Making his way over to the cage Lorey was pointing at, Sydra became shocked when he saw what was inside. Amongst the waste and trash were three young children, two of them girls and one boy. The two girls resembled mermaids, with long tails covered in sparkling scales, and webbing between their fingers. The boy on the other hand had wings covered in waste on his back, and long talons on his hands. Although the children were clothed, their clothes were torn in multiple places, and barely staying on them.
"Are they still breathing?" Lorey asks as Sydra squats down next to the cage and looks at the children closely.
"They are, but just like everything else in here, they are going to die soon, unless something changes," Sydra says as he stands back up and looks at the cage closely. The metal bars were made from Magma Steel, and were highly resistant to heat, while also being incredibly tough to break. Pulling out his plasma dagger, Sydra attempted to cut through the bars, but the dagger only left a small scratch.
"There has to be a door or something, I mean they were put in there somehow," Lorey says as she pulls against the bars, hoping that she could move them with anger alone. Turning around, Sydra looks around the room once more, in search of an empty cage.
"Hold on, I want to check something out," Sydra says as he walks towards one of the few empty cages, and looks towards the ceiling within it. "They seem to drop the creatures from the ceiling, and then seal it somehow," Sydra says as he studies a long line the goes across the top of the cage.
"But how do they get into here to collect the blood and stuff?" Lorey asks as she looks around the room for a door. The only one she could see was the one she and Sydra had come in from.
Before the two of them could search the room more closely, the sound of gears turning alarms them. Whipping around, Sydra sees a platform raising in the cage that the three children were locked in. As the platform raises the ceiling begins to split, and Sydra catches a quick glance of the other side before the platform blocks his way.
'So that's how it works,' Sydra thinks as he turns to look at Lorey. "Do you have an idea to get up there?" Sydra asks as Lorey worriedly watches the platform from outside the cage.
"Maybe we missed something out in the room with all the tubes," Lorey suggests as she and Sydra turn back to the door they had come in from. Nodding his head, Sydra leads Lorey back out of the room with cages and studies the tubes.
"It seems that they are all headed in the same direction, so maybe we should head that way too," Sydra says as he notices that the blood canisters inside the tubes are all being sent the same way. Following the direction the tubes are headed, they soon find themselves in front of a set of stairs.
"This probably leads to the room where the platform with the children was taken," Sydra says, looking up the stairs and towards another door. Heading up the stairs, Sydra stops in front of the door and looks at the handle hesitantly.
"Hurry up, those kids might be in danger," Lorey says as she watches Sydra hovering his hand above the handle. Steeling his resolve, Sydra slowly opens the door, only to see a dark hallway on the other side. At the end of the hallway is a dimly lit hallway that intersects the one they are currently in.
Stepping into the hallway, Sydra, and Lorey slowly make their way down to the intersection and peer past the corner. At one end of this hallway is a room filled with platforms and trapdoors that lead to the cages below, and at the other end is a white door.
'Which way should we go first?" Lorey asks as back and forth between the two ends of the hallway.
"We should save the children first, and then figure out what is behind that door," Sydra says as he turns into the hallway and heads into the room with the platforms. Looking around, the first thing Sydra notices is that there is no one there, and streaks of waste are leading towards two double doors at the side of the room.
Pushing open the double doors, they see multiple beds with straps on them throughout the room. Several of the beds have different creatures strapped to them, and three of those creatures are the children from earlier. Standing next to the children is a young man in a white lab coat, with a long needle in his hand. On a table beside the man are several tools used for surgery, as well as a folder tagged as Island's Lost Children.
"I'm sorry for this, but soon all your pain will be gone," The man says as he stoops over one of the girls and inserts the needle into her arm. As the needle goes deeper, the girl begins to thrash on the bed, but the straps are holding her down tightly. "Oh stop struggling, your going to die sooner if you do that,"
"You could also not kill her," Sydra says as he slams the back of his dagger into the man's neck and knocks him out. As the man falls to the floor, Sydra grabs the needle in the girl's arm and slowly pulls it out. Looking down at the girl, Sydra sees that her struggle has caused her to pass out once more.
'Why didn't you kill him?" Lorey asks as she angrily kicks the man in the stomach. "Scum like him doesn't deserve to live,"
"I think the same way, but we don't know what is going on here, and he might have the answers," Sydra says as he picks the man's limp body off the ground and staps it down to one of the beds. Once all the man's limbs are strapped down, Sydra turns back to the children and begins unstrapping them.
"They need medical attention right away, but I don't see anything in this room that could help them out," Lorey says as she looks at the cuts and bruises that cover the children's bodies. "Do you think you could heal them with your powers? Like you did for me and Haley,"
"I can heal their surface wounds, but these children also have blood loss and starvation that my powers can't fix," Sydra says as he places his hands over the children and sends his regeneration lightning into their bodies.
"I understand, but you have food inside you Arbor Sanctum, and that could help them regain some of the blood they lost, right?" Lorey asks as Sydra nods his head and sends the children inside his Arbor Sanctum.
"I'll send you to the room I put them in. If you go into the kitchen you should be able to find some food for them. Inside the room is also some boxes of clothes that I have, and although they may be a little big for the children, they would still be better than what they are wearing right now," Sydra says.
"Alright, send me in then," Lorey says as Sydra nods and places his hand on her shoulder. Once Lorey is gone, Sydra picks up the folder that is on the table and sits on a bed across from the man.
'Let's see what this says,' Sydra thinks as he opens the folder and begins reading the contents. The folder held information about the children, and the island they came from, which was called Duepel. The people that lived on Duepel were all part human and part animal, and the children that were taken were all orphans from that island.
The information also stated that the reason the children were taken from the island was because someone was trying to figure out how to make hybrids out of other humans. Since the children were already a mix between both humans and creatures, the scientists were interested in the way it worked. The plan was to figure out a way to use the DNA from the blood of the creatures in the cages below to create a formula.
While Sydra was reading through the information, the man on the bed across from him began to moan and move around. Putting the folder off to the side, Sydra hopped off the bed and walked over to the man.
"Huh, what's going on?" The man asks as he opens his eyes and looks around before freezing when he sees Sydra standing over him. "Who are you?! What have you done to me?!" The man yells as he begins to thrash around on the bed.
"Shut up or I will kill you," Sydra says as he holds a dagger above the man's chest, and begins to press it in. Feeling the sharp point of the dagger above his heart and seeing the dark gleam in Sydra's eyes, the man immediately goes quiet and stops moving. "That's better, now I have some questions for you,"