The being in front of Oliver looked like a weird mix of human and Elestia features. It shared many similarities to a goat but it still shared a lot of similarities to what Clara used to look like. Firstly she was still bipedal, her feets had been replaced by a pair of hooves, but thankfully her hands had been spared in the process. Her clothes had completely vanished and were replaced with a thick coat of fur that covered her whole body. Two small horns were produding from atop of her head and on her forehead there was a blue gem shimmering with the same strange light that had covered her entire body earlier.

But the thing that made him realised this was the same person was the fact that the creature had the same eyes as the girls he had travelled with for the last few days. ''Clara?! You were an Elestia this whole time?!''

The creature shook it's head before it was engulfed in the same ethereal light as earlier and she was turned back in her human form. ''There, that's much better.'' She said with a satisfied smile on her face.

Oliver pointed at her with an accusing finger. ''So that's why you were defending Elestia so much! You're one of them yourself! Did anything you said to me true at all?!'' He asked with a betrayed expression.

Clara glared back at him and crossed her arms. ''Just because I'm part Elestia does not invalidate everything I said to you.'' She replied to him.

Oliver cocked his head in confusion. ''Part Elestia? How can you be part Elestia?'' He asked incrediously.

At that Clara sighed then she looked at Oliver with a serious expression. ''Alright I guess I should start at the begining. My full name is Clara Balsam, I was the daughter of Professor Michael Balsam the co-owner of Balsam Wood Labotary. Everything started, as you probably know, ten years ago on the day of the Invasion...''

- - - - -

July 16, 2069, Day of The Invasion.

''Look at that smug piece of shit. I should be the one presenting the Starleap not him!'' Michael said with a sneer on his face. Both him and Professor Dogwood were co-owners of the labotary. At first they considered each other friends. But as the years grew by they had more and more arguments when it came to the direction the lab should go in.

Benjamin wanted to focus on the advancement of technology so that humanity might be able to leave the planet before the overpopulation problem became too serious. Michael on the other hand was more interested in changing humans themselves. For years he had advocate for the right to upgrade humans being with nanotechnology. But Benjamin had disagreed with him all the way thought. He was worried to what might happen if humans started to become more and more artificial.

While they often disagreed, Michael was also interested in the potential of space travel for it could unlock many new technologies for him to play around with. So for the time being they putted their difference away until project Starleap could be completed. But just as the day of the presentation came around their investors insisted on talking to them. Benjaming had asked Michael to meet them while he did the presentation for Starleap. ''That old bastard is gonna take all the credits for our works!'' He growled while watching as the old professor opened up the portal for the first time.

''Dad are you there?'' A voice said from the entrance of the house. The man with graying hair came downstait and saw his daughter coming inside. The girl looked so much like her mother it hurted him sometime.

''Yes, I'm here what do you want?'' He asked in a brusk tone.

Clara brushed her hair away from her face before reponding to her father. ''Well it's Marie's birthday today, so I came to tell you I will probably stay there tonight.'' At that the man frowned. Marie was the daughter of the Mayor of Ringabell City. He had nothing against the girl herself. But the Mayor was a prick who had more than once threatened to remove the fundings for his studies before he founded the Balsam Wood laboratory with Benjamin. The old professor was always able to make the mayor eat in the palm of his hand. Michael thought of himself as the better scientist but he had to admit Professor Dogwood had a gift in making sure that people took his side, which infuriated him to no end.

''Dad? Are you okay?'' Clara asked in concern once she noticed her father had been staring blankly at the wall for a while now.

''Yes you can go see your friend, but come back as soon as you can tomorrow morning. I have to go back to the lab. Since I'm the one that take you to school I really don't want to have to wait for you.'' He said with a frown plastered on his face.

She sighed and nodded in response. ''Fine I'll be back as soon as I wake up, anyway I should get going. The party probably arleady started.'' But just before she could exit throught the door an earthquake shook the entire house. She had to grab onto the wall to stop herself from falling on the ground.

Once it died down Michael looked outside the window in confusion. ''What the hell is happening?! This region isn't supposed to have earthquakes as strong as this!'' As soon as he finished saying that a sudden chill enveloped the whole house. It was followed by earth-shattering roar in the distant sky.

