is gonna hear about it and think, ‘Well, if that one kid was able to fight back and win against the CCA, why can’t I?’. It’d be war. The amount of lives lost, innocent, criminal, and CCA, would be catastrophic. That is why he needed to die.”Daniel sat there, bottle still in hand, almost in shock. He felt a mixture of hatred, confusion, and understanding that he couldn’t reconcile within himself. George laid a hand on his shoulder.“I see that look in your eyes, and I get it. You’re still a rookie. You’ve only been with us for what, 2, 3 weeks? You shouldn’t have had to go through something like this so early, with no preparations. That’s my fault, and I apologize for putting you through this, but I’m gonna try to make it up to you. I’ll give you the rest of the day off, for starters. I think something like that is more than enough reason to write off the few hours you got left on your shift. Secondly, I’ll keep CCA eyes off you for the rest of the night.”“Wh-what? You can do that?”“Sure, I’ll just tell the guys patrolling tonight to not go looking for you as long as you stay out of trouble. Just don’t do anything that gets us called over to you, or else we’re both in some major trouble.”“What do you mean by that?”“Go out, get some stronger booze than this legal garbage, go find yourself a brothel, live a little! You’re only a rookie, try to live your life while you still can.” At that, George slammed his bottle down at the bar and guffawed loudly.“Th-thank you, sir, I’ll try to go and do something tonight, if I can.”“You don’t have to do none of that stuff if you don’t want, I’m just saying that you have the freedom to relax however you want tonight after what happened.”Daniel began to respond in gratitude once more, but he was cut off by a loud voice coming from across the room.“Spirits up above, Daniel, is that you?” The voice came from a shortish fox who was smiling widely at the sight of Daniel, “It feels like it's been forever since I’ve seen you out this late, man, get over here!”“Heh, looks like the spirits have already made plans for you tonight,” George joked, “I’m gonna make my way back to the office and leave you two to it.”Daniel waved goodbye and made his way over to the table where the fox was sitting.“Hey, Seth,“ Daniel spoke brightly, but couldn’t hide the forlorn look he still had on his face from earlier, “how's it going?”“Damn, man, what happened? You look like someone just died.” Seth paused. “Oh shoot, I better not be right on that one.”“No, it’s not that… exactly, I just… had a bad power abuse call.” Daniel stopped himself from saying anything more, it probably wouldn’t have been wise to anyway.“Well, you know my personal stance on the whole power abuse thing. We all got ‘em, why not let us use ‘em. But whatever, you’re the big, bad CCA guy now, so I probably shouldn’t be saying that kinda stuff.”Daniel cracked a small smile. “Don’t worry, I just got off the clock anyway. It doesn’t matter what you have to say on the subject.”“Speaking of that job by the way,” Seth started, placing down the empty fermentae bottle he had been holding in his hand, “I have not seen you nearly at all since this job started, and we’re roommates, man. I just hear you getting up to go to your med classes in the morning, and I get back too late from mine to catch you leaving for work.”“Well, that changes tonight. Apparently, my officer told me that he’ll take CCA eyes off of me for the night and let me do whatever as long as I don’t force them to go looking for me.”“Wait, really? You ain’t pulling my tail, are you?”“Nope, I can say that I trust him enough to believe him.”“Spirits, then what are we doing in this old place? I know this great bar on the other side of Calypsa that has super cheap Scinter’s Mark if you just slip ‘em a codeword. C’mon, man, what are you waiting for?”“Hold on, the other side of Calypsa, I have money with me, but not enough to pay for boat fare and buy Scinter’s Mark, even if it is ‘super cheap’.”“Don’t worry, man, I know I short way to get there from here, we just gotta cut through a couple alleyways and we’ll be there in no time.”With that, Daniel finished off the rest of his bottle and headed out the door with Seth. He had to run to keep up with Seth’s quick pace as they darted around a corner into a narrow passageway. He chased him as they ran between buildings, their excited paces never falling as Seth kept yelling about how amazing the bar was that they were going to. After a bit, however, Daniel called out to Seth for them to rest a bit.“I’m tired, dude, let’s just chill here for a sec while I catch my breath,” Daniel called out.“Fine by me, just don’t take all night, these alleys give me the creeps if I’m in them for too long,” Seth responded back.“Also, be honest with me, how much of the stuff that you’ve said about this bar is true?”“If I’m being honest, I know the owner of the place, and he’s just a pretty cool guy,” Seth laughed.“Yeah, I figured that after you started saying how the waitresses would let you do shots off their-”Daniel stopped. His ears perked up as he swung his head towards the far end of the alley.“Hey man, did you hear that,” Daniel asked, slightly concerned.Before Seth could respond, two shapes leaped out of the darkness and struck Seth to the ground, one pointing a Stinger at Daniel.“Alright, both of you stay on the damn ground and give us everything you got on ya,” one spoke, he looked to be a hyena, but the most alarming part of his appearance was the brightly colored tattoos that adorned his body, as well as his partner. They were part of the Neon Knives, and Daniel and Seth had walked right into their trap.