The Eagle Needs Landing

by Nitrous Rainbows

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Human
Length: 3421

Where is everyone? Why am I a Gryphon? And how am I meant to get down from space?

This was just meant to be standard research for growing food in zero gravity. I was only meant to be up here for another month.

But, apparently the universe is out to get me. First I wake up as a Gryphon, then my crew disappears, and then all of my calls for help are ignored.

If I can't manage to contact someone, anyone, on the surface soon… I don't know what will happen.

This is part of the Ponies After People verse started by Starscribe with his fanfiction The Last Pony on Earth. Reading of the main story or any side stories is not required, but still recommend because some are quite good.

Special thanks to Celefin for the awesome name suggestion and Rainbow Sheep for his ramblings helpful ideas and proofreading. And, of course, anyone else that provided comments to help with this. You know who you are.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2015-06-29 22:06:19 UTC

Space_Eagle_23_05.zip

Space_Eagle_23_05.zip

System loading…

Searching files in C: \ Documents \ Eagles …

File found.

File Name: Space_Eagle_23_05.zip

Last Edited: 21:32 18/03/28

Extracting files …

Files found:

readme.txt

Security_1.mp4

Security_2.mp4

Help.mp3

Mission_Log_23_05.mp4

stuff.txt

File selected.

File Name: readme.txt

Last Edited: 21:29 18/03/28

Opening file …

Hello, Iron Claw here, you might have heard of me. Not that that matters. The following files under this folder (and the other ones I’m sending you and the others) have been cut down with parts omitted to better aid and speed your comprehension of the events. Other than that, they’re official documents. Furthermore, you are free to show these to anyone you wish, as due to past events there is no longer any enforced censorship - though discretion is advised.

File closed.

Selecting next file.

File Name: Security_1.mp4

Last Edited: 11:55 15/03/28

Opening file …

Before the footage could play, the standard information dictating the time asserted itself on the top right corner of the screen. It read: 23:58 and 22/05/15 - both codes were on separate lines and written in traditional white text.

Then, the setting began to render, which took a few seconds despite its simplicity. The walls were plain white panels - each intersected strategically so that the room formed the shape of a cube. Towards the bottom of both the left and right panel lay a small ledge; above these were grey padded bags accompanied with a small tag containing the obligatory owner’s name inscription. These were the standard bedding used to secure the crew due to the low gravity.

All three of the sleeping bags (one on the left and two on the right) contained the sleeping crew members. The remaining space on the left was obstructed by a small panel, around one metre by one metre, which contained many buttons, knobs and a plethora of wires bundled together with multiple cable ties. Due to the distance, it was impossible to read and of the small inscriptions indicating the many purposes of the interface.

A triad of heads topped with short hair poked out of each of the beds, like a game of whack-a-mole missing its player. One of the heads, the blond one, wore an expression of delight: the corners of his mouth were turned up and his eyebrows danced around appropriately. The other two heads were blander with defined stoney features. Each apparently thinking seriously about serious things.

Or maybe they were just serious people. Either way, they looked serious.

Until their muscles spasmed. Just for half a second, maybe less. But it was only a quick twitch compared to what would happen.

The clock, because it decided to be cliché, struck 12. Actually, it simply changed, but that doesn’t build any suspense. A second passed in the silence of space before they dissolved into the air around them, their mass fizzling out of existence. Even slowed down to the individual frames, it appeared to happen rapidly. Over a total of 24 snapshots they’d both fizzled down to apparent nothingness.

The other sleeping passenger continued his dream unaware even as he began to twitch. Then spasm. His serene face still seemed to show a content look despite his seizure. If one looked closely enough, they’d see him appear to be happier and shortly showing an expression of childish joy.

Bright golden light erupted out of his body, punching through the camera's lens and temporarily ruining the display. Jagged black lines cut through the center of the display and the background greyed. This was followed by a message briefly appearing on the screen.

The remaining video feed was corrupted and unrestorable.

File closed.

Selecting next file.

File Name: Security_2.mp4

Last Edited: 15:39 15/03/28

Opening file …

The room was different from before. Both sacks on the left were barely secured and loosely floating inside the wide black straps. The one on the right was torn. The strap had been ripped in half, the clip was still intact. The actual bag had a section of cloth missing.