Michael's face drain of color as he heard the sound. He know the cry of almost every animals in the world and this one wasn't anything he had heard before and it sounded like it came from something absolutely massive. ''Clara we need to go to the emergency shelter, right now!''

Clara did not question him. She knew her father he wasn't the type to get scared easily. But that sound had scared him to his core. She nodded and they quickly went inside his car. As they drove into the streets they noticed that it started snowing despite the fact thay they were in the middle of summer. And they saw that buildings all around them were slowly being turned to ice.

Fortunately they never got to see the monster that had produced the sound. They arrived in front of an unassuming building just outside of the limits of the city. Michael quickly entered a code into the keypad and they could hear the door clicking softly as it unlocked for them.

As he opened the door the small building led to a set of stairs. Most of the facility was built underground so from outside it looked like nothing important was there when in fact it was one of the most advanced facility in the world.

Once they arrived in the main room they saw that a few dozens of people had arleady arrived before them. This was not surprising out of all the people registered for this shelter their home was one of the furthest away from it. Among them Clara instantly recognised her best friend a small looking girl with red hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a large sweater that hid most of her skin. She had always been the shy type but all the shyness evaporated once she saw Clara standing there.

''Clara!'' Marie instantly ran toward the blond-haired girl and hugged her so hard Clara thought she might break one of her bones.

''Oof I'm happy to see you too Marie but could you let me catch my breath?'' At that the black haired girl instantly let go of her and smiled sheepishly. ''So do you have any idea what's happening? I didn't really get the chance to see what caused the earthquake.''

''My father said that just after Professor Dogwood presentation came to an end eight portals opened all around the world. But we didn't stick around long enough to find out what came out of these portals.''

''So you're saying aliens came to invade us?... Right, you're making fun of me right?'' Clara said with an unamused frown on her face.

''Unfortunately that's the best guest we have right now. There is the posibility that another country developed the technology to make portals, but I doubt it. After all no one can compete with Professor Dogwood when it come to space travel.'' A man said from behind Marie. The man had graying black hair and was dressed in a fancy black suit and an old trilby hat that made him look like he came from a completely different era. Clara recognized him instantly as the Mayor of Ringabell City and as the father of Marie. ''Oh hello there I hadn't seen you there Professor Balsam.'' The Mayor said in his best neutral voice.

''Hello Mayor, glad to see that you came out of this alive.'' Michael said in barely concealed contempt. Before the conversation could turn even more unpleasant the door of the shelter opened with a bang and a younger man came running downstair. The man in question was sweating heavily and was panting loudly as he tried to catch his breath. His face was pale as if he had seen a ghost.

The Mayor instantly walked toward the man and put a hand on his shoulder. ''Are you alright my good friend? It look like you are quite troubled.''

''This whole fucking day... It feel like a nightmare, I saw a Dragon, a fucking Dragon! Can you believe this?! It was freezing the whole damn city. I saw people being frozen to death before I could even blink there was nothing I could do but run. The last time I saw it the Dragon was smashing a building like it was made of glass! None of this feel real.''

The people looked at each other not sure how to take the man words. ''No offense but have you taken drugs before coming here?'' The Mayor glared at Michael after he asked the question. ''What? I'm just saying, are you really going to believe that a monster from fairy tales suddenly appeared and froze an entire city? I believe in science, not magic and unicorns.''

Suddenly an alarm blared throught the shelter instantly putting everyone on edge.''What does this alarm mean dad?'' Marie asked in a fearful voice.

''This alarm mean... That our country just went to war.'' Many people gasped at the Mayor declaration. The man went toward a desk and took a remote and turned on a tv screen that was hung on the wall. The screen showed footage of a security camera and everyone could see soldiers mobilizing close to the limits of Ringabell City. They had everything from machine guns, to tanks and aircrafts were flying overhead. Suddenly the man in charge of the soldiers started shouting orders and the tanks began firing into the air toward a large seprentine monstrosity in the sky.

The Dragon didn't even looked faze as the tank's rounds exploded on it's icy scales and it didn't waste any time before rushing toward the soldiers with it's maw wide open, when it reached them it savagely bit the man in command snapping his body in half. Then the creature turned toward the soldiers and released his frozen breath upon them, as the mist clear away every soldiers were stuck in place forever immortalized in their last moments.

