Hegira: Option Gamma

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Chapter 22
Deleted Scenes
Prologue
Chapter 5

Chapter 1

Earth Calendar: 2114
Equestrian Calendar: 12 AC

New York City, for all its faults, was still a marvel of engineering and architecture, an incredible accomplishment of urban planning and construction; Home to well over 19 million. In spite of its slums, its smog, and its crime rate, it stood as a glowing beacon of hope surrounded by gray. A testament to the achievements of a united, dying world.

Every Human knew the story of the day the sky went dim.

An experimental procedure intended to instantly cleanse the atmosphere of greenhouses gasses, and restore balance to Earth, had ironically been its final undoing. The scientists responsible could never have known or predicted the horrifying results of their work.

The composition of the atmosphere had been forever blighted. Enough light could penetrate to differentiate between day and night, but little else.

Under the new iron sky no plants, save ferns and kelp, could grow, and those only with artificial stimulation. Species began to die off at an exponential rate. An experiment intended to bring life had instead condemned the planet to lifelessness.
The unthinkable final specter of death. Total planetary extinction within a century.

Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn was not enjoying the city sights. Isaac figured he wouldn’t enjoy the skyline even if he wasn’t submerged hundreds of feet below the east river. He had lost most of his conventional eyesight in a bioplasmic grenade attack.

The VIP who he had saved, an influential Earthgov politician, had set him up for life in gratitude; A high level officer position on the special forces, ocular Direction/Range/Distance sonar implants, and a healthy monthly stipend.

It wasn’t that Wrenn couldn’t see at all, it was that he couldn’t see past two meters. The grenade had left his eyes a stark milky white, a characteristic that seemed to put people off. The ocular implants used sonar to construct a digital bluish hued image of the world beyond two meters and present it to him on top of his organic vision. The implants had their advantages, such as being omni-directional, and so acute at motion detection that a wisp of wind could set them off, but Wrenn hated them.

The bluish tinge of the CG image left no color or enjoyment in the world at large, just digital jagged shapes.
And the headaches had led to many sleepless nights.

The implants did add to his intimidation factor, which was another plus in his book.

The small blue glowing slits above his eyebrows accentuated the stark void of his eyes, leaving most people under the vague impression that they were facing not a Human being, but a cold calculating machine. Wrenn was as emotional as anyone, but he liked to exploit his 'killer android' impression to get things done. It had a way of cutting through the red tape.

The harsh baritone of his CO echoed off the bulkhead, calling out the start of the terminal pre-mission count.

“Nestor Flight; Departure in ten minutes. All fire-team members on-station in five. Set condition two throughout the ship.”

The UES Indianapolis was a typical Earthgov special forces destroyer; Part submarine and part surface ship, with a sealed hangar for deployment of two VTOLs and an F-A26 Scythe when surface-side.

Wrenn’s job would be riding shotgun with the package all the way to delivery point, everyone else in the squad was just along for the first part of the ride. Once their VTOL dropped them off at a pre-chosen maglev terminal, a government controlled train would pre-empt normal traffic, swing in and pick up the package, and hopefully deliver them downtown to their destination without incident.

The owners of the package had insisted on providing their own guard while it was transported to the ship in London, and likewise insisted on providing their own guard when the package arrived in New York. But they apparently had no love for enclosed spaces underwater, and so allowed the ship to travel without one of them onboard, once they had verified that the package was loaded and the hatches sealed.

Wrenn snapped out of his reverie and fell to checking his gear; One semi-automatic RAC-7 railgun rifle, a spare and much weaker laser based pistol, two EMP grenades and a cluster smoke grenade, KA-BAR combat knife, earpiece, basic energy diffusion vest and gauntlets. Finally he pulled a helmet with a clear plexi-steel half visor from the rack, gave it a good thump, and affixed it to his head.

As he shut the door to his locker, Wrenn gave the embossed ship's emblem a quick pat, born mostly of affection rather than superstition, before turning towards the armory's fore access hatch.

"Sir? We're on-station now."

The Captain leaned in over his helmsman's console, and scanned the officer's readouts, noting the positions of all the surface traffic above as the XO spoke out from her position behind the bridge central holotank.

"Fireteam One reports package is secured, Nestor ready to depart."

The CO nodded, and moved towards the center of the chamber, establishing a strong grip on the railing that ringed the holotank, command, and operations stations as he issued new orders.

"Notify East River traffic control, and New York aviation Center of our temporary navigation restrictions, and transmit sixty second departure warnings to any traffic in the AO. Start the clock."

Accompanied by a soft computerized chirp, one of the main information screens above the shuttered central window bank began to count up from 00:00:01. The red glow of the numerals spilled over onto the holographic projection of the river ahead of the ship, mixing softly with the navigation markers, contact indicators, and pitch lines.

The comms officer spoke quietly into his headset as the Captain fixed his gaze on the central holotank's comprehensive Area of Operations map.

"East River Traffic, Navy DDG 3257, Indianapolis. Priority Alert; Navigation Restrictions are in effect for grid C-11 as of now. Repeat; No-entry red-level restriction is hereby issued on Navy authority for C-11. Acknowledge."

A red translucent cube appeared in the center of the holotank, surrounding the destroyer, and extending all the way out to shore on both sides, a half mile up and down-river, and vertically from the riverbed all the way to 85,000 feet. As he listened for an affirmative from river traffic control, the comms officer continued to transmit.

"New York Center, Navy DDG 3257 Indianapolis. Priority Alert; TFR in effect for grids C-11, C-10, and C-9. Military traffic inbound. Repeat; No-entry red-level Total Flight Restriction is hereby issued on Navy authority for C-11, C-10, and C-9. Acknowledge."

A moment later, the officer turned and nodded to the Captain, as several more red cubes filled in on the holotank.

"Navigation restrictions entered and acknowledged. Traffic is moving to vacate. The AO will be clear in ninety seconds."

The CO nodded, and tightened his grip on the railing.

"Helm; Begin combat breach maneuver. Raise the boat."

The sound of enormous mechanical parts shifting blended together with a soft, but insistent klaxon.

"All hands, standby to breach. Brace, brace, brace."

The UES Indianapolis broke the surface in a cascade of gray-green water, looking like a nightmarish giant shark with its harsh angles and grey dazzle camo pattern hull, a distant but obvious descendant of the fierce Littoral Attack ships that had pioneered the hull configuration.

The instant the vessel was stable enough, two forward doors irised open and the first VTOL slid out into the hazy gray Manhattan morning. As the first craft made its exit, hatches all over the Indianapolis’s hull pulled back and a variety of railguns, missile ports, and Radar antennae bristled forth.

Each weapon revolved immediately to acquire track on the nearest civilian vessel, aircraft, and drone, ominously following the swiftly backpedaling vehicles until each exited the restricted zone around the Destroyer.

The second VTOL followed the first as soon as there was enough clearance, accompanied by an ear-splitting warning blast from the ship's horn.

Wrenn always wondered how the pilots managed to juggle swapping the flight mode and gliding out of a space only inches bigger than the tips of the vehicles' stubby wings. He didn’t like to dwell on it too long, he had entertained ambitions of becoming a pilot, but with his vision problems he knew no-one was ever going to let him near the controls of a flying machine.

He couldn’t even legally drive, his ‘optical enhancements’ were not street legal in spite of the fact that they qualified him to use a loaded weapon. Irony could, he reflected, be so very bitter sometimes.

The best Wrenn could hope for was a decent service career with some action to break up the boredom.
He had even considered ponification before finding out that one’s species was not guaranteed to have wings, and that most violent thought would be naturally suppressed.

He cradled his RAC fondly. It wasn’t that he particularly liked being Human, but he liked being able to pick a fight over the things that mattered. That was a quality he would never be willing to part with, not even in Equestria.

Equestria. The word was now synonymous with hope. No one, Equestrian or Human, knew how or why the two universes had collided. Some called it luck, some fate, some God.

The collision had changed everything. The bubble of space-time that made up the intersection with Equestria was steadily growing, consuming the local space of Earth and adding considerably to its own in the process. Even the Equestrian Royal Sisters, whose powers themselves were god-like, could neither offer explanation nor put a stop to the expansion. All that anyone knew, was that by the end Earth would be gone, and Equestrian universe would be orders of magnitude larger, the barren wastes of humanity’s home transformed into wild, untamed, uncharted verdant landscapes.

Humans, and any synthetic material of their making, could not survive a trip into the bubble.
Wrenn had once seen a holo-vid of an experimental attempt to pass a monomolecular nano-fiber rod through the barrier. It had instantly and violently dissolved into its most basic atomic components.

Initially the revelation had caused panic. Wrenn could remember, as young man, watching newscasts of the EarthGov debates; 'Should we fire weapons at the barrier?' 'Attempt another quantum wave propagation experiment?' 'Evacuate the planet somehow?'

The first two options had been swiftly ruled out. Wrenn doubted very much that a nuclear strike would have even scratched the barrier, and another quantum experiment was like playing with fire. Begging for disaster.

Then the Equestrians had stepped up and offered a hoof in friendship. As Humanity respected their penchant for peace and unity, they respected humanity’s inventive genius and economic prowess. Both shared a substantial dose of perseverance in common, and the Ponies set to work trying to help humanity in any way they could.

They exported food for the starving masses, offered magical knowledge, and some even emigrated to Earth to help out in any way they could.

They had first tried magic.

The introduction of such a fantastic concept to the world had left Wrenn, like many others, stunned in awe and wonderment. Unfortunately for humanity the magic of Equestria only had limited effects in the space-time of Earth. There was still no realistic way to reclaim the un-arable soil, or repair the sky.

Wrenn figured it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow, even the Royal Sisters couldn’t stop the bubble's expansion, so any land saved would still ultimately be consumed.

It seemed Humanity was doomed to tragically watch as a paradise they could never inhabit swallowed their whole existence.

Then a joint group of Equestrian magicians and Earth scientists made a world shaking announcement; They had devised a solution, and the solution was Conversion.

Programmable nano-particles and Thaumatics working in beautiful scientific harmony. Ponification Serum.

One plastic cup’s worth of the purple goo, colloquially called potion, would turn any human being into a healthy, happy Pony. Instinct for passivity, predilection for friendliness, and all.

The revelation had generated polarizing debate, especially when it was discovered that newfoals would lose much of their capability for strong violence. Some attacked Conversion, accusing the Equestrians of robbing Humanity of their free will. Wrenn could vividly recall the severity of the riots in his home city of Phoenix.

Eventually the masses had been calmed. Newfoals didn’t loose their inventive and expansionist human spirit, a testament to the retention of sentience. Nevertheless, factions of the government still took sides, and new organizations of terrorists had sprung into being advocating both positions.

Some, like the Human Liberation Front, would go to extreme lengths to put an end to Ponification. It had taken a major effort on the part of EarthGov’s now relatively small, but sophisticated military to keep their hands off WMDs for so long.

Others, like the PER, believed that the perceived lack of choice in humanity’s future entitled them to make the choice on behalf of others. It was right in the name; Ponification for Earth’s Rebirth, a credo they took extremely literally. Their entire methodology revolved around forced conversion. The tension and fear created by the possibility of being robbed of one’s choice was not helping to ease Humanity’s transition.

As far as Wrenn was concerned, there shouldn’t be a debate.

One could choose to opt out of ponification, but unless they were already in their mid nineties, or put faith in the Genesist sleeper ship project, they were likely to be forced to make the final choice one day. Convert or die.

Ponies and Humans, and many of the other Equestrian species, had one thing in common; Free will. The choice, in Wrenn’s eyes, was a fraught but ultimately individual issue that should be left to each person to deal with in their own way, and on their own time. Legal Incentives and disincentives were ultimately acceptable in the Lieutenant's mind, as long as everyone still had a choice in the end.

Still, for anyone who wanted to survive the final collapse of Earth’s space-time into Equestria it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ they would have to convert, as far as Wrenn was concerned.

The thought troubled him, but he supposed that when the time came he would have it all worked out. If his job didn't take him first.

“Sat vision 18, initial vectors received. Nestor-1 has point.” The words brought Wrenn back to reality. The pilot carried on a brief conversation with Central Command and the Indianapolis’s LADAR Operator before signing off and following the first VTOL at a respectable distance.