“It’ll be alright, Seth, just do what they say and we’ll be fine,” Daniel said, his voice shaking.He took out his wallet and handed it to the one with the springer, who promptly looked inside.“28 lucre? Dammit, we caught another flop,” the bandit complained, pushing Daniel to the ground as she walked back over to the hyena.“Not completely,” he responded, “This guy was loaded, I got a couple hundred out of him.”“Fine, whatever,” she hissed back, “It ain’t worth this kinda trouble, but at least we’ll get a nice payday. Let’s just leave our two friends be.”“Hey,” yelled Seth, startling everyone with his sudden bravery, “You’re a CCA officer, ain’t you Daniel, can’t you do something about this?”Daniel’s eyes widened as the two Neons turned around to face them once more.“Oh, an officer, huh,” remarked the one with the springer, “It’s too bad for you that your friend gave away that juicy little tidbit. But honestly, how awful of a friend would you have to be to just give that away like that?” She turned to Seth, now wide-eyed, and shot him in the thigh. Seth screamed out in agony, but the Neon raised her springer again and aimed it at his head. “One more sound out of you, and you get a nice new hole in your skull.”She then turned over to Daniel, who was now sitting slack-jawed on the ground, unable to move or say anything.“As for you,” she spoke venomously, “We can’t just have a CCA officer with full knowledge of our faces living to tell the tale, so you know what I’ve gotta do now.”She aimed the springer, but was stopped by Seth slashing at her leg in desperation.“Damn you, you stupid fox, wait your turn,” she yelled, kicking at him.In that moment, Daniel felt as if he had lost control of himself. He felt adrenaline coursing through him like it never had before, and he began to notice a yellow glow coming from just above his head.“Hey, watch out!” The hyena yelled.“What do you mean, watch out,” The other Neon yelled back, “I’ve got this under control. It’s just- Oh, oh sh-”It was too late. In a flash, Daniel felt a shockwave emanate from his hand and towards her, shattering the springer and sending both Neons to the wall at the far end of the alley with a loud crack. Daniel barely had time to process what he had done before he rushed over to Seth. Seth was badly hurt and he losing blood incredibly quickly.“No, no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.” Daniel began to mutter to himself frantically under his breath. “Okay, remember what to do. Keep the patient stable, tie the blood flow off.” Daniel took his shirt off and tied a makeshift tourniquet around Seth’s leg. “What am I supposed to do next? C’mon think, think, think! I can’t lose him, not now.”But before Daniel was able to finish his last thought, he heard a terrible sound, the sound of rapid footsteps and his officer’s quiet commanding voice. Daniel began to breathe even more rapidly as the troopers turned around the corner and met him face to face. Daniel looked into George’s eyes and found nothing but concealed pity and disappointment. “Please, I know what you’re thinking, but just let me save him first, he won’t make it to a hospital,” with every panicked word, the light above Daniel’s head only grew brighter, “Please, do whatever the hell you want with me, but let me heal my friend first.”Daniel subconsciously raised his hand in an effort to make a pleading gesture towards the officers, but realized too late what he had done.“No, no wai-” But it was too late. The last thing Daniel saw was George closing his eyes before a shot from one of the shock trooper’s springers rang throughout the streets of Calypsa.

EPISODE 0
0000 HOURS, THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1227
(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)
In the dark room with at least four pillar-like beams keeping the ceiling together, light begins to shine from the door sliding open. A familiar chimpanzee-Dreamkeeper, Augustus, slowly steps in the dark room and shuts it behind him. He was only wearing his light body vest with two shoulder pads sewed onto his grey t-shirt’s shoulder blades in an asymmetrical format. His pants colored dark-green with his combat boots similar to any shock trooper-design. He turns to see the source of light coming from the Glow Orbs that’s sitting on top on the right side of the office desk.
Within the light shines on the green falcon-Dreamkeeper with dragon-like horns who is already staring at the unexpecting chimp with a grim look on his face. He’s been sitting at his desk waiting for his arrival. Pause had followed.
“I was expecting you to show up, Augustus,” the falcon replied.

EPILOGUE
1200 HOURS, MONDAY, SEPTEMBRIS 1, 1225
(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)
Silence echoes throughout the cave tunnels with no source of light to shine. A handful of seconds followed, yet it felt somewhat of a suspense.
Suddenly, a few footsteps were heard from the distance. The sound of someone’s feet is heard more clearly and closely.
Then, the face of the monster appears. Attila walks out of the shadows of the tunnel and slowly enters into the light like a slow Nightmare husk. His left eye socket still had been missing without having any thought of covering it with either a bandana or an eyepatch.
Despite being covered with dirt from a certain storm while he traveled on foot for at least half a month now, he’s now entering a large cave room acting as some sort of an antechamber with its stalagmites surrounding each side of the tunnelway like a sceneric decoration. In the middle of the antechamber comes a large circular rock-like pillar with its rock-like stairs encircl