Everyone in the shelter were understanbly disturbed at the display of power the beast had shown. Suddenly a feminine robotic voice started speaking from various speakers in the shelter. ''Warning, the world outside has become too dangerous for human's life. Probability of government collapse: 85 percent. Warning, the threat has just become global, the cities of Ringabell, Windandou, Embera, Aquela, Las Fantasia, New Scitofi, Gizaphinx and Londorgi have all fallen. From my calculations more tha one billions people have arleady died and the number is still rising. I recommend enacting project Ark until the outside world become safer.''

Everyone was in shock at the annoucement, the names the AI had listed were eight of the biggest city in the whole world, two of which were from their own country. And they had all fallen in a single day. ''W-what's project Ark?'' Clara asked barely able to stop herself from shaking in terror.

''I had hope we would never need to use it. But in case something ever happened to the country the Mayor commisioned me and Professor Dogwood to create cryogenic pods so we could protect the most important people of the city in case of a nuclear war. This is not really the situation we created the Ark for, but I guess it's close enough for us to use it.'' Michael said with a grim expression.

He walked toward a desk with a computer on it and entered a long complicated code. After pressing a few more button a concealed door in the wall opened up revealing a secret room with dozens of pods waiting for them.

''Wait you're really going to freeze us? Are you sure it will not kill us?'' A woman asked fearfully as she looked at the newly revealed pods.

Michael nodded. ''We tested it on animals before implementing it in the shelter, it is completely safe.'' Some of the people felt reassured but others still looked tense.

Clara was the next one to ask a question. ''For how long will we be frozen?''

''We will leave once things calm down outside. Don't worry the Mayor and I will wake up every years to make sure we don't accidently sleep for centuries.'' The professor lead the group to their respective pods. Clara was next was putted close to her friend Marie, she tried to smile reassuringly toward the nervous girl, she tried to hide the fact she was just as nervous as her.

''Don't worry Marie my father know what he's doing. I don't know for how long we will sleep but I'll be there with you no matter how many years has passed alright?'' The girl with red hair nodded nervously. Then Michael came and closed the pod instantly freezing Marie in place. Soon the same thing happened to Clara. The first thing that disappeared was her sight, then her sense of smell then her hearing, her touch and finally she felt her mind fading away...

- - - - -

It took a while for Clara to realised she had woken up. She was laying in the cold floor and her vision was blurry. She felt something grabbing her and she felt too weak and disoriented to offer any resistance. Just before she could recover her sight someone put a bag over her head. She tried to protest but her voice was soon drowned out by the sound of an engine starting up, making her realised someone had dragged her inside a car.

The ride lasted for what she assumed was around an hour as far as her disoriented mind could tell. During that time no one had said a single thing to her which did nothing to calm her nerves about what was happening to her. Then the voice of a man finally broke the silence. ''We're here, let's hope this one will survive the test I'm tired of burying dead bodies.''

Clara's blood ran cold as she heard those words and as soon as the door to her left opened she tried to make a run for it. But since she couldn't see anything she quickly hit a wall and fell down on the ground. ''Stupid girl! You're lucky we need you intact. Otherwise I would break your legs for that.'' An angry man muttered before rudely lifting her up and dragging her away. She tried as hard as possible to get out of his grip but the man was too strong compared to the teenage girl.

Everything after that was a blur. The next thing she knew the man roughly removed the bag over her head and shove her inside a cell before closing the door behind her. She turned around and banged on the bar which only served to make the man smirked at her. Finally she could see what her captor looked like. The man in question had long black hair tied into a ponytail he was wearing a long cloak with a hood attached in the back. On the chest section of the hood was a symbol she didn't recognized at all. It was an eight-headed Dragon with a gold circle around it each head had a different color.

The man began to walk away and the girl tried to bang on the bars of her cell. Then before she could try again a small voice surprised her from her own cell. ''Clara is that you? So they got you too.'' She turned around and gapsed as she noticed her best friend was in the cell with her, but she soon realised that something was wrong with her.