Both gunships sported quite an array of sophisticated armaments, but their agility was severely hobbled deeper in the city due to the towering mega-skyscrapers that took up most of the space, hence the need to transfer to a maglev.

Whatever Wrenn’s team was carrying was valuable to the Bureau, which meant it was also logically important to the PER and HLF.

Both groups had shown themselves capable of destroying armed government property and overcoming significant risks to get their hands on potion, which was what Wrenn figured was in the yellow and gray 3 foot by 5 foot titanium/carbide strongbox that was ‘the package.’

He had transported potion crates before, but most had been red or purple, designating special hypoallergenic, and traditional potion respectively. 'The Package,' looked like it had an extra set of biometric access denials on the touch panel.

It also lacked any symbols besides the universal bio-hazard sigils, which Wrenn found telling. Most potion crates bore the Earthgov Ministry of Chemical Science stamp, the Royal Equestrian Crest, a shipping number, bar-code, and the symbol for ponification serum.

Wrenn was sitting with the crate to his right. One squad-mate was taking co-pilot seat, the other two manning door guns. Wrenn could recall their names, ranks, call-signs, service numbers, and service records; And he still knew nothing about them.

He had been a fairly social person before the attack that took his eyes, but since his recovery he couldn’t remember the last time he had a truly substantial conversation that wasn’t mission related.

The attack itself was far less to blame than the person behind it. Wrenn banished that line of thought back to its own metaphorical locked crate. Emotions of that sort had no place on a high stakes mission.

He turned his sonar on the hustle and bustle below. The outer fringes of Manhattan still had maneuvering room for the VTOL, but only just. They couldn’t be far from the station.

Below a great many Humans, and some Ponies, went about their daily lives, barely sparing a glance for the vehicles above carrying enough tonnage of armament to wipe out three city blocks in under eight seconds. Resolution 22. It had happened when Wrenn was just entering the military.

The PER had launched a big Christmas Day attack on Trafalgar Square. In the blink of an eye 4,128 people had lost their Humanity, and not all of them came to terms with it well. Earthgov had used the panic to pass ‘22 and give itself the right to deploy the military whenever it wanted, wherever it wanted, and however it wanted.

Nobody had complained, everyone was too afraid of either the PER or HLF, or run of the mill terrorists to argue. Everyone had gotten used to seeing armed troops here and there, with frightening speed, and very little complaint.

A female voice cracked through his earpiece, “Nestor-2, Nestor-1. We’re doing a circle pass on LZ, hang back to be cleared.”

Wrenn felt the not-so-subtle change in direction and speed in his stomach. The pitch of the engines’ whine rose and the VTOL entered the second most dangerous phase of the mission. While hovering they were a barely moving target, and when they moved in to land it would be even worse. They would have no room for evasive action at all.

An attack in the landing zone wouldn’t just kill the squad, it would probably kill half the people on the station platform below, despite the fact that they were behind police cordons.

“Nestor-2, Nestor-1; LZ is clear, proceed with caution. Hand-off team has arrived and will be waiting for you on the concrete. Good luck Wrenn.”

Wrenn tapped his mic, “Thanks, you too. Stay frosty.”

He raised his RAC-7 and checked the magazine. Safety on. Too many civilians present to be twitchy with the rifle. The VTOL touched down with a jarring thud, and almost instantly two large figures darted forward and hefted the crate between them. It took Wrenn a full three seconds to process these newcomers.

Gryphons.

Wrenn had heard stories, mostly rumors, about the other races of Equestria. Out of all the myriad life on that world, Gryphons had held his fascination the most. But so few had visited Earth-Proper that he’d never seen one in person. Just a couple long distance holo-images the press managed to snap.

Meeting one was a top-ten bucket-list item for the lieutenant.

Wrenn dropped from the VTOL and dashed to keep up with the two male Gryphons. One was speckled gray, black, and white, the other was a shade of burnished gold. Both had large rifles at their sides, both had swords, and both wore some kind of steel plate armor that looked almost medieval in concept, but had clearly been upgraded with an energy diffusion matrix. The telltale hexagon pattern in the metal showed when the light caught it right.

“You’re the hand-off team?” Wrenn asked, unable to keep a touch of awe out of his voice.

The speckled Gryphon motioned to himself, “Kephic,” then pointed a single talon at his comrade, “Varan. You’re the soldier who insisted on seeing the crate through?”

Wrenn nodded, “I don’t ever let mission criticals out of my sight, not until the mission is over.”

Kephic nodded, as if he understood all too well. Varan’s face bore a look of resignation, as if he too understood, but considered Wrenn more a liability than a help.

The lieutenant decided that he probably was a liability compared to the two Gryphons. They were large, incredibly strong, and must have in his estimation, insanely good eyesight and better hearing than a human. For speed and reflexes he didn’t know, very few probably did, but Wrenn was willing to bet they made homo sapiens look obsolete on the battlefield.

“Plan?” Wrenn asked, sweeping the crowd with his eyes as Kephic and Varan set the crate down at the platform’s edge.

Kephic had to raise his voice slightly to be heard clearly over the VTOL’s backwash as it took off again, “Varan and I will keep a hold on the package at all times, you provide an extra set of eyes. Nothing more.”

Varan chimed in, “Also, preferably avoid getting yourself killed on our watch.”

As he scanned the crowd Wrenn noted their reactions with interest. The majority had never seen a Gryphon, and a plurality had only vaguely heard of them. The sight of the magnificent creatures in Manhattan was clearly causing a stir.

Wrenn was willing to bet there would be at least a couple hundred videos posted to the internet about it. Practically everyone alive had a next-gen DaTab with built in imager, sat-link, and holo-display.

Maglevs were almost soundless at a distance, but judging by Kephic and Varan’s change of posture, they could hear the train coming. As he predicted, the sound reached Wrenn’s ears several seconds later, and a black two car armored maglev whisked smoothly into the station.

The doors popped open with a hiss and a snap.

The train disgorged several Humans clad in urban combat armor with sub-machine railguns and ConSec emblems on their shoulders. Following them another Gryphon and a Pony.

ConSec was the Conversion Bureau's catchall security, investigation, and Potion defense wing. The newcomer Gryphon was colored mostly in roan tones, and wearing armor exactly like Kephic and Varan. The Pony accompanying him was slate gray, with a black mane and green eyes that offset the Gryphons’ fierce gold ones startlingly.

No introductions were made, the crate was simply hoisted into the armored train car as fast as possible, after which everyone dutifully filed in.

The train's doors snapped shut, and it set off with a low hum. The maglev accelerated far more quickly than the usual passenger train, reaching its top city-safe speed of 130 mph in seconds. Wrenn and the other Humans had to brace themselves, but the Gryphons and Pony didn’t seem to mind.

Wrenn noticed with a start that Kephic and the new Gryphon were now standing on their hind legs, working on the crate’s biometric console. Apparently they could walk and work just as easily in a bipedal configuration as a quadrupedal one. Wrenn was deeply impressed; He wondered just how many hidden benefits such an ambipedal configuration afforded in combat.

After Kephic and the other Gryphon finished verifying that the crate hadn’t been tampered with, they settled down next to the opposite side doors. The ride would be about five minutes long, and then they would be more or less finished.

Wrenn turned to Varan, who was manning a spot by the door closest to him, “So. Done this before?”

Varan nodded curtly, “Repeatedly. Though never with cargo quite this valuable. You?”

Wrenn nodded, “Repeatedly. Though never with cargo quite this mysterious.”

Varan chuckled dryly, “And I wager if you knew what was in there, you would say the cargo was the most valuable you had ever defended.”

Wrenn shook his head, “Nah. At the end of the day its just a crate. I’ve had to escort people out of bad spots before. Civilians are the most valuable cargo.”

Wrenn couldn’t tell if Varan’s expression was curiosity, respect, or a mixture thereof, but at least it wasn’t contempt. The train sped on in uncomfortable silence. The space had not been designed for so many larger-than-Human life forms, much less Gryphons, a Pony, and humans in armor cohabiting with a bulky crate.

Wrenn was about to screw up the social courage to ask the new Gryphon his name, when Kephic dove from across the train and splayed his wings in Wrenn’s face. The lieutenant just had a tenth of a second to notice that all the Gryphons were wearing some kind of armor on the jointing of their wings, before the entire world burst into color, sound, motion, and pain.

Wrenn regained his senses in a heap.

Kephic was now standing over him discharging his large rifle in precise bursts. Wrenn noticed, dully, that each shot was accompanied by a scream, or the sound of shredding metal and fabric.

That begged the question of who he was shooting at, and why, and that brought Wrenn back around like a bucket of cold water.

He began to drag himself to his feet. The blazing wreckage of the Maglev was strewn around him, along with the prone bodies of two of the human ConSec officers. The crate lay between him, Kephic, and Varan who was taking cover behind part of the elevated track that had come down, in what Wrenn was quickly realizing, had been a sizable explosion.

The roan Gryphon seemed busy setting up shop with an enormous Rail-Snipe up on one of the elevated track stanchions that hadn’t given way.

The Pony was nowhere to be seen.

One of the remaining ConSec officers shouted “Contact Rear!” But before he could even finish, an ear-splitting crack rang out from the Gryphon with the Rail-Snipe, and Wrenn just had time to whirl and watch a dark armored figure four blocks away get its head pulped by the hyper-sonic force of the railgun round.

Wrenn remembered his own weapon and checked it for signs of damage. Mercifully Kephic’s quick action had saved not only him, but the rifle.

He raised the RAC and swept his field of view. He spotted a figure dashing between buildings with something suspiciously like a grenade and let off a burst. The figure dropped, and a moment later the area shook with a small thud as the grenade he had primed went off in his lifeless hand.

Wrenn turned back and swept the other side of the street. There were a few panicked civilians milling about, most of the road traffic in the area had been arrested by the falling train tracks, and amongst the chaos dark figures in combat armor darted back and forth squeezing off shots at anyone and anything that wasn’t them.

“Who are these guys?!” Wrenn shouted as he raked a dumpster with cover fire. Varan popped off a single shot and downed the figure that had been hiding behind the green metal cube, “Battle now, queries later!”

Wrenn fell to providing cover fire. The Gryphons almost never missed, their accuracy was simply mind blowing. All Wrenn and the ConSec officers had to do was keep the opposition as harried as possible.

The tide quickly began to turn. Spurts of gunfire got fewer and further between.
Wrenn was almost ready to believe that it was over, until a man in ordinary civilian clothing grabbed a mother and small child who had been taking cover with him, and dragged them out into the middle of the road.

“Stop! Or I blow us all sky high!” he shouted. Wrenn could just make out a deadman’s switch in the man’s right hand.

All activity ceased. Any one of the Gryphons could have shot the man without chance of harming the mother and son, but nobody was close enough to stop the explosives the man was potentially wearing under his coat from annihilating them an instant later.

The man threw down the mother and held the son in a choke-hold with the arm he was using to depress the deadman switch. With his other hand he drew a small pistol. “Here's how it plays out! You give us the crate, and we will walk away without hurting anyone else. Deal?!”

Wrenn glanced at Kephic, and muttered, “Keep him talking.”

The look the speckled Gryphon gave him was probably supposed to root him in his tracks, but Wrenn was too high on adrenaline to care. He started to edge around behind the shattered hulk of the train, out of sight of the bomber, as Kephic spoke.

“No chance human, we won’t hesitate to make sacrifices to protect that box.”

Wrenn winced. The provocative words were not the kind of ‘keep him talking’ he had been referring to, but thankfully the bomber seemed to want very much to live through the ordeal. Wrenn was counting on that.

“No no no featherbrains, *I* make the stipulations, *you* acquiesce, or innocents die.”

Kephic smirked, or at least Wrenn figured the Gryphon was smirking was from his tone.

“What makes you think I care about two members of your species?”

The bomber shuffled as he shouted back. Wrenn was close enough to hear the feverish breathing of the young boy now.

“Because I know your kind has a code. A code of honor. And you won’t let them die.”

Wrenn stood up, speaking as he moved. “He won’t have to.”
He launched himself forward and prayed he was right.

The bomber turned, raising his pistol, and squeezed off a shot. Wrenn was dimly aware of a piercing pain in his shoulder, but he put it aside as he collided with the man, knocking the young boy out of his arms. All that mattered to Wrenn was putting his thumb on the kill switch.