That wasn’t what caught the eye though, the main focus of a viewer would be the floating body of a… gryphon. The silky golden fur of a lion made its barrel, back two legs, and the tops of the front ones - this was where it met the yellow claws. Sharp in both appearance and the piercing light they reflected. It had a large gold-brown tail (about one and a half legs in length long) capped with a tuft of darker hair. Its head and upper back consisted of dark brown feathers, the colour of milk chocolate. Whereas its front was plated with feathers whiter than a dentist’s teeth.

Wings of gold put its body to shame as they shone and glowed in the light, in contrast to its gloomy hazel eyes. Overall, it looked relatively simple with defined solid colours painting each part.

9:12 read the time and 23/05/15 read the date. The animal moved slowly, blinking its eyes and opening its beak. Then it briefly glanced around the room, eyes still blinking and beak still opening rhythmically.

Notice: A short amount of footage has been cut due to its lack of relevance to the events. Furthermore, the next video extract is also from a different camera.

The gryphon pulled itself around another room; its wings twitched as the air gushed around them. This room was cuboid shaped with the corners curved inwards and a round tunnel connecting it to the overs.

The time read 10:31 and the mammal began frantically hitting buttons on both the computer and other interfaces. Opening its beak rapidly and occasionally flapping its wings. This seemed to annoy the creature as it then had to push off the opposite wall to get back to the interface, as if it didn’t have control over its own body.

File closed.

Selecting next file.

File Name: Help.mp3

Last Edited: 10:32 23/05/15

Opening file …

“Hello? If anyone is there, please respond. The situation is critical. Both of my crew members are missing.” The transmission briefly hisses followed by the speaker lowering their voice. “And I’m suddenly a Gryphon...” Another pause, this time filled with silence.

“I’m Dr. Charles here abroad the HK-47 research satellite and this is an alpha level distress signal. I repeat, an alpha level distress signal.”

File closed.

Selecting next file.

File Name: Mission_Log_23_05.mp4

Last Edited: 18:48 23/05/15

Opening file …

The screen was black, showing an error sign. The camera was unplugged, broken, or undetected. Nevertheless, the audio system still worked as a speaker's voice made it clearly through the system.

“Hello? Is this thing working? Please respond. Don’t let me be alone up here.” He, judging by the deeper tinge, spoke briskly yet with some faltering confidence.

“Screw it. I’ll just turn this into a video log. Like the ones Mark used to-” He paused abruptly, only just finishing the word. “Like the ones Mark does.” He finished after amending himself.

“Crap, where does he store the camera.” Shuffling could be heard in the background and the speaker’s voice ranged in volume.

“Wait. The box. No. Maybe. Ah, there it is.” Each word and phrase was shot out quickly, with comparatively long pauses between them.

“Now to plug it in without cutting it… Claws suck”

The darkness was replaced by the white and brown feathered face of a gryphon. He waved his shiny yellow appendages, the “claws”, near the camera lens.

“See. Claws.”

He waved them around further before repositioning them back out of view and shuffling back enough to allow his wings and some lion fur to come in view.

“Hehehe. Claws. So sucky that they take a whole clause to say. You hear that Karl? I can say puns now.”

His left wing flattened and drooped against his side while his right twitched.

“What am I even supposed to say in these things? Like, Mark talks for ten minutes.” He paused, raised and counted his claws. Counting only eight he put them down, wings relaxing further by his sides.

“Maybe I should rant at life and today’s misadventure.” He paused again, wings shuffling.

“Shit, did I really just make a fucking joke about this. The last time I laughed at the expense of something like that was when I went skydiving. Oooh… verbal monologues. So that’s how he does it. Easier than I though.”

“Let’s just get one with it…”

“So, it all began this... umm… when I woke up. Which sort of was but also wasn’t morning at the same time. Because, y’know, space. Let’s call it morning anyway even though it would have been in the evening for China - the country we were over.” His voice ranged in speeds, seemingly at random as his tongue rolled over the words.

“Anyways, it started with me waking up to find that I wasn’t strapped down - I was floating around in free fall. This led to me inevitably stating an unamused, half-awake, general rebuke to whoever did this shortly followed by a witty insult to their mother.”

“Seriously, that shit ain’t funny. I could have been seriously injured or hit something important. My crew - the two bastards I should’ve been stuck with for at least another month - would have known better, and I certainly didn’t do it.”

“So, understandably, I flailed around in the air looking for the cause. Only to find that straps and padding had been torn open. The fibres were ripped from the top down to the lower section - a few loose strands of fabric pointing indiscriminately around the room. No, not ripped. That would imply someone actually tried to tear it. It looked like something had burst out from it. As if I had managed to smashed through the fabric in my sleep.”

