After two-hundred years of virtual protection from the shimmering, the power-balls vanished into history. The shimmering were forgotten for their magic, forgotten for their honor, forgotten for their prestige. History did not remember the powerful warriors who had upheld peace so valiantly.

There were two world wars that shook the face of the planet. And still, no shimmering.

Then, in 2010, an old history book, written in latin, was translated, one that made mention of the 'Shimmering warriors' and the 'Trinkets of Power that inbue the holder with unnatural abilities'.Archeologists world wide agreed that the find must have been a hoax. That was until there were several other finds with referance to these 'Shimmering warriors' in many different texts. Then the biggest break-through came, the tomb of one of the shimmering was uncovered. On the walls were depictions of things that could not be possible, no matter how glorified the warrior.

In 2015 a child was born with a green stone held in its hands and at the age of five, when being teased by bullies in the playground, the child was reported to have held up the stone, shouted something out in some other language and a sword had appeared in front of the toddler.

After much scientific examination, it was realised that the shimmering were coming back. Slowly, one by one, Shimmering were being born around the world. No one knew what had sparked the reappearance, or the original dissapearance but it seemed that something had re-awakened the power-balls.

In 2031 the first floating city was completed, anchored to the ground above Japan's Tokyo, the floating city Asriath flung open its doors to accept citizens. Special VIP citizenship is offered to the shimmering who come to Asriath. But the shimmering have their own reasons to come to Asriath. It is as if... something is calling them. Dreams of bloodsoaked hands haunt the noble shimmering, images of burning fields and hazy purple eyes staring at the sky. The sounds of men and women screaming and begging for their lives in some other language. The dreams fade when the shimmering come to Asriath, and new dreams begin, dreams of water, dreams of hatred. Dreams to end all dreams. These nightly plagues haunt the shimmering and bring to them a sense of the comming future. A sense that it may not be comming.

Inside Asriath's main-frame of supporting tunnel networks is a secret government laboratory. Inside the laboratory are several hundred rows of test-tubes. Inside the test-tubes are living nightmares. Inside the living nightmares are minds that hunger only for revenge on all two-legged speaking creatures and a right to live as sapient life-forms, not guinea-pigs.

They are the Shadow.

Whatever they were originally, has been lost. And they crave their revenge, they crave their liberation and they crave their right to eat the sweeter meats of the world.

The Shadow are the failed attempts at scientifically created shimmering and only the Shadow know that they are failed. Believed to be a perfect success, the men and women who created the Shadow are no longer around to tell their superiors what it was that killed them or that the neurologicial control chips- designed to stop the Shadow turning violent- do NOT work in the field. The only thing keeping the Shadow at bay are the swat teams sent by the government to find out what happened in the laboratory. But the Shadow are slowly getting tired of the easy pickings. They desire the hunt of a beast that can fight them on their own levels.

A beast that can run as fast as the Shadow... or die trying.

A beast worth killing.

A shiny beast.