He batted at the man with his right gauntlet, catching him in the face with the sharp edge, and mashed his left hand down over the man’s right with such force he could feel the him wince.

“NOW NOW NOW!” Wrenn vaguely heard himself shout, then from somewhere a muffled crack, and the bomber went limp in his arms. Wrenn barely managed to hang on to consciousness long enough to hand off the deadman switch to the roan Gryphon, and then darkness hit him like a ton of bricks.

Chapter 2

“What's his condition?”

“Well the shot pierced a major artery. If he hadn’t been this close to us he would have likely bled out, even with a patch-up of scabbie foam. As it is, he is going to be sore for days from the concussion, but the healing spell closed the shoulder wound nicely, and stem cells from his marrow are doing the rest.”

“Good.”

Wrenn winced and opened one eye, “So. Do I need to finalize my will?”

The two figures in his field of vision turned toward him. Both were quadrupedal, one much larger than the other. As his vision cleared, and the implants re-engaged, he squinted and managed to make out Kephic, and a pastel purple female Unicorn Pony with a vibrant pink mane and a nurse’s cap.

Wrenn chuckled, “I must have died and gone to wonderland.”

The nurse pony seemed to understand the reference and chuckled as well. Kephic looked on in vague amusement, speaking slowly, and deliberately all the while.

“What you did back there... How did you know he wouldn’t release the switch when you stood up?”

Wrenn closed his eyes, groaned, and then sat up.

“Water?”

He heard a low tinkling hum, and when he opened his eyes a glass of water was floating in front of his face, suspended in a pink cocoon of light. The thaumatic field created a fascinating particle effect through the sonar of his implants; A sparkling miniature fireworks display.

Wrenn plucked the glass gingerly from the nurse’s telekinetic grip and smiled his thanks before sipping it slowly.

He paused before answering, “I didn’t know for sure. I had a moment of intuition. A guy who pulls a pistol when he already has a deadman switch armed isn’t ready to die for his cause. Not like that anyways.”

Kephic cocked his head to the side, reminding Wrenn of a special documentary he had seen on Eagles once, and the expression they had when something puzzled them.

“But surely if he had the explosives he had already committed to his willingness to die?”

Wrenn shook his head, “Maybe that’s how you guys tick, but not Humans. Fear can override almost anything in us if we don’t fight to keep it down.”

Kephic snorted, “We fear things too, but it would be dishonorable to ever let it cloud our judgement or subvert our courage.”

Wrenn smiled and winced as he experimentally flexed his shoulder, “Well I wish we were more like you, but I'm glad our suicidal friend wasn't. Thank you. By the way, for shielding me.”

Kephic inclined his head, “Now if you’ll both excuse me, I have to go see to the potion.”

Wrenn stood up, then sat back down abruptly as a dizzy spell hit him, “So it is potion? the crate I mean.”

Kephic glanced back over his shoulder. The Gryphon's expression, and the way he formed his response, made the lieutenant wonder if his 'slip' had perhaps been intentional.

“That’s not for me to say. Yet.”

Wrenn forced himself up, his stance was wobbly but he managed to stay vertical, “I almost got blown up to protect what was in that crate, now after what you just said I have a sneaking suspicion and I wanna know if I’m right.”

Kephic paused, as if still undecided, then sighed deeply.

“Well, you haven’t signed off on the transfer papers technically. So I suppose it's within your right to see the crate off.”

Wrenn smiled and staggered to the door, collecting his balance more with every step.

Kephic smirked, “You may want to put on some clothes first.”

Wrenn looked down and sheepishly realized he had nothing on but a hospital issue white medical gown.

“Ah. Right. Pants.”

“No! no absolutely not, he doesn’t have the clearance to see the inside of that crate.”

“That's for us to decide, not you smooth-skin.”

Wrenn winced as Kephic laid into the ConSec commander with one of the nastier, and more racially charged, anti-human epithets.

“My squad, my Bureau, my rules.”

Kephic slammed a fisted claw down onto the crate’s lid.

“Our box. And need I remind you who saved most of your officers in that debacle you called a transport mission.”

The human squinted up at Kephic, “Get out.”

“In Human phraseology; Like hell.”

“Enough.”

The roan Gryphon, who Wrenn had learned was named Sildinar, cut in with a voice so deep and so authoritative that it left no possibility for argument open from either party.

Sildinar glanced back and forth between Wrenn, Kephic, the ConSec officer, and the head of the bureau, a yellow female earth Pony with golden mane and square rimmed glasses who reminded Wrenn of his old primary school principal.

Finally Sildinar spoke, “He has earned the right to know. Is he not sworn to uphold your protocols of secrecy? Why should we not allow him to see something that will soon be public knowledge?”

Kephic nodded, the head of the Bureau maintained a fixed expression, the ConSec officer sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t seem to have the energy to press things further.

“Alright. You make a good point. But it's your ass if someone finds out.”

Sildinar and Kephic stepped over to the crate and each laid a single talon on the touchpad. There was a hum, and then a beep. Both Gryphons entered a long combination, Wrenn lost count after the 45th digit, mainly because the two typed so blazingly fast.

With a final triple beep, and the hiss of disengaging magnetic seals, the lid of the crate came loose. Kephic lifted it off and set it down on the floor, then beckoned for Wrenn to come look.

Wrenn had fully expected to be denied the opportunity to see what was inside. While he had gone and found a fresh pair of fatigues, a gray ConSec T-Shirt, and some Equestrian Coffee, which was divine, Kephic had gone to consult with Sildinar. About the time the nurse had found him the coffee, Wrenn had discovered that he had been brought to the downtown Manhattan Conversion Bureau.

It was the weekend, so the building was closed to all but staff and residents, in order to facilitate cleaning, and secure shipment of potions or equipment. The large postmodern complex felt empty and eerily silent.

Most of the Pony staff, even the ones who would normally be on duty, had been told to stay in the living quarters while the shipment came in. Only ConSec had free roam of the building, and most of them were holed up in the high security wing.

Apparently the Nurse and several human doctors had gotten leave to come down to the medical wards when Kephic had come dashing in, toting a bleeding Wrenn over his shoulder, followed by four ConSec officers with severe shrapnel wounds.

Wrenn stepped slowly, deliberately over to the crate.

The inside was suffused with a faint glow, and he could see that it emanated from row upon row and stack upon stack of sealed transparisteel cylinders. Each cylinder bore a simple delta inscribed with a gamma, and was filled with a sparkling viscous golden liquid from which the glow came. It looked like potion, but the only colors Wrenn had ever seen it in were standard purple, and special-batch hypoallergenic cherry red.

He glanced up at Sildinar, “Is this what I think it is?”

The Gryphon nodded, “You are an acute observer.”

The lieutenant couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or a genuine compliment.

“This, Isaac Wrenn, is the first ever batch of Gryphonization Potion.”

Manhattan’s underground storage pits were one of the most amazing and least viewed engineering marvels of the American sub-continent.

Massive three mile by two mile multi-story vaulted warehouses running beneath even the deepest subway lines. They had their own set of internal, mostly automated monorail cranes and clamps which moved around all the goods coming into or going out of the city. The place was a warren of crates, cranes, equipment, control booths, catwalks, and even living spaces for some of the night shift workers.

One could get lost in the warehouses alone, much less the maze of tunnels and elevator shafts connecting them to each other and the port.

On the whole, it made the space a perfect meeting spot for someone with the money to pay off security, the technology to shutdown surveillance in the area, and the desire to hold a conclave somewhere so deep down that even satellite based scanning couldn’t penetrate to it.

A man in a dark gray suit sat at a steel picnic table, placed there for workers to take their lunch break. It was comical to see the traditional fixture of outdoor parks sandwiched between two massive shipping containers buried deep below the earth.
The man smoked a cigarette, a real one not one of the electric ones that had become so commonplace when tobacco all but died out.

The pack in his pocket had cost the man more than most still-employed post-singularity workers made in a month, and he had five more like it in his car.

The smoke drifted up past his worn, aged features to rest in his receding gray hair, leaving him drenched in the distinctive foul aroma of nicotine. He straightened up as the sound of hooves on concrete alerted him that his contact had arrived.

He rose and drew a puff of smoke from the cigarette, letting it out in the direction of one of his two security guards just to see if the man would flinch.

He didn’t.

It was a pity, in his mind. The cigarette smoking man liked giving his underlings a good tongue lashing every so often, or they seemed to forget who he was and what he was capable of.

Further thoughts of intimidation left the man’s mind as a slate gray pony with a black mane rounded the corner of the shipping crate. The suited man checked his watch, “You’re late. You don’t have much time.”

The Pony nodded and glanced up, his unearthly green eyes glittering in the light from the overhead fixtures. “I was unsuccessful. They never left the crate alone, I didn’t have any way to acquire a cylinder of the potion, and then the PER attacked.”

The cigarette smoking man let out another burst of gray haze, and spoke in a resounding gravelly voice.

“We will deal with PER’s interference later. For now, the potion remains our priority. What details can you give me?”

The gray Pony winced and doubled over in pain, then words began tumbling from his mouth in quick succession, “Its a titanium steel carbide case, gray with yellow markings. Dual biometric access denial. 500 cylinders inside, each good for three people.”

A rivulet of blood began to make its way down from the Equine’s nose, red but with a peculiar silver strain in it. His words began to gargle, as if his lungs were filling up with liquid.

“Codes are 51 digit encryptions, only the Gryphons have them. They have already---AAUUUUURRGHGHGHG”

His words died away into a screaming burble as his entire face began to melt away. The effect rippled out across his body, and as the echoes of his screams faded all that was left on the floor was a puddle of red interlaced with silver, as if someone had spilled mercury in blood.

The suited man sniffed, removed his cigarette, and dropped it into the blob where it fizzled.
He inclined his head to the puddle and mumbled, “Humanus Pro Vita.”

(Author’s Note: Calliope Ravenhoof cameo’d with the permission of her author, an artistically inclined friend who helped write her dialogue. Give her tumblr some love and tolerance here; askcallie.tumblr.com )

Wrenn sat in the Bureau lobby, watching the acid rain streak down the massive arching front windows. He idly tapped his gauntlet against the plexiglass as he traced the paths of the droplets with his eyes.

Backlit by the halon street lights, the storm produced a mesmerizing effect to his implants.
The drops of water themselves were close enough to fall within Wrenn’s color vision, so they diffused some of the amber light coming from behind, but most of the world beyond was a symmetrical tessellation of blue lines and deeper blue polygons unaffected by the darkness of night or the glow of the lamps.

On the whole, the effect was something like a disco laser show.

Wrenn’s new suit of armor was a loan from ConSec; Officially he was working as extra security staff while under medical observation. Unofficially he had pleaded for the opportunity to stay and request a slot for Gryphonization. It amazed him how quickly the desire to slog back a cup of that golden liquid and grow a pair of wings had become an obsession.

It was all he thought about. It had been two days since the attack, and the Indianapolis wasn’t going anywhere quickly, so his CO had approved a ‘medical leave’ request.

Wrenn reflected that he might have exaggerated his condition slightly.

He stopped tapping the window and slowly worked his sore shoulder.
The ConSec emblem, a stylized gold eye of Isis on a blue background, sat almost directly over the worst cramp.

At such a late hour, the lobby was almost empty. A few Ponies and humans sat in groups of two or three, talking and drinking tea or coffee, usually discussing the conversion and their respective futures. Wrenn hadn’t tried to talk to any of them, and none of them had approached him.
And he was content with that.

All he wanted to do was imagine what it might be like to shed his sore limbs, failing eyes, and uncertain future to just cut loose and soar.

His reverie was momentarily interrupted by a muttering sound. Wrenn half turned to see a white Earth Pony staring at him across the lobby. She had a black mane with a vibrant purple streak that matched her eyes, three hearts for a cutie mark, and a red bow on her head.

At least Wrenn thought it was red, it was mostly out of his real vision range and partway into his sonar, so he couldn’t be sure. He had developed an instinct for the likely colors of objects based on subtle subconscious cues, but it was only right about two thirds of the time.

Wrenn turned lazily back to tapping the window, but his combat trained ears couldn’t help but pick up and interpret snippets of the Pony’s muttered train of thought, “"What was that key for armor? Red is dead, blue is true? Green is keen, Yellow is mellow? Oh I have no idea... Black armor is bad right? might as well.”