“My immediate thoughts were somewhere along the lines of, ‘Cool’.” He made air quotes with his claws. “Whether they were vocalised or not escapes me. Not that it mattered. No one would’ve responded anyway within this absurd dream.” His wings flattened again and some of his facial features sprung out.

With his wings twitching up again he continued. “How else am I supposed to explain it? I’m not a scientist… Well actually I am, but that’s besides the point.”

“Right.” He asserted confidently, whilst clapping his claws. This time he put them back on the table.

“I’m surprised how I managed to last that long without noticing my form - especially with all of my manly flailing.” The last two words were said with a mix of sarcasm and disgust causing him to dig his claws on the ledge.

“Nevertheless, all it took was me pursuing a simple action to set myself off; I simply reached out to touch my former bed. This presumptuously brought my gleaming and illogical claw-” He looked down. “Shit! The fuck claws, stop clawing things. Now you’re friggin’ stuck in the table.”

He flattened one and using it to push the over out, then did the same with the other.

“It’s like they have a mind of their own.” His left wing sprung out, but he ignored it. “They still look quite cool and lustrous though.”

“So, yeah, I saw my claw and panicked.” His wings had gently moved back to his sides and his feathers had flattened. His claws were back out of sight again.

“Thought a banana was stuck on my hand.” He shuddered. “Bananas scare me.”

He paused, staring at the camera. His beak opened slightly and he began to laugh.

“A Gryphon scared of bananas. Hahahaha. Shuddup, they just make me uncomfortable, and I’ll still eat them, had one this morning after all.”

The display greyed and hissed before returning back to the vlog.

“Chirp.” The gryphon turned in the direction of the noise.

“That reminds me, just because Karl and Mark are missing and no one is responding doesn’t mean I should neglect my duties. I’ve still gotta feed the chicks and do all of that jazz. I don’t quit.”

File closed.

Selecting next file.

File Name: stuff.txt

Last Edited: 20:01 23/05/15

Opening file …

Stuff to do:

Talking

Stuff works?

Fitness (space?)

Food

Moving

Wings

Time

File closed.

CAPTURE_FAILED_23_05_15.MP4

CAPTURE_FAILED_23_05_15.MP4

System loading…

Searching files in E: \ Security \ Camera 31 \ DCIM …

File found.

File Name: CAPTURE_FAILED_23_05_15.MP4

Last Edited: 15:51 23/05/15

Opening file…

The camera swivelled from left to right, rotating back and forth like a pendulum as it panned over the shopping centre - the door, however, always remained in its sight. The sun’s weak rays refracted through the windows at the end of the arched hall, though were invisible to the naked eyes in contrast to the dull electric lights.

The faint buzz emitted by these blocky lamps was absorbed by the trapped damp air lingering in the sealed building. The faint wind whistled quietly against the outer walls, occasionally picking up and blowing the odd stick into the door.

The camera watched all of this, recording perfect two-dimensional replications of its surroundings. As this happened data, words and numbers, flashed periodically in the upper right side of it’s limited vision. Always still, never moving, despite the camera’s active hinge. Some words depicted names, most likely of places. The Grafton Centre was one of these, Cambridge another. Two codes, of sorts, also flashed in and out of existence: “CB1 1PS” one said, “#031” said the other. This was followed by a long string of numbers; one pair of these numbers appeared to change every several flashes while the other alternated through its cycle considerably slower.

Some might say these numbers hold the most significance over all the values. Others would argue that without some of the words, or at least one of the codes, the numbers will hold little use. More intellectual people would state that we have both of these, so holding an argument over such things is a waste of time - which was coincidentally what the numbers represented. Not the waste part, but more specifically: time. And that “time” was 11:45 23/05/15.

Tranquil balance was maintained in this building for some time. Little happened as the camera bussied itself by pursuing its simple commands: pan left, pan right, stay in focus, and record all. This continued until the third number switched to a “2”.

Silence.

The sun’s ray disappeared from the camera’s limited frame. Blocked by dull grey clouds. The old calm quite broke like a dam and drifted out of the room. The humming of the lights and the slight hissing of the winds seemed to cease. Sounds that before seemed unimportant were now noticeable once gone. In a way, this made the past seem like the usual bustling crowd of hungry shoppers - though such a thing would not appear for many years.

