1 Tristan de Robillard

Bob and Joe were your typical security guards. They were fat, lazy and always ready to kiss the ass of anyone they had to. In turn they took pleasure in insulting anyone they could.

The duo were guards of the ground floor at Ambiance Corp. One of the largest tech developing companies in Washington DC. Every day they would see a myriad of people, wearing expensive suits holding brief cases that made them look sophisticated. To enter the building one had to have a key card and sign in by the reception so the duo knew everyone who worked in the building, or so they thought.

On a typical Monday morning their favorite victim came in. He was one of the very few who didn't wear an expensive suite when coming to work. All he wore was a white shirt and jeans with some sneakers. He had brown skin, brown eyes and always carried with him an grumpy expression, as if he hated the world. He was neither tall nor short, and he was slightly chubby. His looks were average as well, and were it not for his unkempt hair, one would find it hard to notice him in a crowd.

With his comic books in his hand and his double strapped backpack, he looked like a typical nerd. Be it his appearance or his bearing, nothing on the young man was worthy of noting, making him the target of Bob and Joe's scorn.

The moment the young man came by the reception, the torment began. The bearded Joe was the first to speak up.

"Hey Tristan, where did you shop for your clothes, geeks are us?"

"I bet he got a 10% discount because he is a frequent customer, " added Bob. The duo laughed at their own jokes, but Tristan ignored them, as he usually did. In his eyes these two were no different from a rock, a waste of space without purpose.

As Tristan took out his key card and entered in into the slot, the duo threw a another barrage of bad jokes but Tristan continued to ignore them. As usual he went straight for the nearest elevator and went in without delay.

Insulting Tristan made Bob and Joe feel good about their lives. They knew that he was nothing more than a mere clerk so he wasn't important. What they didn't know was how he managed to get a job at Ambiance Corp. This company only accepted the best of the best, even Bob and Joe were decorated professionals despite their foolish demeanor. They knew that Tristan had graduated from an average university and had no job experience. As far as they were concerned he wasn't even qualified to be a janitor.

Rumor had it that the young man's deceased parents knew the company CEO in the past so he got in through connections but there was no way for the duo to verify this. They only had clearance to guard the ground floor and couldn't go anywhere else.

Things were as mundane as usual for Tristan. He was 22 years old and had only been working here for only 6 months or so, but he felt like he had wasted half his life here.

Like most people he wasn't particularly fond of his job, but he had no choice in the matter. His parents had been very strict on him growing up and had forced him to come and work at this company. Tristan sighed in the elevator as he thought about how sad his life was.

As he reached his destination, floor 23, the elevator doors opened and he walked out. Without talking to anyone he went straight to his cubicle and began his work quietly. As usual his coworkers started talking about him behind his back.

"Hey look, its that weirdo Tristan."

"Why doesn't he talk to anyone?"

"I have no idea. Everyday he just comes in here and goes to his seat and starts work. If anyone tries to talk to him they get shot down fast. It's quite impressive really."

"I heard he has a mental illness."

"I heard he is scared of talking to people."

"I heard-"

As usual the people around Tristan went about their gossiping. They spoke as if Tristan didn't exist, but Tristan didn't care. As far as he was concerned everyone here was an NPC, a non player character in his life and held no significance in his life, well almost anyone.

"Hey Tristan!"

A light and melodious voice entered Tristan's ears as he was working. He didn't need to look up to see who had greeted him.

"Hey Sydney. What can I do you for?" said Tristan as he continued to type away at his keyboard.

"You know Tris, its rude to not look at someone when they are talking to you."

"I know."

Even as he replied he still continued to type away at his keyboard. To him there was no need to look at her to communicate. As far as he was concerned she was a far more rude person than he was so he was justified in his ways. He strongly believed that his justification was just about to arrive. And like clockwork it did.

Pah!

All Tristan saw was a pair of hands clap his face from nowhere. Reluctantly he was forced to look up by Sydney's tiny hands. And the moment he saw her upper body, he was once again reminded of why he didn't want to look up.

Sydney Walker was a stellar beauty. She was tall, blonde, had blue eyes, and a near perfect body. Yet the most attractive thing about her was without a doubt her chest. Her incredibly large breast were leaning off Tristan's cubicle as she was reaching out to him. Tristan tried to calculate the physics behind this phenomenon. In his mind why did her ginormous breasts never spill out of her shirt?

"There we go, much better," said Sydney with a childish grin. She had a somewhat cute demeanor, but Tristan knew that behind that cute and sexy face lied a demon, one that had no doubt come to torture him.