It was only just beginning to occur to Wrenn that she might be talking about him when a blood curdling war cry split the calm atmosphere of the lobby. Wrenn just barely had time to turn before he came face to face with the charging Earth Pony.

The collision produced a loud ‘CLACK’ as the Equine impacted the armor plate on his chest and bounced right off, nearly knocking him from his seat in the process. That seemed to daze her, but only for a moment. She scrambled up and went for Wrenn’s arm with a vengeance. He was thankful for the plating layers between him and her teeth, they looked like they could crush both plating, and bone, given a little time.

For a moment all he could do was stand in shock. This was the most awkward thing to have ever happened to him in all his years of soldiering. He was grateful the Pony had thrown little to none of her full muscular power into her attack. Earth Ponies had a reputation for strength. The kind of strength that could shatter light armor plating as though it were glass dishware.

“Um... ‘scuse me little Pony? That won’t do you any good. Its electroceramic plating with titanium carbide nano-layers and a built in diffusion grid. You'd have much better luck with a solid buck to the chest area.”

She continued gnawing on his arm, mumbling around the metal; "You won't fool me with that mumbo-jumbo, you... you... Evil person!"

Wrenn rolled his eyes, “Would you stop that? First you’ll blunt your teeth by the time you pierce the plating. Second if I was the bad guy I wouldn’t be sitting here in official ConSec armor guarding the lobby. And lastly if I had wanted to I could have cross drawn my pistol and dropped you like a stone. So in short, I think we got off on the wrong foot. err... hoof.”

She immediately let go. "ConSec? Oh dear... That's right, it was 'Black has our back...' Wasn't it...?"

Wrenn chuckled wryly, “Something vaguely like that. Its right on the emblem; ‘Humanus Quod Equus In Metus.’ ”

"Oh horsefeathers..."

He wiped the gauntlet she had been chewing on across the leg of his armor, while proffering the other hand, “I’m Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn.”

She blinked at the hand for a second, before realizing that he apparently didn't know how to greet a pony, humored him, and placed her hoof in his outstretched palm. "Calliope Ravenhoof. You can call me Callie."

"And you can call me Wrenn. Just like the songbird."

She giggled, Wrenn glared.

“They were fine, proud, deeply intelligent birds, and I'm happy to share the name with them, thank-you-very-much.”

"You're funny. Why were you sitting over here looking all glum?" Her head cocked to the side in what he had to admit was an adorable manner.

Wrenn collapsed back onto the bench with a sigh, and flexed his sore shoulder again.

“I got shot, and I don’t think I'm even going to get to have a part in what I helped to protect.”

"Awww... Being shot doesn't sound fun. Did it hurt? Who shot you? Did you shoot them back? How long till you get better?" She paused to scramble up on the bench next to him, then continued the tirade before he could answer "Why won't they let you fight? How bad was the wound? Did it bleed a lot? Did you faint when you saw blood? How was---"

Wrenn interjected forcefully, raising one gloved hand in a conciliatory gesture.

“It's... Not that they won’t let me fight. And trust me I’ve had worse than a projectile wound.”
He pointed to his disfigured eyes as he continued.

“No, we were protecting a secure case. Apparently someone wanted it badly enough to blow up a maglev, with us in it. I only survived because a very thoughtful Gryphon shielded me with his armor.”

Wrenn figured the concept of someone blowing up a train, combined with the idea that Humans made weapons which could irreparably melt one's eyes, would sober the little pony up.

Most Equestrians hated discussing violence.

Not that Wrenn meant to upset Callie, he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts again. Making friends wasn't part of his still forming plan.

Callie cringed. "Sounds... 'fun.' What was in the crate?"

It took Wrenn a moment to bypass her unusual reaction and stammer, “Uhm.. well... I can’t say. They broke a dozen protocols just letting me see, and only after Kephic, the Gryphon, put in a good word for me with his superior. If I told you, we’d be in more trouble than you can imagine.”

"Oh..." the expression on her face told him that 'trouble' was something she was very much used to. "So you can't see?"

Wrenn sighed and resigned himself to explaining his implants.

“I can see a little within two meters. Everything else my eyes can’t focus at all anymore. So I have these...” he gestured to the glowing slits above his eyebrows, “They use Sonar to show me a sort of bluish computer driven image of the world around me, even behind me if I want.”

"Ooh... Can I try them on?"

Wrenn laughed, a short sad barking sound, and a pained expression flitted across his face.

“No no, you misunderstand. They’re built into my skull. Welded into my frontal bone. The slits are for the sonic emitters. And besides, you wouldn’t want to have them. The world isn’t much fun without color and light and shadow.”

“But you'd get to see things like a *computer!* You could pretend you were a robot! And see everypony that tried sneaking up on you! I mean, I wouldn't have to look over my shoulder when it came Apple Bucking time! Can you see at night too? And stuff that's warm and cold?"

Her relentless enthusiasm surprised Wrenn, and he had spoken to enough ponies before to know the difference between Callie's tone, and run of the mill Equestrian optimism.

“I can see at night, but not in infrared. Its sonar based. And really, seeing behind you? not worth the migraines it causes. I’d trade that advantage in a heartbeat for the ability to see a storm in all its shades of gray, or the teal of the ocean stretching all the way to the horizon.”

Wrenn glanced out at the acid rain again, a telltale reminder of the ecologically ruined world he had been born into. He wondered, for the first time, how someone like Callie saw Earth.

He shifted and turned to look at her, “Why are you here? are you a convert?”

"A what? No, we don't really have religion in Equestria...other than ‘worshiping’ Princess Celestia." She giggled, and Wrenn assumed that it was a Pony joke.

He raised an eyebrow, “I mean, are you native Equestrian, or ponified human?”

“Native Equestrian, silly. Can’t you tell?"

Wrenn shook his head, “The conversion affects people pretty deeply. I’ve seen guys with gang tattoos go in there and come out without a care, or a violent thought, in their heads.”

"Well of course. Becoming a pony takes a lot of the conflict right out of you. Now there are a few... and I'm not saying any names..."
Here she paused to cough, covering a word that sounded rather like 'FlimFlamBrothers',
"...That still need some... work. But for the most part, everypony is nice and cares about one another. That's why we've done so well for so long."

She turned to him with an odd glint in her eye, "Are you becoming a pony?"

Wrenn shook his head, “No. Not anytime soon at least. It’s not that I’m too attached to being Human mind you, but...”
he patted his holstered pistol,
“...I like being able to fight and kill for what I believe in. Pretty essential part of my job.”
He glanced down at his hand.

“Also thumbs are nice.”

She shrugged. "Whatever suits your fancy I guess. Though I can't help but wonder what your cutie mark would be...."

“Do they come in crossed swords? or perhaps a big ol’ MAC cannon.”

"Not that I've seen... though I think I might have seen a surgeon's knife once. And I've seen scissors... Oooh, I know one pony who got a *full* bouquet of flowers on one side, and this odd brown blob on the other. After having every doctor in Equestria look at her, she finally got out in the rain, and it was just mud!"

Another fit of giggles. More Pony humor.

Wrenn decided he liked Callie. She hadn’t lost her sense of optimism and spirit even on an ever-so-slowly dying world talking to a veteran of several bloody conflicts.

It occurred to Wrenn to ask another question.

“What do you know about Gryphons? We haven’t seem them here much, and they fascinate me.”

"Oh... them. Well..." she glanced down at her hooves, shuffling them a bit, then out the window, her eyes going out of focus slightly. At length she answered "As foals we're told to stay away from them.... That they're dangerous creatures who love conflict... and that they..."
She swallowed slightly, "That they eat ponies."

Wrenn laughed, “Well they are strong fighters. But I saw three put their necks on the line today to save humans and Ponies without hesitation, so they must be ok with your kind. A species who's members have a code of morals that strong can’t be so bad as your bedtime stories lead you to believe.”

"If you say so..."

She shuddered, then shook her head, sending slightly curled strands of black and violet mane everywhere. "Anywho... Do you have a very special somepony? ...Er... some... human?"

Wrenn’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head, “No. I'm a soldier, not a socializer. I don’t even have a best friend. The only people I even speak to are my squad-mates.”

She looked, for lack of a better word, shocked. Slightly horrified as well, but mostly shocked. The emotion was mirrored in her voice.

"You... don't have any friends? At *all*? That must be horrible. I don't see why *anyone* would want to be a soldier."

Wrenn shook his head, “We aren’t all so bad. We just have the ability to engage in conflict alongside our drive to explore and invent. I’m a byproduct of a world where only the strong, or those who have their protection, survive. Bad guys aren’t in the business of mercy, and killing is just an everyday fact of life.”

Wrenn reached up and rubbed his eyes, as if trying to erase a memory that had been permanently burned there.

Callie looked up at him with the saddest eyes he had ever seen on any species. "That sounds horrible."

Wrenn shrugged, “Well, your kind doesn’t have to deal with that, for better or worse. Unfortunately some of us...” he thumped his chest-plate, “Some of us are diehard warriors. Some of us have seen and done things we can’t completely come back from. That's why I don’t have any friends. It's a protective instinct.”

Wrenn shook himself, “Why am I telling you this? Shouldn’t you be in bed by now?” he glanced at the chronometer display on his left gauntlet, “Its 2 AM. Don’t you sleep?”

"Don't be silly, I don't have a bedtime, I'm practically an adult! However, I promised Cunning and Lark that I'd check in to let them know I was okay... I have to go, but I'll see you around okay soldier-man?" She hopped to the ground and looked back up at him expectantly.

Wrenn shook his head, “I don't know. They might be shipping me out soon. But regardless, it was nice to meet you.” And for the first time in years, Wrenn meant those words when he said them.

"Oh...well, it was nice meeting you too. Remember to smile every so often. It's good for you.” She winked one of those sparkling purple eyes and trotted off, her hair bow bouncing in time to her steps.

Wrenn smiled, shook his head, and muttered quietly to himself for a moment before going back to staring out the window, watching the raindrops trace their endless patterns.

Chapter 3

“I like him. I think that not only is he a better candidate, but a far more deserving one as well.”

“I agree.”

“Then why the hang-up?”

“Human political maneuvering.”

Kephic had to visibly restrain himself from spitting as Sildinar said the words. The speckled monochromatic Gryphon had been pacing for the past half hour as he discussed his concerns with his superior.

“I thought it had been mutually agreed that we needn’t be beholden to their governmental bureaucrats.”

Sildinar pinched the feathers above the bridge of his beak in frustration, “We also agreed to the list of candidates the Humans put forward. None of them went against any of our qualifications. Technically they are *all* fine veteran soldiers, and brave people. They are all good candidates.”

Kephic turned and splayed out his wings in excitement, filling half of the small meeting room and nearly upending a computer terminal.

“Exactly! So why can’t they live with being pushed back one slot, so that a soldier who helped make this possible can be a part of it? What is a few months to them?”

Sildinar shook his head, “It’s not that simple to the Humans. They want...” he cocked his head, as if listening to a voice only he could hear, an expression Gryphons frequently wore when searching for something recently learned.
“...Their phrase is ‘poster boys,’ they want a batch of poster boys. Then after them will doubtless come a long line of applicants. The problem with Wrenn is that he represents a major issue of contention for them. Because of his implants.”

Kephic cursed silently, “They would push him out of the program because of his implants?”

Sildinar nodded, “From my understanding of it through the informal conversations I’ve had with the Earthgov council, implanting technology in people that provides a survival edge is extremely controversial. Nearly as much as conversion. They are worried that combining the two issues in one inevitably very public persona, with a history steeped in secret, blood soaked military operations, will lead to a backlash.”

Kephic snorted. “They could stand to learn some tolerance for change. Within a century their only options will be either change, or death.”

Sildinar inclined his head, “They have already suffered much, and adapted well. We can’t begrudge them their quirks, not after everything they’ve survived, and especially not after what happened when they tried to leverage this technology in their past. The fact is that we agreed to Earthgov’s candidate list.”

The two Gryphons stood in silence, both acknowledging that they would never break a promise, even if it seemed justified, without the other party having first crossed a line. Humanity hadn’t done anything to warrant such a breach of trust. If anything they had proven to be fairly relatable, especially outside political circles.

