Somebody once said that the night sky of Tokyo has no stars in it. In many ways this is considered an 'accurate perception' of things. There are so many neon signs in Tokyo that when they turn on the city is almost as bright as it is during the day, and this bright light on Earth outshines the gentler light of the night sky. There is, however, another reason for this that the people of Tokyo do not know about. In Tokyo, there is a natural philosophy that says 'there is no world of the stars.' The only people know of such a world are those who made that world their own. One subset of those people are the citizens of the utopian world of ideals who seek the future at the end of time and space. Another would be those who sleep in the interval between stars, the celestial transcendents who covet the eternal past. Tokyo however can reach neither of those points. The future is indefinite while the past is disposed of beyond the walls. The repeating 'present' in Tokyo has neither the past nor future...or at least, that was how it was supposed to be. Such was the case...until now.
Oz is around in one of the relatively darker places in Tokyo's suburbs, which he likes. With less light pollution around it's one of the few places remaining where he can see the sky as it mostly is. When he wants to pull himself away from the world, it's a place where he can relax. Oz fiddles around with the settings of his telescope and tunes it until he can see a bit of light through the curved lenses. Once he's satisfied with his settings, he starts with his stargazing.
Not long after this does Oz start doubting what he sees as he voices his confusion. Somehow, the stars he was looking at suddenly went out, disappearing like grains of sand. Oz wonders what could be wrong since he's sure he did his settings right, and in his frustration he moves from his telescope to look at the sky directly. He reacts in bewilderment, surprise, then sudden understanding, and all his bundled emotions come together into one drawn out scream. Thus the signal for the nightmare has arrived.
Title card pops up, and the prologue has a title again for the first time in forever: Welcome to the Last Hope of Humanity
That day, a single light pierces through the night sky. When the light fades, you find yourself in the middle of a bunch of trees you do not recognize. It is dark around, and no one else is present. What little light is around streams faintly through the tree leaves. There is no one to ask for information, nor would asking yourself do any good. Moments pass before you suddenly realize you have something in your hand, which would be your phone. It feels familiar in your hand, so it is without a doubt yours. But where are you? And why are you there? There's no use panicking, so you set about to verify your surroundings as you either look for an information board nearby, try to look up your location on your phone, or recheck your identity. In A, you notice there is nothing like that around, which only adds to your sense of helplessness. In B, your navigation app does nothing as you seem to be outside your signal range. If nothing else, what was one of modern life's conveniences is now just a clunky emergency flashlight. In C, you remember your name but that's all you remember about yourself. You take another look around, but you have no clue as to where you are. It looks to be a park, but nothing proves it is so.
You wonder why you're there. You have a feeling you were playing on your phone until a moment ago, but beyond that your memory is a haze of blankness. But then suddenly a violent flash of light illuminates this dim world. Shockwaves, sounds of explosions, and the ferocious roar of a monster all blare out all around, and lights illuminate the nearby trees. Streams of heat wave by, followed by billowing smoke and rising pillars of flame. A primal sense of fear fills you with the blind urge to run away, but where will you go? And to top off all this chaos, something drops down from the sky.
A Shadow night gaunt swoops down and roars, and you stammer about a monster as you attempt to process what you're seeing and cry for help. It cackles in hisses and staccato clicks, and your first go to thought for comparison is that it's some giant bug of sorts. A rubbery substance of sorts covers its body all around, though parts of it are thinner than others. If you focus on just certain parts and go with first impressions, maybe you could find some commonalities with insects. But as a whole, the creature's existence flies in the face of all you know and understand. It is a distilled drop of otherworldliness that you could never have known about, have no opportunity to learn about, and have never wanted to know about. The night gaunt chatters as it wriggles in place, and fluids drip down from what seems to be its chin. And then it pounces at you like a hunter catching its prey.
As you scream out at the monster's attack, a voice signals to fire upon it now. Blast sounds that hurt your ears mix with the strange noises of bullets bouncing off a hard surface. The gunfire does succeed in driving the night gaunt off, and it screams as it flies away. Breke then runs up to you and asks if you're okay and unhurt. You react with fear, ask who Breke is in trepidation, or struggle to voice your terror coherently. Breke tells you that it's okay now as he does his best to comfort you, prompting you to calm down and take deep breaths as he hugs you gently. He pats you on the back and softens his own breathing as well, but it holds for barely a moment before Breke tenses back up and says you must not have heard the emergency evacuation alert and asks where your friends and family are.
