Oriana blinked, then blinked again. Then blinked for the tenth time trying to comprehend what she was seeing. Intellectually, she knew it was possible. The problem was that the planet she was on, had none of the conditions of factors to even allow this to happen. If anything, Ark was similar to earth in terms of conditions, gravity and more, despite being larger than earth. But none of that explained the floating island before her. Nothing in her mind could explain what she was seeing right now.
Even Abby, a trained engineer, looked on with confusion. Granted the sight was impressive, but still confusing. Nearby, Lilith just smiled as watched at the new bloods look at the floating island before interrupting their thoughts. They needed some time to process what they were seeing. She didn't need to wait long as they began to discuss one another trying to figure out what was going on. That was her que to step forward.
"What you are seeing, is an island we call 'The Centre'. Creative I know, but we didn't name it," she explained. "There's a castle at the top of the island, but no one can get to it,"
That got the attention of everyone. "Why can no one get to it?" someone asked.
Lilith pointed to the underside of the floating island. "See that hole?" she asked and got nods in response. "Around that is come kind of barrier that's blocking us from getting to Centre. We aren't sure why or how to get past it and we've tried. All we know is that that castle has been there for millennia,"
Oriana looked to the island again with a frown. "Any idea what's inside?"
"None," Lilith replied. "We think that that place has answers to why we are here and we think that the first test is to get past the barrier,"
"And you aren't sure about how," Oriana nodded as she spotted an island coming into view.
She also felt the airship begin it's decent approaching the island. As they got close, she could make it out. The island that they were approaching was similar to a hose shoe. Round but with a line cutting though to a central hole in the middle. Getting closer Oriana could make out more details such as docks expanding outwards to the rear of the island, the section that faces away from the floating island. The walls of the middle hole were covered in both wooden and stone buildings with the floor looking like some kind of market place.
But that wasn't to say that the rest of the island wasn't covered in buildings. There was one section that looked like an industrial sector while another looked agricultural. At the top of the island was something that appeared to be a tower or citadel, which she assumed to be the governmental or administrative centre of the island. Calls for docking soon brought her out of her thoughts as she moved to join the rest of the newcomers to walk onto the island. The island had four tall docking towers set at the four cardinal points.
As they got close to the southern tower, she noticed several soldiers waiting for them. But unlike the one on the airship, these ones didn't have armour. Instead, they just wore green uniform that looked similar to World War 2 uniforms. Once the airship docked the soldiers moved to secure and ground the airship for static. With that done, they indicated for people to disembark. They did so in groups of 12. It didn't take too long for Oriana and her friends to get on.
The lift was fast and they were ground level in no time. Once they were off, they were directed by one of the soldiers to where the other Wavers were. Food and drinks were provided for them while they wait for more Wavers to join them. It took two more lift trips until all the Wavers were presented and a commander jumped up onto a pile of crates.
"Wavers," she called out. "Welcome to Ark and Ryozanpaku island. Please follow the people in blue coats and they'll get you organised and inducted to the city," she said as she indicated to a group of people in blue outfits.
"Ryozanpaku?" Oriana asked as she and the wavers followed the blur suited people. "What does that mean?"
"It means 'Dragons Opening the Night,'" Abby replied before noticing the odd look from Oriana. "Me and my sisters were born on Amaterasu, it's a planet with primarily Japanese population hence the name,"
'Ahhh' was all Orina mouthed while they moved with the newcomers.
Lilith was one of the last ones to walk off but as soon as she made it onto the island itself, she was stopped by Kaidan who grabbed her by the arm and pointed her out of the airship building.
"Hey, what is this?" she asked in protest.
"We need to talk to one of the Council of Fangs," he said as he lightly pulled her.
"Ow, ow oww…." She grunted as she pulled way. "Ok, ok…. I'll come, jezz," she muttered as they walked down the wooden path to the castle like structure. "So, what's this about?"
"Your sister and what we found," Kaidan said darkly causing Lilith to stop in her tracts.
"My sister and you?" she asked eyes wide.
"Yep," he said as he opened the door to the Citadel. "We need to talk to the Claw Commander,"
Lilith shook her head and flowed the commander into the Citadel. He talked to one of the guards who let them in and the two headed to the lift of the other side of the room. Kaidan looked to the older of the Shepard sisters, but looked away. He couldn't help but notice the difference between them. Lilith was calm, collected, thought things though and very fast. Sonja, on the other hand, was more of a heavy hitter. Able to take a punch and deliver one twice as hard.