Sildinar shifted uncomfortably, “Let’s wait and see how things play out. Keep in mind that I have considerable influence with regards to this. My father may well find a good opportunity to get Lieutenant Wrenn a slot in the program without causing undue conflict.”

Wrenn scratched his head and stared at the holotank.

“Reset simulation, re-play from two minutes and twelve seconds. Half speed.”

He had spent most of his morning hours in one of the Bureau's classrooms. He had needed a sufficiently large holotank, and most of the meeting rooms were booked solid. The lights were dimmed, casting shadows on the brightly colored chairs potential converts would usually occupy. The AI he had tied into the tank’s controls warbled softly as it acknowledged his order.

Wrenn watched as a lifelike 3D image of an armored maglev sprang into motion, gliding down a set of elevated tracks. The explosion that had derailed the train had been caught by half a dozen traffic and security cameras, and the train’s own black-box had provided a wealth of kinetic impact data.

ConSec was, of course, pursuing their own investigation, but they had their hands and hooves full examining enemy corpses, trying to trace weapon serial numbers few as they were, and reassembling the fragments of the actual bomb.

“Hold.” The hologram froze. Wrenn stepped slowly around the tank, glaring at the stanchions of the elevated track. “Re-factor simulation based on materials data for the duracrete buttresses.”

“Retrieving data... Retrieved. Ready.” The AI’s female voice was, to Wrenn, disturbingly calm and inflection-less.

“Continue simulation, one quarter real-time speed.”

The train inched forward until it reached the fateful point. A bloom of orange and red expanded from a spot somewhere under the front car. As Wrenn watched, it threw the train, burned twisted and half melted, to street level taking pieces of the elevated track with it. The train’s momentum kept it spinning and skidding until it finally lost the battle with friction and came to a stop in a burning field of rubble covering a city block.

“Return to the point of explosion, step forward one tenth of a second, and hold.”

Wrenn stared into the frozen beginnings of the explosion, trying to divine answers to the questions plaguing him.

Why would someone so well prepared and so well informed make such a sloppy mess of an otherwise simple train heist? Surely they had known the potion crate was capable of enduring far far more punishment. They could have simply hit the train with enough explosives to kill everyone inside a dozen times over and picked the blackened but unharmed crate from the wreckage.

Given what had happened Wrenn saw only three possibilities. Firstly that the attackers had suffered internal sabotage. He marked that down as the least likely candidate. Secondly that there had been a malfunction; It happened to even the most prepared military unit so of course it could happen to terrorists, and certainly had in the past.

Lastly, the smaller blast could have been intentional.
The final option appealed to Wrenn’s instincts the most, but he had no logical legs to stand it on.

He stroked his chin and thought out loud, “Why leave us alive? No... Why leave the Gryphons alive? They intended for the humans to die. That's obvious, given the use of an explosive device. The Gryphons can open the box, and our attackers can not... But why wouldn’t they kill us all and force it open? Even a potion crate isn’t impenetrable given time...”

And then it hit him, “....Unless it's set-up to self destruct in the event of a forced entry. Which means destroying it wasn't enough. They wanted the potion fully intact--- ”

Wrenn didn’t even take the time to finish the thought. He bolted from the classroom, nearly knocking over several newfoals as he barreled down the corridor to the elevator. He skidded into the lift and barked “Level eight!” All the elevators in the bureau had voice control, for the benefit of the non-unicorn ponies.

The lift whisked up silently and deposited Wrenn on the eighth floor. Everything from level 8, and above in the central complex was administrative offices and meeting rooms. Wrenn careened around the corners, his boots barely gaining enough traction from the crimson and beige carpet to keep him from skidding into the wall.

He finally arrived at his destination and rapped furiously on the door.

The slab of frosted glass framed in aluminum slid back and Kephic’s head poked out, “This is not a particularly good time. Several specialists from ConSec are presenting forensic findings.”

Wrenn leaned in and whispered vehemently, “I found something! It's a potential lead.”

Kephic glanced over his shoulder, then slid out into the corridor letting the door close behind him.

Wrenn tapped the side of his head, “We’ve been going at this entirely the wrong way.”

Kephic huffed, “No need to tell me, I think I’ll stress-molt if I have to bear one more brainstorming session in there.”

“We have been asking ourselves who attacked us and assuming that once we know, we can divine their exact motives and means. But we should be asking ourselves what the motive was, and letting that lead us to who and how.”
Kephic nodded once sharply.

Wrenn continued, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“I went back over the explosion data, and it occurred to me that the device had to be placed very specifically and brought to a precise charge to get the effect we saw. Any smaller and the train would have plowed through it. Any larger and we all would have died. Further up the track and the train would have been too close to the Bureau to risk a raid. Further back and we could have called on the VTOLs for fast air support.”

Kephic nodded again, “The same line of thought occurred to me, but I haven’t had time to pursue it further.”

Wrenn began to pace as he continued, “Then let’s walk through my chain of reasoning. If we assume that the explosion was targeted so precisely we must also assume that the suicide bomber was a planned part of the ambush rather than a half-baked fail-safe. This leads us to motive; They wanted the potion, and they wanted it intact. If they had killed you and Sildinar and Varan, then no one could have opened the crate without triggering its self destruct. They knew you couldn’t be coerced by traditional means so they hoped to shoehorn you into a given path by holding your morals and ethics hostage.”

Kephic’s eyes went wide, “Are you suggesting---?”

Wrenn turned sharply, “I’m suggesting they knew this was more than just a secure shipment. I’m suggesting they knew precisely where, when, and how hard to hit us to achieve the desired effect. I’m suggesting they came very close to getting what they wanted, and I’m suggesting that the only way that’s possible is if we have a mole.”

Kephic stared at the wall, his mind doubtless running the numbers, comparing his thoughts to Wrenn’s, and forming conclusions. He spoke, slowly at first, then with more surety.

“It... would have been nearly impossible to keep the operation a total secret... We did preempt civilian train traffic, and our presence caused quite a stir on the station platform. However my instincts tell me that you are correct. Certain details are too convenient. ” The Gryphon paused and continued mulling before starting to pace himself, “Let me handle this. Your position is already tenuous.”

Wrenn laughed, a harsh sardonic chuckle, “My position? I’m grasping at straws, that’s my position.”

Kephic inclined his head, “That may be, but Sildinar has connections which might enable us to help you. Don’t place yourself in the line of fire unnecessarily.”

He must have caught Wrenn’s expression because he added, “I can make no promises however.”

“Well, I trust your judgement. Keep me in the loop?”

“Of course. Unofficially.”

Wrenn nodded and set off back to the lift, as Kephic turned to re-enter the conference room Wrenn tossed back over his shoulder, “Knock 'em dead.”

“Is there any other way?”

Downtown Philadelphia; Towering skyscrapers, glittering lights, and the hum of six and a half million people going about their daily lives. The city was known worldwide as a popular retirement destination for the wealthy upper class; Its many synthetic plasti-gardens and holo-illusion parks helped residents feel as though they might be living on a green verdant planet, as long as they did not too closely examine the imagery for its flaws and shortcomings.

One of the largest new attractions was the Liberty Bell Tower, a freshly minted one thousand seven hundred and seventy six foot high skyscraper. The structure was cylindrical, with an open air atrium in the center going from the ground all the way up to one thousand four hundred feet. The top three hundred and seventy six feet of the tower were shaped like a large bell, rather than the traditional flat or conical roof, to commemorate the artifact held within.

Eight thousand lucky people had managed to secure VIP passes to the opening ceremony, during which a holographic one-to-one replica of the actual Liberty Bell, crack and all, would be rung for all to hear. It was heralded as a momentous commemoration of freedom and accomplishments past.

Guest number seven thousand eight hundred and twenty nine looked down on the proceedings from a balcony, within the internal structure of the tower, with a decidedly different perspective.

He smiled and sighed softly, “Oh how I wish I could join them.” he turned to his assistant, a stunningly violet female unicorn with a luxurious, sparkling navy mane that appeared almost black against the lights of the tower.

She looked up from her work and smiled, “One day you will join us. As you always told me, have faith and patience. Someday Celestia herself will be able to shed the political guises and grant us reward for the work we’ve done.”

The man smiled warmly, “Veritas my love, you always know just what to say. Are we ready to begin?” She nodded. “Very well, let the ceremonies commence.”

“Welcome to the Liberty Bell Tower’s first annual celebration of freedom!”
Thunderous applause from the assembled guests and dignitaries greeted the announcer’s words.

“The United States may be a thing of the past, but the ideals of freedom that her founding fathers espoused live on in our unified Earth Government. Together, we---”

“Oh very touching. Such well crafted words, designed to evoke the jingoistic nostalgia of a 'better' time.”

The second voice took everyone by surprise as it boomed over the loudspeakers. The announcer tried in vain to speak into his microphone, but the system had already been completely preempted.

The new voice continued, “Its a pity the ideals of true peace, and freedom, have long been committed to history. Replaced by our corruption, our greed, and our cynicism. I ask you, assembled guests and honored dignitaries, do you truly see a future for us on our current path? Will words, and steel, and glass, and holograms of the past really solve the problems we have brought upon ourselves?”

Security had already begun canvassing the building by the time the voice reached a pause. The technician in charge of ceremonies tried to shut off the PA speakers, but the digital fuse system wouldn’t respond.

The voice went on unabated as a nervous murmur swept the crowd, “I am here tonight, my fellow man, to bring you a gift beyond comparison. To free you of the burdens of your nature, to instill in you something new, and bright, and true. You came here under the lure of a vapid and substance-less promise, and you will be granted something far greater. You shall be reborn in light!”

An armed security squad burst onto one of the upper balconies to find a large smooth silver cylinder with blinking purple lights thrumming on the floor. It took the lead squad-man only a moment to see, beyond the cylinder, a DaTab jacked into the building’s wired communications lines through a floor panel, receiving an open comm line.

The voice spoke once more. Only three words, “Let Freedom Ring.”

There was a whine, a flash, and for seven thousand nine hundred ninety nine guests, and two hundred security personnel, the world turned purple.

Wrenn yawned as he stepped into the communal dining area. He had his heart set on a sandwich, coffee, and an early bedtime. His mind was so distracted that it took him several seconds to get off autopilot and notice the pervasive silence in the room.

Humans and ponies alike had ceased all activity and were clustered around a bank of holo-monitors on the far wall.
Wrenn set down his half-filled plate and moved quietly to join them.

His ears finally began to make sense of the news anchor’s voice, “...Are telling us that over eight thousand people may have been affected. The area is under strict military quarantine and no one has entered or left....”

On the screen Wrenn recognized an image of the new Liberty Bell Tower, surrounded by VTOLs and emergency vehicles forming a wide four block perimeter.

His stomach flipped.

Eight thousand people. Military quarantine. A major televised event with comparatively little security... The converts-to-be and newfoals alike were too riveted to the newscast to notice as Wrenn dashed from the room, coffee and sandwich long since forgotten.

He arrived in the ConSec wing of the bureau to find the entire floor in a state of organized chaos.
The main situation holo monitor was firmly fixed on a sat-map of Philadelphia, with the screes ringing it tuned to various news sources. Everywhere humans and ponies were dashing back and forth with DaTabs shouting out reports across the room as they scrambled to make sense of the situation.

Among the press of distressed personnel Wrenn just barely managed to pick out Kephic, Varan, Sildinar, and the ConSec section commander. He forced his way through the crisscrossing streams of bodies to stand with them before the situation display. It was the only clear space in the entire room.

“What just happened?” Wrenn managed to gasp out as he tried to make sense of the data flowing across the screen.

Kephic's response was clipped, and edged with anger, “There was an attack.”

The ConSec commander interjected, “PER. Hit us with something we’ve never seen before. The preliminary reports are....”

“Staggering.” Varan finished his hanging sentence for him.

The commander allowed another moment to pass in silence before raising his voice.

“Alright everyone LISTEN UP! We’ve just experienced a level ten event, I want ALL decontamination teams prepped and ready for VTOL in twenty minutes. Security teams one through five, eight through twelve, and fifteen; Prepare to accompany them. As of now, twenty four seven tactical readiness. Nobody goes home until this is dealt with, call in everyone who isn’t already here. All support staff, find a space and make yourself useful. I want a logistics chain set up between here and Philly by the end of the hour, they're going to be overwhelmed already, and we are the regional operations hub. Pulling them out of this soup falls to us.
MAKE IT HAPPEN PEOPLE!”