You tell Breke you don't know and ask if something has happened, or you ask what he means by emergency evacuation. He doesn't have the time to answer as Red Trooper reports that Defense Line A has called in asking for reinforcements from Line B. Blue reports that evacuations of the urban areas are 70% done but trails off on what's happening with the refugees they came for over here. Breke says he understands and decides to split his unit, where he will take Team Alpha to Line B while Vice Captain Karel will lead Team Bravo back to base for evacuation.
Blue speaks up and asks to be moved onto Team Alpha, saying it's just a contingency and argues there's no reason for Breke to put himself in danger. Breke however argues he should go because it's him, as that way they can possibly save even one more life. He asks Blue to look out for you and get you back to base as soon as possible. Blue is still concerned but accepts the order, and Breke tells you to leave this place. His subordinate will protect you, so you can relax. You thank him and ask him to be careful. He assents, then orders his team to get going as he leads them off. The remaining members stand up, and Blue tells you to run and follow them as they head back to base. The troopers move as one as they start to withdraw, and you frantically run after them as to not be left behind.
As the troopers proceed through the park, Green suddenly reports to the vice captain that his radar picked up on an enemy coming in from the front right. He never finishes his sentence as the night gaunt from earlier swoops in and reappears, killing Green in one stroke. The night gaunt is suddenly covered in shadow and changes form, and the survivors ready their guns without hesitation. Purple calls the night gaunt an invader as he yells at it, and Yellow asks the vice captain to go on ahead while the two of them volunteer to buy time. They stand before the creature and fire, but their bullets bounce off in vain.
You are alarmed at the ineffectiveness of their attacks and tell them to run, or you think to yourself that the night gaunt's hardness seems more like rubberiness. The night gaunt's counterattack kills the frontline troopers in an instant, their lives junked from one attack. The brutality of it makes you freeze in shock when a rough hand pulls at you to drag you away. Blue tells you to stop blanking out like so and to run away. You are in no position to hesitate he says, so you have to run away and survive. You agree reluctantly and apologize. As you take off, the sounds of tragedies all around persist with you. Flames, smoke, and repulsive cries fill everything around. A regular guy panics and cries for help, but he is quickly silenced by a night gaunt. Yellow Trooper yells for people to not show any openings and for everyone to keep back to back with someone as they move forward. He is done in seconds after. The shadows swallow up the figures of those who were late to run away and those who stand up to fight the monsters, and the trooper leading you away has a grim mix of regret and duty dragging at his face.
Time passes, and Blue eventually tells you that you guys are almost out of the park as he tries to encourage you to keep going. The night gaunt swoops in and bashes him aside in one massive blow, and the monster's crackling voice clatters out of its mouth. You suddenly understand somehow that it's laughing at you. It laughs at your desperate resistance and your efforts to survive. It sneers at everything you've been doing when a shadow stands up from behind it. Blue turns out to have survived his ambush, and his challenge at the night gaunt draws its attention as it figures out who it should toy with.
You try to talk Blue out of what he's doing and to run away, but Blue tells you to listen closely to what he's about to say. Past the trees a little distance away is his partner. When you get to them, tell them you are asking for an emergency evacuation and go on without him. And once Blue gives you the signal, he says you have to run and not look back. He also asks you pass on a message for him to the captain: "it's been an honor to serve under you." The night gaunt seems to pick up on something as it starts to turn away from you, and Blue readies his gun as he signals for you to escape. You run with either your head down or your head up.
If you run with your head up, you run in desperation as you keep your eyes to the ground. You feel as though you can't raise your head, or else you'll see Blue's face and stop when you do so. You would be overcome with despair in such a case and stay, so you grit your teeth and run so as to not waste his determination. If you run with your head up instead, you run and keep your eyes on the night gaunt despite your terror. You have no intention of stopping as you have no knowledge of how to fight and are therefore dead weight. You glare at the monster and muster up the tiniest bit of courage to memorize his face, believing that surviving here is all that you can do to fight.
Blue encourages you to keep going, saying that orders from the top are absolute before focusing on the night gaunt to keep its attention. He unloads his clip on it, yet no damage seems to stick on the darkly shining body. It creaks as it bends before swinging back, but Blue manages to dodge the blow. He yells about how he'll fight so as to protect even one more person and to take down even one more monster. He swears that they will win aga----end of prologue part one.
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