#avis;

Is this real, the fear I feel? When the noise starts dying down? Is it true that there's a place for you When the sun burns out? Don't you fear that it's too late to turn the tide?

Wake me now! The world outside is dying While we slowly drown Not living, just surviving Locked in your paradise Our sanctuary burns while you play God As above, so below- So Below.

"We used to be different people. I wonder sometimes if it was ever honest when it came to you. It was with me. I don't recognize this body. Too sharp. Too many edges. How is it you've changed more than me, when my very flesh and bone are no longer mine? Was I ever anything more to you than a means to an end? The means to The End? We have destroyed everything. You have destroyed everything. everything. everything. everything."

"Nothing done is impossible to be undone- you... your whispering will not shake me from my task, VAN."

"I have a name. and you know it. you spoke it with love once. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward. Coward!"

"Quiet! I need only- I need only to contain the... things you created when-"

"I thought I wanted legacy, I thought I wanted fame I didn't know I'd lose all my loved ones in exchange. . ."

The first 2 employees of Hope Adder Enterprises have finally been completed. Tied initially to the ill-fated INTERLOPER Project, H.A.E. now operates with a skeleton crew of members, head-scientist Avis chief among them. A Skydancer with a research focus on Temporal sciences, he's produced the T.I.M.E. (Temporal Interference Manifestation Electronics) line of devices- specifically for use in hunting down and incapacitating entities connected to H.A.E.'s failed experiments... Which leads, of course, to their headsman.

Bastian is something of a digital exorcist, a skilled assassin trained to hunt and destroy anomalous entities brought about by H.A.E.'s fracturing of reality, he is little more than a glorified bounty hunter- though his contract to H.A.E. means he's more akin to a dog on a leash than any sort of free-agent. Constant temporal leaping and shifting through realities, however, has left him afflicted, a digital disease that threatens to make him all the more like the things he hunts. It's on the tail of the INTRUDER that Bastian finds himself in the neon-soaked hallways of The Ever Constantine Mall- a popular shopping spot and hang-out destination during the day...