The commander turned to the Gryphons, “Much as I hate to admit it, we could sure use your help.”

Sildinar nodded, speaking for all of them, “We are happy to assist.”

Wrenn stepped forward, “I’m going as well.”

For a moment he was sure the commander would tell him to bug out, but to his surprise the man simply inclined his head,
“We need all hands on deck, yours included. You trained in decon protocol?”

Wrenn shrugged, “I had an accelerated course once.”

“Close enough for government work. And besides, someone has to keep an eye on them...” He jerked his thumb at the Gryphons, then ndoded towards Wrenn.

“Suit up lieutenant.”

“Yes Commander.”

The man offered a wry smile, “Call me Hutch. Formality went the way of sleep ten minutes ago.”

The VTOL pitched wildly to avoid a passing Scythe. Wrenn clutched at his safety harness to avoid an embarrassing tumble through the cabin as the roar of the passing jet penetrated the hull of the craft for a brief moment.

Once the VTOL was stable again, a tech working on one of the forward computer stations started speaking into the comm channel.

“This is a level ten event, all quarantine procedures are in effect. Scans show air quality is normal, no residuals, but we’re playing this one safe. Be advised there is a likelihood of active potion on the ground and the victims. Nobody removes their hazmat components until the all clear is sounded, and you pass through decontamination. All team members are expected to be geared up with appropriate emergency equipment. Masks on!”

Wrenn reached up and yanked the re-breather mask down until it locked into place with his helmet. The telltale hiss and a small green light informed him that the system was sealed, working, and ready. Through the small thick window he could see the Gryphons, flying in formation alongside the VTOL.

All were wearing their usual armor, none were wearing hazmat gear. Not even so much as a mask.

Wrenn tapped his mic to cycle to a local channel, “You guys sure you don’t need masks?”

Varan’s voice came back across the line, “We’re immune to both magical and technological transformation of any kind.”

Wrenn sat back and whistled to himself, “You’d think they might put that somewhere in the manual.”

“Manual?”

He hadn’t realized the channel was still open, “Never mind. Turn-of-phrase.”

The VTOL swept in for a full speed lateral landing at the base of the tower. The instant the vehicle was close enough to the ground, the doors popped open and ConSec troops poured out in wedge formation. Wrenn was next to last out, his lack of ConSec rank and his shoulder injury precluded him from taking point in a squad. Technically he had been told he was there as ‘an informed military grade consultant.’

Around the perimeter the same routine was taking place with practiced regularity. VTOLs touched down and departed in swift cadence, emergency vehicles pulled around the road barricades with all sirens blazing, and screeched towards the scene. Somewhere above Wrenn detected the dull thrum of a larger support airship hovering near the top of the tower.

Even though the clock had struck 2300 local time, the area was lit up like broad daylight by hundreds of flood lights, headlights, and landing lights.

Everywhere the eye could see, ConSec troops, hazmat personnel, and med techs in isolation suits were milling about.

It wasn’t so much a rescue or cleanup mission, Wrenn realized. It was full on panic in the face of Armageddon. He marched purposefully towards the forward command tent, where Kephic and Sildinar were already in an animated discussion with the Philadelphia ConSec commander.

“What do we know?”

Kephic turned to face him, “So far? Troublingly little. PER detonated some sort of high dispersion potion delivery device. According to the division commander your records show nothing like it has ever been seen in past attacks.”

Wrenn shook his head, “As far as we know, there is no way to disperse that much gas ideally throughout such a huge space, especially since this particular gas congeals within seconds. It's why the Trafalgar attacks only claimed just over four thousand people even though there were eleven thousand present.”

The division commander, a tall redheaded woman with a fierce stare, eyed Wrenn suspiciously, “Who is he?”

Kephic stepped in, “A consultant. He has military special operations experience and is read in on several related high clearance matters. We needed all the extra personnel we could get.”

She gave Wrenn the evil eye for several more seconds, before acquiescing, “If you fly-boys can vouch for him that's good enough. We need everyone to pull through this.”

Sildinar stepped to the tent entrance, “Then we will perform first recon given our unique protection. Lieutenant Wrenn? We will inform you once the area is secure.”

Abruptly Wrenn found himself alone with yet another surly commander who didn’t want to deal with him. He wondered if the day could possibly get any worse.

“So. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The commander looked up from her holo-table, Wrenn noted her surname, ‘Aston,’ stitched above her front left pocket.

“Actually yeah. Get out there and see if you can find out why the crystallization teams are late reporting in. If you see them, send them south to the secondary entrances and tell them we’re planning a type three breaching action in fifteen minutes.”

Wrenn stood for a moment, processing the order, then reflexively snapped off a salute, “On it.”

He found the teams several minutes later, scrambling to repair a broken containment tank.
Wrenn didn’t know much about crystallization, but he did know enough about logistics to realize that the defective tank was causing more trouble as wasted time than as a wasted resource.

He eventually convinced the team to abandon the tank and get to positions.

As the white suited men and ponies with a distinctive blue and amber triangular emblem on their sleeves bolted for cover positions, Wrenn found himself caught up in the breaching action. Technically he knew he was supposed to remain outside until the area was secure, but the crystallization team had no escort, so he decided that would be his job, in lieu of anything else.

The commander’s voice crackled over his headset, “Breaching action is GO!”

The rush was instantaneous. Wrenn knew the feeling well, the moment when anxiety, caution, and basic emotion shut down and combat reflexes took over. He vaulted from his cover point and kicked in the side access door. As he swept the room with his implants he noticed an almost complete lack of movement. A few bodies lay on the floor, breathing shallow but regular breaths. Pony bodies.

“Clear,” Wrenn barked into his headset.

The crystallization team streamed into the room. One of the men shouted, “We have live goo over here!”

A suited unicorn pony with a large tank strapped to his back trotted over. His horn glowed and a spray nozzle detached itself from the tank. Wrenn watched in fascination as the nozzle opened and sprayed a fine colorless mist towards the congealed glob of purple potion on the floor.

Within seconds the mist had coated the potion and hardened into a quartz-like crystalline surface, with a vague amber sheen. Once the room was certified safe, med techs scrambled to attend to the ponified guests. Wrenn continued to stand, staring at the frenzied activity in shock.

It had finally hit him. The sheer magnitude of eight thousand people.

Wrenn didn’t think poorly of ponification. He more or less supported the concept, and he believed it was a much better future than being dissolved by the barrier. Anything was better than extinction, as far as he was concerned, and the life of a Pony was no step down in his estimation.

But being forced to change species without even a say in the matter?
The thought made him physically ill.

He forced himself to abandon philosophical considerations until a later time. The mission had to come first.

Wrenn raised his rifle and advanced down the corridor, implants primed to warn him of even the slightest exhalation. He could see that the carpet was supposed to be a deep shade of blue with maroon stripes, but in the low lighting anything beyond his feet was rendered entirely in digital blues.

Room by room, floor by floor, the ConSec teams cleared the tower.

All told there were eight thousand one hundred and ninety nine casualties. All converted. No one had escaped the serum. The only trace the PER had left behind was a smooth metal cylinder, and a DaTab plugged into the main PA lines, which had since automatically wiped its drives.

Hazmat protocol was still in effect until crystallization teams declared the site safe, at which point the victims would be evacuated to Conversion Bureaus and forensics teams would swarm the building hoping, against all odds, for a shred of evidence.

Chapter 4

Wrenn sighed and collapsed into a half-sitting position against a wall. He was sweaty, exhausted, and emotionally spent. Five hours, and all anyone had managed to do was verify a headcount and ensure there were no PER left in the building.

Wrenn suspected it would be at least ten hours before they reached a safe non-hazmat stage. There was still congealed potion all over the building, some of it in hard to reach nooks and crannies.

He wondered how something so good could have been turned to such a terrible use.
It occurred to him that most technology fell into the same formula. Something could be very good or very bad depending on context, perspective, and consent.

Wrenn looked on as a suited soldier helped a newfoal to his feet. The military police had arrived in force two hours previous, putting a great many desperately needed personnel into action.

The soldier gave the pony some water from his canteen, then helped him to the lift where two med techs took over. Wrenn was about to take the moment for all the encouragement it was worth and get back to work when he noticed something through the side-scan range of his implants. The soldier was taking off his helmet and gloves.

Wrenn turned back to deliver a scathing rebuke, and saw a nightmare in motion.
The soldier had turned to lean against a wall. A wall covered in potion residue that he hadn’t seen as he was removing his helmet.

As Wrenn dove forward, the accelerated emergency course came back to him, forced from the depths of memory into active recall by an overriding need. He reached for a small amber hued canister on his belt, inscribed with a double triangle.

The soldier’s hand hit the potion covered wall at the same moment that Wrenn hit the man and forced him to the ground.
Not waiting for an invitation, Wrenn used his left hand to pop the cap from the cylinder and spray it all over the man’s hand.

He snagged the discarded helmet with his free hand, and forced it rather harshly back onto the soldier’s head, holding it in place until the air seals clicked.

For a moment neither of them spoke, they just stared in unison at the crystallized blob over the man’s right hand, and within its transparent depths, the patch of pastel fur that had just begun to form.

A patch which the crystallization mist had only just arrested in time.

Wrenn yanked the man to his feet and rammed his left glove back on directly over-top of the crystallized blob, “Get to medical. Now.”

It wasn’t phrased as a request, despite the fact that the soldier wore a lieutenant commander’s bars. The officer staggered to the lift in a daze.

Wrenn shook his head in awe. One little act of stupidity had nearly cost the officer his choice.
They would likely have to amputate his entire arm at the elbow and regrow it. Just to be sure.

Fifteen hours in, and the Liberty Bell Tower was finally clear of uncontained potion.
The newfoals had all been evacuated, and forensics had begun to process the building.
Wrenn sat in the forward command tent, slurping from a large water canteen.
Beside him the three Gryphons were also drinking their fill, albeit in a more measured fashion.

No one spoke. There was no need for words. Even Sildinar seemed tired, which to Wrenn meant that they were all well past the breaking point. Sleep was quickly becoming a survival necessity.

“Not the average work day you guys expected when you signed up for this huh?”
Even in exhaustion, Wrenn wanted to take advantage of the moment and satisfy his curiosity.

Kephic glanced up from his canteen, “I must admit, I’ve seen many strange things since coming to your world. This would have to rank as the most horrifying.”

Varan nodded in agreement, “Honorable combat is one thing, but this kind of warfare? It is the coward’s way out.”

Wrenn shrugged, “The PER certainly don’t seem inclined to conventional warfare tactics. Gotta give them this tho; They managed to get over half the ConSec Northeast main force deployed. That's never happened before.”

“Say that again.”

Everyone turned to stare, Sildinar’s tone had been blood chilling.

“This kind of warfare is the coward's way out?” Varan proffered with cocked head.

“They managed to get over half the ConSec main force deployed?” Wrenn shrugged again and sipped his canteen.

“Hang on!” Wrenn spluttered, spewing water across the tent, “You don’t think....?”
Sildinar stared at each of them in turn as the realization dawned.

Kephic didn’t seem convinced, “This entire attack has been... What? a ploy to bring down the security strength at the Bureau?”

Wrenn slammed the canteen down on a shelf, “It makes sense. The PER fight a coward’s war. The kind of war where you send soldiers into battle loaded down with a deadman's switch, who aren’t ready to die for their cause. The kind of war where psychological manipulation is key. The kind of war where something like the new variant of potion could deal their campaign a crippling blow. The new variant being stored in a Bureau that is now missing three fourths of its security division.”

Sildinar leapt up, all traces of exhaustion gone, and bolted to the holo-table. His talons moved back and forth across the surface so quickly that it looked like some sort of choreographed dance.

Commander ‘Hutch’ blinked into existence on the screen, the hustle and bustle of the ConSec situation room framed behind his head.

“What’s the emergency? You aren’t supposed to check in again for another three---”

Sildinar cut him off, “Double your security precautions and initiate full lock-down. To be safe you should also evacuate all civilian personnel and newfoals immediately.”

Hutch turned and relayed several shouted orders to the room behind him, then faced the screen again, “Do you mind telling me why I just put our main command center into lock-down in the middle of a crisis?”