"What do you want Sydney?" Tristan said as he used all of his willpower in an attempt to not look at her large chest.

"That's rude! Who said I want something! Couldn't I have come to just say hi?" Sydney said with a pout.

"The day I believe that is the day I get a girlfriend." Tristan thought to himself. He knew her character well enough to know that when she was being this friendly, she wanted something. Men went head over heels for Sydney, and why wouldn't they when she seemed so perfect. If it wasn't for the fact that Tristan was a cynic he would do the same.

"What do you want Sydney?" Repeated Tristan in an irritated tone. Sydney was annoyed by the fact that her charms seemed to never work on this guy. Every guy she knew could barely keep his composure around her, buy somehow Tristan was an exception.

This made her fascinated by him. She wanted to know what made his mind tick, was he just pretending? Or did he really not care? This was the conundrum she was always trying to solve day in day out.

Others in the office were always baffled as to why such a beauty paid so much attention to a geek like Tristan, who cares more about his comic books than combing his hair.

"Sigh, I can never win with you." Sydney released her grip on Tristan's face and shook her head. Tristan refused to respond and simply continued to look at her with a deadpan expression.

"A-anyway it just so happened that I do need a favor from you. But even if I hadn't I still would have come to say hi." Sydney said defensively. Tristan merely raised a brow in suspicion. He still clearly did not believe her.

"What choice do I have when you don't even visit me!" She said as she stomped her feet in a cute manner.

"Going to the CEO's office isn't exactly pleasant." Tristan said plainly.

"I don't work inside his office, I'm just outside it."

"Outside or inside, it's still the CEO's office. Now what do you want?"

Sydney could not help but face-palm and give up. She knew this was a pointless endeavor. Her charm was simply not effective on him.

"Well Tris it just so happened that the new Director for National Security is here today and Vicky is out with a cold so-"

" I refuse."

"Hey! You didn't even let me finish!

"I don't need to let you finish."

"Alright then genius, why don't you tell me why I am here." Sydney crossed her arms over her enormous chest, another feat Tristan found difficult to comprehend.

"The new National Security Director needs to be given a tour of the building, Vicky is our liaison with the government and is also one of our top researchers. If she is sick and you are here it means you want me to replace her."

"Not so fast, why would I pick someone as boring as you to replace someone so important."

"Because the CEO told you to do so. Not to mention the guide needs to be someone who can explain complex physics to a simple person. Since I always answer your questions in an easy to understand manner you would no doubt pick me."

"But you are not even a scientist!"

"Please we both know I am overqualified to be a simple clerk. If it wasn't for my parent's request I would easily be the best scientist here. The degree is just to help me blend in to my job. I could have run this company by the time i was fifteen. Our science division is also just for show, so its knowledge is of little importance. What you need is a person who understands occlusive nature, and I am the only person who has been exposed to occlusive since he was a child in this entire company. No one knows them better than I do except the CEO."

Sydney once more pouted but Tristan knew she was faking it. She knew his intelligence and this wasn't the first time he had 'out done' her. Tristan knew full well that she was much smarter than she looked and that there was more than meets the eye with Sydney. She immediately grabbed Tristan's hand, "Since you know it's an order then you have to come."

Tristan grunted in approval and stood up. "This is going to be a long day, " he said to himself as he stood up. Little did he know how right he was.

...

In a board room within the building sat a group of old men in expensive suits. They had looks of impatience on their faces and one could easily tell that they were used to calling the shots.

"Sorry for the delay everyone! My name is Sydney and I will be giving you a tour of our building!" Said Sydney as she walked in with Tristan in tow.

The man who sat at the head of the table showed a look of annoyance. " Where the heck is Boyd? And wasn't Victoria supposed to be here as well?"

"I'm sorry Director Adams, the Chief is extremely busy right now and Victoria is very sick." One of the Director's men was about to complain when the Director himself signaled him to shut up with his hand. Adams knew that he had little sway in whatever happened in this building, so his power was meaningless. Them giving him a tour was merely protocol.

"Alright!"Sydney went to the large television screen at the opposite end of the boardroom and started the meeting with a clap.

"Before we start I need to make sure you understand who we are and what we do. I am sure you and the President have been briefed but I just want to make sure everything is fully understood. For that I have brought one of our brightest minds, Tristan de Robillard! Tristan if you don't mind." Sydney signaled for Tristan to start.

Using the tablet in his hand Tristan manipulated the screen, bringing up a view of the Galaxy with numbers here and there.