It was over swiftly. Javelins and lances of rain hammered down on the glass roof, trying to punch through to the ground only to be deflected. They grated down the adjacent cool metal, threatening the cut through. The noise of which equally matched the magnitude of the water’s strength. The building held, however. After all, it was just British weather.

Muffled by deluge cascading out of sky, the door opened, and a peculiar creature shuffled in. In the past, and for some time to come, many would regard such a creature as strange. It had wide eyes, like those of a kitten in comparison it it’s facial size. Despite this, they appeared inattentive and unfocused in the artificial light. On four hooved legs it scuttled away from the door and shook its matted striped fur. Water was splayed around the animal, but it’s coat continued to drip.

The door swung backwards and it spoke in a gruff voice.

“Well that’s just bloody typical.”

It was masculine sounding, and, based on what the camera had seen and heard before, the voice was distinctly alien to the equine-like body. After all, it was atypical to hear anything other than a human speak.

Nevertheless, the pseudo-zebra trotted onwards, either unaware or uncaring of his mechanical watcher. His short black and white mane shifted due to his jerky and wooden movements. The camera began to pursue the left side of its repeating cycle. The zebra moved to the right.

As the camera silently turned, the sharp sounds of clopping deteriorated. When it turned back, the dissonance emanating from the creature’s actions was the only thing that indicated its location. Occasionally a jumbled word would be picked up by the camera’s sensitive audio recorder, or a bang and crash followed by an assortment of aggressive sounding language.

The camera continued as it had before. The zebra was unseen. Little changed, again. The advances rain through the robust gutters was all that could be consistently heard; the floor, the door, and some of the walls were all that could be seen.

Then it changed. Thunder clapped. Lightning flashed. The floor was no longer white; it was no longer a floor. It was an abyss; an empty hole. Even if the camera has depth perception, it would still have appeared bottomless. Nothing - save for a circle of shapely symbols.

Static. Then darkness. Then light.

Colours, sunlight, and the clear blue sky were the first things to register. More creatures, like the zebra from before, chatted to each other in a village. They had no stripes, instead they portrayed their uniqueness through an array of colours - mostly soft ones. Their manes bared little semblance to their bodies as both types of keratin contained visually different pigments.

All of it was strangely in focus despite the lenses’ usual perception problems. Crisp images of winged equines were recorded in phenomenal detail as they pushed the very clouds above the small hamlet. The ground dwellers expressed dominion over nature by forcing plants to grow with their hooves. Lastly, the third type of these equines possessed a cone shaped horn with an engraved helix spiraling from top to bottom. There was no clear pattern for determining their occupations, however. Though the majority seemed to leave both the flying and default variants to their own workload - weather and agriculture.

Conversely, there were exceptions, such as retail, which were mostly mix and match. Therefore, one could deduct that each race or species depended on each other to provide the materials and services that kept the herd going. Presumably the unicorns also filled one of these key roles, but due to the limited scope of the vision it was impossible to tell.

The vision. Never before has the camera recorded something with meaning. Just raw frames. Pure data. This was different, it carried emotion and feelings. Harmony and hope. The wiring of the camera buzzed with strange impulses, yet it had only seen mere seconds of this strange world.

Fizz. Crack. Hiss.

Smack. Grey and white was its vision, speckled with randomly positioned empty spots. Then it levelled out again, back to the hall. The shiny greyed hall floor with specks of vivid colour yet to be restored. Wind and rain was it’s hearing as the claps of damp hooves slowly getting nearer.

Crackle and pop. Red, orange and green were the colour of the flames. It flowed in a circle, around the remains of the runic ring.

“Crikey. What the bloody ‘ell happened over ‘ere?” Questioned the striped animal, from the corner of the camera’s vision. This no longer pivoted; it was locked onto the flames.

They were beginning to spread now. Smoke was rising from the fire. The zebra backed away letting out a string of inaudible words.

Snap. Hiss.

Water fell down from the roof, a fine spray converging on the greening flames. Sparks flew off to the sides from the contact, one made contact with the fleeing lifeform eliciting a short yelp. He was now pushing two trolleys overflowing with supplies - one was in front of the other making it look like a small train.

Coloured gasses floated out of the combusting floor. Purple and orange particles began to twist around each other in the air creating a small vacuum. Air, then water and flames, and eventually solid pieces of newly chattered glass were sucked in. Pressure was building up.

Raw energy was burnt into the camera’s vision as the inferno rose. If there was an explosion, it did not render in the surviving footage. Everything had gone black.

File closed.