A Tale of a New Commander

Chapter 15: Connection Established

Authors Note: The contents for the following chapters and siren lore remain uninfluenced by the Operation Siren update.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The room was bathed in a blinding light that swallowed everyone inside. I instinctively blocked my eyes as I stumbled back, losing my balance before falling backward. Before I knew it, I had already hit the floor-

Wait, this isn't the floor.

What I fell on was soft, cushioning the blow I was supposed to take, yet this wasn't the issue at all. There was something far more intriguing at hand, primarily the thing I held in it.

The floor was supposed to be hard, it was sturdy enough to hold a full control panel and about five people in total but the thing I landed in was nothing like it. It was grainy, coarse, and got into every part of my clothes.

Without hesitation, I finally opened my eyes to see what had just happened, and to my surprise, in front of me was a huge sea. I looked around and found myself resting on a sandbar with my two companions just a few meters off. Their eyes were locked on me, snickering as they came closer.

"How did ya' manage to fall chump? We only had to stand but you failed even that."

The guy had a huge grin on his face with his scarf fluttering in the wind as he turned to the sea. But the girl he was with approached me despite my awkward introductions

"Ahahaha, who knew you were that clumsy? Here, let me help you up."

She reached out to me, smiling at me when I held her hand. With a gentle tug, she helped me up, releasing me from her grasp while I focused on dusting off all the sand that ran through my clothes.

"So, where were we?"

"Beats me, but I'll be ready for it when it comes."

So much for the smug attitude, he didn't even know where we were!

"But weren't we inside that room earlier? I wonder what Observer did to generate this space?"

She had a point. Enterprise used to tell me that Sirens generate spaces where reality is warped, so if this was one of those spaces, then it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that she was just outside our reach, testing what we could do or possibly showing us something new. But before we could think of the reasons why we were here or where this was, the ground we stood on shook violently, throwing all of us off our feet.

Suddenly, the seawater spouted and from the surface burst into multiple streams that reached for the sky. The ocean itself was torn by an object that was rising from the depths. Its figure obscured the once clear blue ocean into a black murky void that shimmered as it slowly broke to the surface.

The man and woman beside me stood up, preparing their stances as they both shimmered with a similar black light. Their rigging then materialized, ready to fight. The man had jet-black metal enhancements attached to his body. On his legs were what seemed to be thrusters and two dragon heads revealed themselves on both sides of his body, each ready to strike. Inside the dragon's maws were huge cannons that shimmered with green energy, resonating alongside the blade he held in his hands that also emitted a sinister green glow.