Sildinar and Kephic took turns slowly explaining the line of reasoning that had lead them all to the same inevitable conclusion. After a few minutes even Hutch was forced to admit that it was worth taking precautions.

“I want you four back here as soon as possible, and if you can manage to corral them bring two security squads as well. If not, then bring every other soldier you can lay hands on.”

Sildinar nodded and cut the channel, “Wrenn, Kephic, go commandeer three VTOLs, Varan you’re with me.”

By the time the small VTOL formation and the Gryphons reached New York it was dusk again.
The smog of the city rendered the twilight in gray foreboding tones, most of which were lost on Wrenn. Even with the antiseptic view of the world presented by his implants, he could see enough to know there was going to be a nasty storm, one way or another.

He shifted in the co-pilot’s seat and tapped his mic, “Any luck?”

The pilot shook his head, “Negative, still no contact with the Bureau. Special Forces and Marines are finally en route from the Indianapolis though. They should arrive about the same time we do.”

The Bureau had stopped responding to radio contact during the flight. Wrenn knew better than to think that it might be a simple malfunction or mere coincidence. He glanced out the cockpit window at Sildinar’s silhouette. The three Gryphons had taken up a V formation around the aircraft.

The lieutenant directed his query outwards, towards the avians.

“What’s the play here?”

Wrenn could just make out Sildinar’s claw as it came up and tapped his own strangely shaped earpiece.

“Kephic and I will accompany one ConSec VTOL, land on the roof and enter through the upper lift shafts. Special Forces squads, Marines, and the Military Police will breach through the main entrance. You and Varan will be dropped off at a mid-level balcony to attack from the center.”

“A three pronged blitz?”

“I suppose you could call it that, yes. Go directly to the vault and secure the crate. Don’t go out of your way to secure the building. Let the rest of us deal with the PER. If they choose to fight a pacifist’s battle, then we have the advantage.”

The rest of the flight passed in silence. Wrenn’s implants picked out the Bureau complex at a distance, but it wasn’t until the VTOL swung around to an outside balcony that he got close enough to see that the windows lacked the distinctive colored glow of interior lighting. The building had lost power.

As the VTOL slewed to a position near the twentieth floor, the side doors swung open.
A soldier passed Wrenn his rifle, along with a ‘good luck’ slap on the back.

The lieutenant jumped from the craft and hit the balcony dead center. He rolled to diffuse his momentum and came up with his RAC covering the door.

A moment later Varan silently dropped from above to alight beside him. If he hadn’t been looking right at him, he would have missed it, the Gryphon had moved with near absolute silence.

Wrenn quietly mouthed ‘after you.’ Varan nodded, and without further ado kicked in the door.
As he stepped through the hole of the deformed frame into the dim corridor, a small part of Wrenn’s brain wondered how much force it had actually taken to dislodge a steel door from a heavy weatherproof fitting in one blow.

He swept the corridor from one end to the other with his implants, but detected no anomalous movement. The shadows left by the emergency lighting did nothing to adversely affect the digitized polygons that showed Wrenn every inch of the space.

Perhaps the evacuation, at least, had gone according to plan, he mused. There didn’t seem to be any civilian activity.

Varan had already taken up a crouch in a T-junction at the end of the hall, so Wrenn assumed the Gryphon's night vision was also good enough to navigate the low light situation in the building.

From the intersection the two set off at an unusually fast pace. Most infiltration actions Wrenn had been a part of had consisted of a long slow game of ‘leapfrog’ as each operator on the team moved to a point, and gained a fraction of secure ground.

With Varan it was more of a ‘take no breaks, no prisoners, and few precautions’ methodology.
Eventually both stopped paying any regard to stealth and simply did their best to move as quickly as possible.

“So. Done this before?” Varan’s voice surprised Wrenn so much that it took him a moment to see the humor in it.

“Repeatedly, though never with such a... uniquely qualified wing-man. You?”

Varan chuckled darkly, “Repeatedly. Although usually the kill count was much higher by now.”

They rounded the next corner to behold a man in white combat armor with no insignia leaning over the body of a ConSec guard. Varan’s reaction was preternaturally fast.

Before the PER agent could even open his mouth, the Gryphon flung his sword in a tightly spinning arc that left it buried up to the hilt right in the weakest part of the intruder's neck plating.

Wrenn stood in shock as the Gryphon retrieved his sword forcibly from the corpse.
“The PER will have to learn some harsh lessons. That was a fledgling mistake”

“Will you teach me that trick?”

“You don’t have the reflexes.”

Sildinar and Kephic were making good progress. Since their ingress via a roof hatch they had eliminated two PER agents and lost none of their human squadmates.

That was largely due to the fact that Sildinar insisted the Humans stay far behind and provide long range cover. As far as he was concerned they were there to secure the areas that had already been cleared. Why, he reasoned, should they risk more lives on point than necessary?

In the next side room the two Gryphons came upon a pair of PER infiltrators huddled over something on the floor. Generally the policy was no prisoners, but it was too good an opportunity to waste. Forming fists out of their claws Kephic and Sildinar administered what they would have considered to be fairly average blows. The two infiltrators fell forward with shattered helmets and bloody skulls; Alive, but just barely.

As the unconscious bodies fell to the side, the object they had been working on was revealed.
Kephic frowned, “I may still be getting used to human technology, but this particular piece strikes me as bad.”

Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “Extremely.”

“All teams, switch to hazmat protocols. There are dispersion cylinders on site.”

Wrenn skidded to a stop and pressed his earpiece into a better position, “Say again?!”
Sildinar repeated the warning.

Varan raced back and began unpacking gloves and sealing rings from Wrenn’s belt as the lieutenant readied his re-breather mask.

Once the heads up display on his visor and the light on his mask all showed green, Wrenn breathed a sigh of relief. “You know, on second thought we probably should have all come in like this.”

“What is your human phrase? hindsight is 20/20.”

“For us maybe, for you I’d guess 20/1”

“Actually it is closer to 200/1 on the standard scale.”

“Show-off.”

When they finally reached the secure potion vault below the main level, Varan had to provide the biometric access. Wrenn, like all the Humans, couldn’t risk removing his helmet or gloves until the complex had been swept down to the micrometer.

The interior of the vault was dimly lit by capacitor-powered emergency lighting, drawn from the same power source that kept the doors magnetically sealed and the security measures active.

Not for the first time in his life, Wrenn truly appreciated his implants; He knew they were the only thing that kept him on par with Varan for night vision. It made him much less open to ambush in the dark.

Wrenn stepped into the long low room and Varan sealed the door behind them.
The potion vault was twenty feet high, four aisles wide, and easily a hundred yards long; A featureless concrete half-cylinder four stories underground, with steel trussed ceiling buttresses.

Each aisle had shelves stocked with row upon row of ponification serum in sealed canisters.

The canisters were contained as sets of four inside clear plexiglass cubes, with gray carbon fiber frames, housing a four digit locking mechanism; A final safety measure to ensure the substance wasn’t abused, dropped, splashed, or in any way misapplied.

Varan and Wrenn made their way cautiously to the back of the room where a separate sealed door partitioned off a large alcove for hazardous waste, prototype potion, or any other sort of chemical too important, or dangerous, to be stored in the main vault.

Varan supplied his bio-metrics by way of laying a talon on the DNA scanner pad, then typed two long codes. Wrenn knew enough to guess that the second one was an override for emergency situations when only one authorized person was present to unlock the alcove; It likely wouldn't function without certain prerequisite conditions, such as the loss of power.

Varan then gestured for Wrenn to supply his access code.

The lieutenant shook his head, “My clearance is too low.”

“I supplied an override, but it still needs the authorization of a second person with at least some sort of Bureau security clearance, however low or high.”

The Gryphon shrugged, an amusing imitation of the human motion with his wings and shoulders, “Don’t ask me why, your kind designed it.”

Wrenn stepped forward and dutifully tapped out his authorization code. There was a clank, a hiss, and the large door slid back to reveal the Gryphonization potion crate, still securely locked into the floor with four large clamps.

Wrenn sighed, “Well that’s a relief.”

“Its a start.”

“Now we babysit?”

“Peculiar turn of phrase. But yes.”

Wrenn took up a cover position behind one of the potion racks.
Varan re-sealed the alcove, then surprised Wrenn by vaulting into the air.
As he watched, fascinated, the Gryphon effortlessly flipped over in mid-air and snagged hold of a ceiling pylon.

He hung there in the shadows, completely out of sight to the average human entering the room.

Wrenn smirked. He almost wanted the PER to break through the vault door, just to see their reactions to having an angry mass of claws, feathers, and beak dropped on their heads.

He got his wish.

After close to fifteen minutes of silence a low hiss began to emanate from the vault door.

Wrenn recognized the sound of a plasma cutter. He had been in the boots of the soldier on the other side of the door more than a few times. He knew from the pitch of the accompanying whine, and the growing glow down the center of the door, that the PER had brought a very large, very powerful variant of the tool.

Under normal circumstances a powered energy diffusion matrix would be protecting the door, making it virtually indestructible to anything but the raw force of a man-portable nuke. But without main power the door’s defenses were all innate. While the inactive diffusion matrix could hold off the cutter for a few minutes, it would eventually reach saturation and ablate, after which the door would practically dissolve in the face of the merciless searing plasma.

Wrenn waited until he judged that the door was at shattering-point before signaling Varan to be ready. True to his guess, the door essentially vaporized with a loud bang as room temperature air rushed into the super-heated space left by the dissociated metal.

Through the haze and smoke stepped three figures in unmarked white combat armor.
Wrenn waited until they were well inside before standing up.

The PER agents turned to train their weapons on Wrenn, and thus missed the tiny scratching sound of Varan’s claws disengaging from the ceiling buttress.

After that they didn’t have a chance to make further mistakes.

Wrenn was disappointed, Varan dealt with them so quickly his implants couldn’t even process what was happening.
There was a blur, and suddenly three bodies slumped to the floor.

One had his rifle jammed all the way through his head and out the back of his helmet, the second sported four identical talon punctures in the weak points of his neck plating, and the last one slid off Varan’s sword blade, which had been forced violently into the lower edge of his shoulder joint.

“Are there any more?” Wrenn called out from behind a potion rack.
As if in answer, a bolt of something purple and electrically charged whizzed past his head, having missed Varan by only a millimeter a moment before.

The Gryphon dispatched the offending shooter with a well placed RAC round of his own, then ducked back behind the door frame.

“Most definitely.”

The ConSec situation room had devolved into chaos. It would have been apt to describe it as a war-zone; Purple energy bolts, RAC rounds, and laser pistol fire practically filled the space between desks.

The PER had broken into the room at about the same time Sildinar, Kephic, and the reinforcements had arrived to bolster the holed-up troops. None of the teams securing the building had found any additional potion bombs, but it was assumed that the force assaulting the ConSec wing might be carrying one or more besides the previously diffused one.

Kephic popped his head up, leapt to the side to dodge incoming fire, then dove for cover behind an overturned desk.
“I count seven!” his voice was loud enough to be heard over even the thunderous noise of large rail-gun rifles being used indoors.

While the ConSec forces far outnumbered the PER, the intruders had a choke point and good cover from within the doorway. Whatever they were using for weapons, nobody had seen it before. Nobody wanted to be the first to find out what the new rifles did either.

Sildinar managed to find a space close to Hutch and shouted across to him, “Any casualties so far?”

The commander leaned around his desk and sprayed the other side of the room with his laser pistol before replying, “We sent four guys to secure the vault earlier, they never reported in!”

“Unfortunate.”

“Yeah tell me something I DON’T know!”

One of the ConSec troopers stood and began laying down fully automatic suppression fire.
Everyone else took that as the cue to attack, and the entire mass of tired, over-armed, and enraged troopers descended on the enemy position.

Humans, the Gryphons, and even a few Ponies; All had abandoned the idea of a bloodless end to the conflict in favor of simply shooting anything that moved.

A few stray bolts of purple energy whizzed through the doorway, but these quickly ceased after Hutch tossed two grenades into the aperture followed by a spray of pistol fire.

When the smoke finally cleared, seven bodies, in multiple pieces, lay strewn throughout the entrance hall to the situation room. The three Ponies who had been part of the defending force turned away. The few Equestrians who could learn to muster violent tendencies at vitally necessary moments could seldom hold onto their aggression, or stomach serious violence, for more than a few minutes.