"As I am sure you already know humanity lives on thousands if not millions of planets throughout the universe. Earth is just one of the least developed of these planets.

The more advanced planets came together to form the Universal Government. This government is in control of virtually every planet inhabited by humans within this galaxy. As humanity continued to inhabit more and more planets a situation occurred," A desert appeared on the screen, and the space in front of the screen started to warp.

" What you are about to see is a phenomenon called Ambient Occlusion. To put it simply, this is a situation where the laws of physics fail to apply. If the universe were a computer, then this would be a glitch or a bug. Beings from the fourth dimension take advantage of this glitch to come to our third dimension. These beings are known as occlusives. Whenever Ambient Occlusion occurs, a certain form of energy called Ambient Energy is produced."

"Please look at the screen now," On the screen a massive creature suddenly appeared out of the warped space. It had the body of a horse but the head of a lion. It kept changing form but somehow also seemed to retain the same basic form. The men in the room where stunned by the scene. The creatures eyes seemed as if they were on fire and the entire area around it seemed unstable as winds kicked up around it.

"This is a class gamma occlusive beast. You can tell its not from our dimension from the fact that it is constantly changing form. The same concept can be applied to if a three dimensional object where to to try and pass through a two dimensional plane."

On the screen the scene changed to a black background and a red sphere appeared. A blue sheet of paper appeared underneath the sphere and the sphere descended, going through the paper until it appeared underneath.

"What you just saw was a three dimensional object passing through a two dimensional plane from a three dimensional perspective. Now I will show you how it would appear from a two dimensional perspective."

Suddenly the screen changed, it showed a blue rectangle inside a black rectangle. Then a small red circle suddenly appeared inside the green rectangle. The circle continued to increase in diameter, until it reached a certain point then the reverse occurred. It shrunk in size until it eventually disappeared.

"What you just saw what the three dimensional red sphere passing through two dimensional space from a two dimensional perspective. From the two dimensional perspective, all one could see was a circle growing then shrinking, representing the moments when the bottom of the sphere were in contact with the blue plane and when the top of the sphere were in contact with the blue plane."

The image then returned to the strange creature, " The same rule can be applied here. This is a four dimensional creature but we are seeing it from a three dimensional perspective. This is why it seemingly is changing shape yet retaining the same form at the same time.

In order to combat these occlusives the Universal Government came up with weapons, powered by Ambient Energy as it is the only thing that can damage these creatures. They created a special task force, charged with protecting the galaxy from Ambient Occlusion and occlusives. This is the Quantum Core.

The Quantum Core is like a universal police force, but one that has jurisdiction over any matter so long as occlusives are involved. It operates like an army and as such it has different ranks and roles.

There is however a special group within the Quantus Core, and these are the Rangers. A Ranger is similar to a detective in an american police force. It is both a rank and a role that gives one special privileges.

The difference is a Ranger can battle an occlusion one on one." The men in the room were already aware of this, but this information still shocked them to their core. They looked at the Class Gamma oclussive and gulped. A human fighting that one on one? To them it sounded ridiculous. Tristan was well aware of their suspicions thus he simply decided to show them rather than say anything else.

On the screen a human descended from the sky like a falling meteorite , creating a crater on the ground as he did so. He wore an all black uniform with gold sigils and had a sword strapped to his waist. He had long fiery red hair and had a seemingly perfect face.

The red haired man casually approached the beast like he had no worry in the world. The beast was at least ten times his size yet he seemed unfazed. The beast the roared and lunged at the man with its jaws open, attempting to consume him in one bite. The men in the room saw the man's silhouette flash for a fraction of a second, only to see him on the other side of the screen. When they looked toward the beast they were shocked beyond their core.

The occlusive had been bisected cleanly in half. Judging from what they had seen the man had to have done this with his sword, yet they did not see him draw his sword or swing it. He moved so fast that they only saw his after image. They didn't even see him sheath his sword. After the job was done the man jumped, leaving the screen and entering the sky as if nothing had happened.

"As I am sure you already know, a Rangeris a human being capable of using Ambient Energy to strengthen themselves by a certain degree. They each carry unique weapons with them called dantians. All of the upper echelons of the Quantum Core are Rangers and each of them have enough strength to wipe out a city single handedly. Such is the strength of the Quantum Core. Now then any questions?"

Tristan looked at the group of suited men with his trademark deadpan expression, and the only response he got was one of the men by the side opening his mouth and closing it repeatedly. He just couldn't decided what he wanted to say. Happy with the results, Sydney once more clapped her hands together to gather their attention. "Now then, let the tour begin!"