But the thought didn't last long as the lift stopped and the two of them walked onto the floor. Much like the rest of the building, it was well decorated with dragon iconography built into the arcature and artwork. The only difference being the carpet colour being a warm yellow unlike the dull grey of the entrance. As they stepped onto the floor, Kaidan walked to the right and towards one of the only two rooms in the tower. After a quick knock at the door, the two entered and saluted the green trenchcoated man who was sitting at the desk.
"Sir, Field Marshal Kaidan reporting," he said with Lilith quickly following.
"Raid Commander Lilith reporting," she said with her own salute.
The Claw Commander stood and saluted them as well. "At ease," he said and the two relaxed before he sat down focusing on Shepard. "Lilith, I understand that this may be tough for you to understand, but we did this for a reason. As we found evidence supporting this reason," as he spoke, he pulled out a locked box and placed it onto the table before using three keys to unlock it.
He then turned it to show Lilith who looked inside with a frown. Inside was a leather-bound book and a stone tablet. Looking up, the Claw commander nodded before she reached in and pulled out the book. Flipping though it she began to frown at what she read. Most of them were scouting reports into other sectors of the zone they were in. Many of the reporting words and pictures of some creatures that she had never seen before. They looked humanoid, but had an insectoid like head with two sets of eyes.
As she moved, she noticed other images. This time of large black creatures the size of skyscrapers. They somewhat represented a squid but with the main body being elongated. She flipped though some more images before she arrived at a report written by the man next to her. She looked to him and Kaiden nodded indicating for her to continue. Looking back to the book, she read the report of him, with her sister, going across the Galaxy to chase after Saren. At least two sections talked about the 'Reapers' and her sister's 'vision' of them.
After a while she closed the book before reaching in and picking up the stone tablet and looking at it. Her eyes widened as she saw the Centre castle with someone inside. The writing meant nothing to her, as she couldn't understand it, but the image was clear. There was a way to ger inside past the barrier. Shaking her head, she looked up.
"Sir, why is this kept a secret?" she asked, not unreasonably. The scaled fang wasn't super secretive, they were quite open with a lot of things in order to keep the populace assured about what was happening. But when something was kept secret there was a reason why.
"Because we don't have all the facts yet, and releasing something like this will case the Wavers, young and old, to worry about their families and what happened to them," the Claw Commander explained. "We know that Ark is some form of Ark, but that still raises some questions that we don't understand. Why are certain people selected? Why are there dinosaurs? Why is there a forced stagnation of technology? Why are there no biotics? These are some of the questions as to why we are keeping it a secret. Because it adds to the flames, especially with rumours that this is the last wave," he sighed. "Look these may not be good reasons, but we do have to look at the bigger picture. Not to mention, there is another reason," he said as he took the book and opened it to what appeared to be a section for translation.
Lilith placed the tablet down and took the book again reading through it. Again, her brow furrowed then her eyes widened as she looked up.
"There's a way out of Ark?" she practically yelled and the commander nodded.
"That's the main reason we kept this secret. If there's a way off the Ark, there's a way in, and given that the Ark is an Ark…." he let the words hang in their as Lilith muttered to herself.
"We are meant to survive a Reaper invasion," she realised. "If there's a way in, then that would destroy the purpose of this place,"
"Which is why we cannot have people go looking for it," Kaiden added as he pointed to a section of the text. "But it's this part that has us a little confused,"
Lilith looked and confusion was written all over her face. "Dragon blood?" she asked as she began to read. "Some people managed to leave here with dragon blood?"
"The name is a bit of a misnomer," Kaidan said. "They left with some kind of genetic code that allowed them to access sections of the Ark. Whoever is depicted in these paintings seemed to have taken a few samples before they left,"
"But we have no idea who, what or why," Lilith concluded. "I can see why you kept this secret. If this was known, who knows what could happen. Especially with the Wavers,"
The Claw commander nodded as he rubbed his scarred face. "They would try to get to the castle and get out. We all know what kind disaster that would be,"
Lilith nodded before looking up. "Da…" she started before correcting herself. "Commander, why are you showing me this? I get talking about the Reapers, but why the rest of it?"
The Commander nodded toward Kaidan. "The Field Marchal here requested it for one particular reason,"
"The three sisters you met? They are sisters of one of my teammates, Ashley Williams. I have little evidence to base this on, but something's telling me that if she's here then your sister is as well," Kaidan shrugged. "I mean it's entirely possible that she's not here, but given that I essentially survived a 20 megaton nuke I'm not leaving out to chance, even if your sister is extremely hard to kill,"
Lilith frowned at that but nodded. "So, what do you expect to happen?"
"We wait for Sonja to enter out Forbidden Zone. Knowing her, she'll be here in no time," Kaidan shrugged again. "Then we can make a try for the castle,"