''Marie! What have they done with you?! You look as pale as a ghost!'' Clara exclaimed with a concerned look on her face.

As if to prove her point the red-haired girl began to cough. ''T-they captured everyone from the shelter, you're the last one they've taken. They injected us with something vile, most people died from it and... I don't know what they did with the people that did survived.''

''How did they enter the shelter?! It should have been completely safe from the outside world!'' Clara said with gritted teeth.

''I don't know but...'' Before Marie could say anything else she started to wobble slightly and suddenly fell unconscious on the floor.

''Marie! Are you alright?! Marie!'' But her screaming fell on deaf ears. It wasn't long before someone else came for her. This time it was a woman but she couldn't make out her features since she was wearing a hood contrary to the man from earlier. Clara tried to run away as soon as the door opened but the woman was much stronger than Clara thought and easily subdued the girl before dragging her away to a seclude room with a metallic table.

But what had made the girl froze was the man in a lab coat standing in the room with a seringue arleady ready to be used. ''Dad?! What are you doing with these kidnapers?!'' Michael looked conflicted as he looked at the fearful gaze of his daughter but then a neutral expression slid on his face.

''I'm doing what I should have done all those years ago. I'm preparing the next step for human's evolution.'' The girl was forced to sit on the table and without any further hesitation Michael inserted the needle in her arm, a strange purple liquid was sent inside of her. Clara began to scream as she felt an intense pain coursing through her veins, She trashed around on the table. knocking away everything in side and even accidently punched her father which she would have done even if she was in control.

Michael quickly took a mask from his desk and putted it over the mouth of his daughter who quickly became limp and lost consciousness. ''You're going soft on her, you didn't put the other patients to sleep.'' The hooded woman said with a sneer on her lips.

''The other patients weren't my daughter. Now take her back to her cell and let's hope this will work this time.'' He replied with a neutral look.

'Who do you think you are?! I'm the one in control here, you would do well to remember that.'' She said with a sneer on her lips, but Michael looked back at her with an unimpressed frown. ''Fine as you wish but don't think you can order me around for long, this is my organisation you're just our esteemed guest, don't you forget that... After this we won't have anyone else to take from the shelter we will need to take some of the survivors from this settlement without attracting attention on ourselves.''

Michael didn't responded he was too busy looking at the still form of his daughter who was slowly being dragged away. With a sigh he turned to his computer and tried to distract himself with work. ''Enjoy your power while you can you harpie. I'm the one with real power here and you will soon realise it.'' He muttered to himself with a scowl on his face.

- - - - -

She didn't know how long she had been asleep but once she opened her eyes she realised she was back in her cell. She was hurting everywhere but it wasn't as bad as earlier. But her body felt strange she could feel that something foreign was running throught her veins and that disturbed her greatly. What had her father done to her? Would she die like so many others? And if she didn't what would this poison do to her body?

Her father had always been obsessed with modifying the humans body. But she never thought he would ever experiment on humans so callously. She felt betrayed beyond anything she had ever experienced. She always knew that science was important to her father but she never thought it was more important to him than his own daughter.

Clara heard a soft squeaking sound from inside the cell. She nearly had an heart attack when she saw a mouse in the cell with her. The girl yelped in alarm as the small rodent started to run toward her. She tried to drag herself away from it, but she quickly hit the bars behind herself. She screamed as the mouse climbed on her leg and was about to swat it away with her hand. but as she looked at the creature she noticed that the mouse in question was very unusual.

For one thing it was almost double the size of a normal mouse and it had white wings on it's back but the thing that really caught her attention was the eyes on the creature. She recognized them instantly, It had the same timid eyes of her best friend. ''Marie?! Is that you?'' She asked in completel disbelief.

Much to her surprise the mouse responded to her with a nod of it's head. Clara then heard someone coming toward her cell thinking quickly she hid her friend inside her shirt hoping Marie would forgive her later for her action. The man with the long ponytail from earlier came in front of her cell and looked around the cell.

''I heard someone scream was that you?'' He asked in his gruff voice.

Clara reluctantly nodded in response. ''I had a nightmare.'' She lied with her best poker face.

The man scoffed at her but relaxed slightly as he realised that nothing was wrong. But then he look in the cell and noticed that something was missing. ''Wait a minute weren't there another girl with you? Where is she?''

At that Clara made use of all these years she had spent in theater class and put on her best heartbroken expression. ''When I woke up Marie was dead, another guard showed up and dragged her body away.''

The man looked at her trying to judge if she was lying or not but after a while he sighed. ''Another failure god damn it. I'm begining to think we will never be able to join the Great Ones.'' Clara did not know what the Great Ones were and honestly she didn't really care she just wanted the man gone. Unfortunately for her the man sat on a desk not far from her cell. The man took something from his pocket that made a familiar jingling sound and put it on the desk. Clara's heart almost leapt out of her chest when she saw that the man had the keys for her cell. But she tried to act as indifferent as she could.

The man opened up the computer on the desk and began to write something on it with the keyboard. She nearly yelped when she felt Marie starting to struggle under her shirt she had to remind herself that it was her best friend and not just a random mouse otherwise she might have chucked her away. ''Marie calm down! I have a plan but you will need to be patient alright?'' She said as quietly as she could. The man stopped tapping on the keyboard and turned toward the cell when he heard her whispering to herself but after a few seconds he shrugged thinking it was nothing important and continued his work.

It took almost an hour but her patience paid up. After working for an hour nonstop on the computer the man had fallen asleep on the desk snoring loudly in the process. Once she was sure he was deeply asleep Clara removed the mouse form her shirt and pointed to the desk with her finger. ''Alright Marie you see this? One of these must be the key to our cell. You're small enough to pass throught the bars. So if you could give me the keys we could get out of here before they do something worse to both of us.''

Marie looked nervous about the request, but once she saw Clara hopeful expression she nodded and put on her best brave expression. Clara putted Marie on the ground and as quickly as she could she made her way toward the desk. She could have tried to use her wings but she was too nervous to try to fly for the first time in such a dangerous situation.

Marie froze when the guard stopped snoring the guards moved around on the chair and scrached his chin. ''Yes, I'll take one omelette.'' Then the man slumped back into the chair and began to snore once again. Sighing in relief Marie began to climb the desk and she was surprised at how easy it was to do in this form.

Finally she came face to face with the key chain. Marie couldn't even begin to guess which one would open the cell so she decided to take the entire keychain in her mouth. As quietly as she could she returned to Clara with the keys in tow. The girl gratefully took the key in her hand and tried to open the door but the first key she had tried wasn't working. ''Of course I couldn't get the right one on the first try, that would be way too lucky.'' She muttered to herself with a roll of her eyes.

She grew more and more anxious as each keys held no result she was begining to think that maybe the key to her cell wasn't in there. But when she tried the eighth one she heard a soft click coming from the door. With a sigh of relief she opened the door and together with Marie she quietly made her way outside of the cell. There was surprisingly few people in the base. She assumed most of them were doing something outside or maybe their kidnappers weren't as big of a threat as she thought they were, but that might have been wishful thinking.

When she was halfway toward the exit she heard footstep coming from the corner she quickly hid under a random desk. She felt her heartbeat increase dramatically as the footsteps came closer and closer to her hiding spot. Then she saw the legs of someone passing throught the hall and much to her relief the person did not stop to look under the desk.

Once she was sure the person was far away she emerged from her hiding place and made a final dash toward the exit. Fortunately there were indications in the building to guide her to the exit. The sign were the same one you would normally see in a public space for fire emergency. Which made her think her captors had taken a random abandoned building as their base of operation.

Finally she saw stairs and quickly made her way to the first floor of the building. Once she was there the exit was just in front of her she could finally see sunlight after so long. She made sure that no one was there and the sprinted toward the door.

She held her breath as she noticed that two guards were outside guarding the fenced area of the bulding. thankfully they were too occupied looking at the town in front of them to look back toward her. Since she couldn't exit by the main entrance Clara made her way to the opposite side and began to climb the fence. Thankfully there were no spikes at the top and she easily jumped over the fence.

Once she landed on the other side, she began to sprint as fast as her legs could carry her and didn't looked back. As she ran she hoped never to see this place again. And she also swore that if she ever saw her father again he would pay for what he had done to her, to Marie and all the people from the shelter...