“Commander!” an urgent voice rang out, and Hutch turned to see two staff members supporting the heavily armored trooper who had begun the assault.

“He was hit by one of the energy bolts!”

Sildinar cautiously removed the soldier’s helmet, while Hutch unfastened the chest-plate.
Both jumped back reflexively when the person inside was revealed. The man, or rather half man, was well on his way to becoming a deep green Pegasus with a lime mane.

Hutch cursed, “How did they penetrate his armor?”

Kephic stepped into the room from the hall and held up one of the deceased invader’s rifles; It looked, to Hutch's eye, almost like a particle weapon, but the stock was far bulkier.

“It’s using what looks like potion cartridges for ammunition.”

Hutch cursed a second time.
Kephic threw the weapon down, “You can say that again.”

“I’m out!” Wrenn grasped the barrel of his empty RAC, and swung the rifle like a baseball bat, catching an incoming intruder full in the helmet.

The stock of the weapon put a series of shallow, spidery cracks in the plexiglass, and distracted the woman long enough for Wrenn to pull his laser pistol and finish the job.

The fairly weak blasts couldn’t penetrate the energy diffusion matrix of combat armor, but the face-plates of the enemy helmets weren’t quite as well protected, and thus made an excellent exploitable weak-point at close range.

“Only four more!” Varan called out from across the room as he finished driving his sword into an attacker’s heart by way of his armor’s shoulder joint. The Gryphon had been fighting from a bipedal position for the last ten minutes.

As Wrenn looked on, Varan effortlessly snagged the dead soldier’s falling rifle, tossed it into a vertical spinning arc, then yanked his sword from the corpse’s armor.

The Gryphon continued the motion, bringing the sword down and around to catch the next enemy in line directly in the legs. He moved his left claw off the sword, caught the falling rifle again, this time by the barrel, and swung it forward into the soldier next in line, killing him instantly as the stock of the weapon crushed his helmet.

Without pausing, Varan brought his back left paw down onto the fallen soldier whose legs still contained half of his sword. He used the retractable claws to dig into the screaming enemy’s helmet, then twist it violently to the side, snapping the neck contained within.

“Two more.”

Wrenn figured the Gryphon had accounted for three times as many kills as he had, and so far none of the PER infiltrators had been able to lay a single gloved hand on Varan. His reflexes more than made up for the fact that the enemy soldiers had far more armor.

By contrast, Wrenn sported six or seven serious bruises from close quarters fisticuffs.

The first of the two remaining enemies caught Wrenn’s attention. He wasn’t carrying an odd particle rifle like his teammates, instead he carried what looked to be an actual full on grenade launcher.

Wrenn presumed it was intended for either the Gryphons, the inner vault door, or both.

His speculation was cut short when the man let fly with the weapon.
The explosion was deafening in close confines, and there was nowhere to run or dodge, even for Varan. The explosion was simply larger than the space containing it, making it quite effective.

Potion from broken containers spattered everywhere, and Wrenn found time to be thankful for his armor as he was thrown back into the concrete wall with the force of a freight train, robbing him of consciousness temporarily.

When he came to, his first thought was that his armor might have been compromised in the impact, making him vulnerable to all the serum now covering the inside of the vault.
A quick systems check relieved that fear, causing it to give way to worry over Varan’s fate.

Wrenn pulled himself up through the wreckage of shelves and containers to behold the two remaining enemies holding an unmoving Varan’s talon down onto the biometric access pad of the potion crate. That at least told him that the Gryphon was still alive, the DNA scanner would reject the imprint if it didn’t come from a living breathing being.

Whatever had happened to his laser pistol, Wrenn suspected it was likely in pieces or buried under potion. His RAC was gone, so that left him with his KA-Bar.
He quietly yanked the serrated combat knife from its sequestered leg sheath, and tip-toed towards the secure alcove, waiting for the right moment.

As Wrenn clutched the side of his helmet, trying to clear the wringing in his ears, the PER soldiers began typing on the keypad in unison. To his astonishment, the crate accepted whatever codes they had supplied.
The two intruders succeeded in removing the container’s lid, and leaned in to take stock of their prize. That was all the opportunity he needed.

Wrenn charged madly into the alcove, a guttural war cry tearing from his throat as he slashed back and forth at the two attackers’ neck plates.

He scored a lucky hit in an open joint with the first one, killing him instantly. The second one was in a better position, and his plating deflected the blade easily.

The man tried to raise his particle rifle, but Wrenn kneed him hard in the forearm, sending the weapon spinning away, end over end, into a corner.

From there it was a pure contest of wills. The two combatants smashed each other with every available hard edge in their gloves, boots, and gauntlets trying to either dislodge one another’s armor, or knock the enemy fighter unconscious.

After several adrenaline and rage fueled moments of ceaseless battering, Wrenn sidestepped and allowed his attacker to slip and fall forward into a puddle of potion.

He stepped up behind the man, placed his hands on either side of the white helmet, and kicked it with all his might into the concrete wall.

The force of the blow cracked the already stressed plexiglass and dazed the man. Wrenn delivered another kick, and the faceplate shattered all together. The man’s face fell forward into the purple goo, sealing his fate, and Wrenn flashed a belligerent middle digit before turning to tend to Varan.

He discovered that the Gryphon had been directly beside the grenade when it went off; he was covered in shrapnel wounds and sported a huge gash in his skull, but he was still breathing. Wrenn tapped his earpiece, “Enemy targets neutralized, I need a medic in the potion vault. Bring hazmat gear. And crystallization canisters. Lots of canisters.”

He closed the channel and turned to staunch Varan’s wounds, when the open potion crate caught his eye. So close... and yet so far.

Wrenn shook himself violently and put the idea out of his head.
As he retrieved bandages and scabbie foam from his small medical pack he mumbled under his breath, mostly vague imprecations against politics and the PER.

As the scabbie foam accelerated the process of clotting in Varan’s blood, thus plugging most of the minor and moderate cuts, Wrenn pried one of the Gryphon’s large golden eyes open to check the pupils.

It occurred to him then that perhaps their species didn’t react to concussions the same way humans did, but Varan came to before he could pursue the internal line of questioning further.

“Good morning sleeping beauty.”

The Gryphon coughed, a small spurt of blood tinting the side of his beak, “Why must you insist on using these obfuscated cultural references?”

Wrenn rolled his eyes, “Yeeeaaah. You’re gonna be fine.”

Chapter 6

“Your ‘friend’ is Councillor Janet Martins?! She’s a Genesist! They’re against conversion!”

Wrenn had to exert all his self control to keep from grabbing commander Laura Aston by the shoulders and shaking her until she saw reason. It certainly didn’t help that she had called him up at five in the morning, on the one day he desperately wanted to sleep in, to drag him out of bed to an 06:00 meeting with her ‘friend.’

Hutch, who was walking with them full speed down the corridor, seemed equally upset,
“For Pete’s sake Laura the woman once fought an eight month battle to take funds marked for the Bureaus and have them reallocated to that spit-and-baling-wire pie-tin flying saucer contraption that her party is building in Africa to blast twenty thousand peoplecicles into deep space!”

“Relax Hutch. Genesists aren’t exactly against ponification, they just take issue with the way everyone gave up on the alternatives.”

Hutch came to a standstill and crossed his arms. Commander Aston stopped and threw up her hands, “I don’t necessarily always agree with them ok? but Korvan is part of the Biotech party, and while they’ve gone back and forth on the issue of the Bureaus they have always always *always* hated the Genesists. Martins will back us on this just to get at Korvan, nevermind the fact that she’s probably intrigued by the idea of diversifying conversion with this new Gryphonization thing.”

Wrenn was startled, “You know about that?”

Aston shrugged, “It’s become an open secret to all high level government and Bureau personnel. Ever since the entire top floor here got read in on it earlier this week. It's creating a lot of buzz, and I guess that works in our favor too.”

The trio resumed their quick march. “So have you actually talked to her about this?” Wrenn was not optimistic about the answer.

“Nnnnnooo... I decided you two and the three musketeers could pitch it better.”

Hutch sighed, “Fantastic. How did you say you knew Councilor Martins?”

“She’s a longtime family friend. Her dad and mine were college roommates, and her mother practically raised me after my family passed.”

Wrenn glanced over at Aston, “So we have a reasonable chance here then? In your opinion?”

Laura shook her head, “Don’t push your luck. She inherited exactly none of her mom’s saintliness and a triple dose of her pragmatism. Imagine me, but older and without the glowing sense of humor and excellent people skills.”

“You have people skills?”
The comment earned Hutch a swift sharp jab to the ribs.

When they arrived at the door to the office Sildinar, Kephic, and Varan were already waiting for them. Councilor Martins had requested they meet in a more formal setting than a conference room, which gave Wrenn a sense of foreboding.

Commander Aston stopped in front of the door and turned to face the group, “Remember, she’s a pragmatist. She can play political, but she also likes being candid when cutting a deal. But its just that to her; a deal. In the end it’s all about her goals, she’s always honest, and she’s the definition of a party loyalist. Ready?”

They each nodded in turn, and Aston tapped the door control pad.

The room’s lighting was keyed to a low ambience, not dim enough to cast shadows but still less bright than normal. A semi-circular desk took up most of the left side of the space, and behind it stood a brunette in her early forties wearing a blue pinstripe suit that looked, if possible, even more well kempt than Councilor Korvan’s had.

Aston spoke first, “Councilor Martins, may I present Commander Hutchinson, Lieutenant Wrenn, Sildinar, Kephic, and Varan.”

The woman shook each of their hands, and claws, in turn; showing no hesitation whatsoever when she reached the Gryphons. Wrenn mentally pegged her as a ‘get it done’ type.

“I’m pleased to finally meet the heroes of the hour. Tell me, what brings you gentlemen into my circles today?” Her voice struck the perfect balance, implying a smattering of emotion that could have been sincere curiosity, or could have been a vaguely intimidating display of coyness.

“It’s no secret that my party hasn’t espoused a great deal of support for the Conversion Bureau Initiative. Why invite me here?”

Varan surprised everyone by taking the initiative, “Because we share a mutual enemy.”

Councilor Martins gestured for the Gryphon to continue.

He stepped forward, “Councilor Korvan is seeking occasion to break the accords between your government and ours in order to defend his political career and secure his position. To remain.... legitimate and maintain access to the Conversion Bureaus we need the accords to remain intact. We invited you here to aid us in turning the situation to our favor.”

Martins pursed her lips and stood thinking for an uncomfortably long moment, “Aside from the obvious opportunity to cause my rival trouble... what exactly do you intend to offer me? Surely you understand that I’m not keen to involve myself in something precarious like this when I haven’t been made aware of the particulars, much less when it stands to benefit me too little to offset the risks.”

Wrenn stepped in, “We are offering you a win/win situation.” Hutch and Aston both gave him a look that clearly said ‘don’t screw this up.’

He took a deep breath and forged ahead, “The reason we need these accords with the Gryphons is because they have developed their own version of potion. A Gryphonization serum. Korvan is trying to bring the program down out of fear, and he has to be stopped before he creates a major incident.”

Wrenn gestured to the Gryphons, “These guys? you don’t want them teed up against us. They don’t do politics, they don’t think of negotiating the same way, and they are not pleasant when they’re angry.”

For a moment there was silence, then Wrenn kept pressing his advantage, “Even if it didn’t come to conflict, they have the cooperation of the Equestrian government. I don’t think that the royal sisters would take kindly to us humans breaking our word in a treaty that they helped to setup. The fact remains that we agreed, fairly unanimously as I understand it, to go ahead with this. We can not let one man unilaterally undo the work of hundreds.”

He took a deep breath and collected his thoughts, “If we can keep the accords stable and on track, then you will benefit one way or another. If Gryphonization creates the backlash that Korvan is so afraid of, then more people will support the Genesist cause of sleeper ships.
If it succeeds, then your secondary goal of diversifying humanity’s future has taken a huge step forward, and you certainly don’t lose any existing support.”

Wrenn stepped up to the desk, ready to bring it down the home stretch, “Besides all that; If you let Councilor Korvan gain a foothold in controlling the Bureaus he is going to turn them on you and your party actively. Right now we don’t speak out against you, we don’t bother you, we don’t disparage you in any way. But he’s going to turn that around the first chance he gets. If you do nothing, it's lose/lose.”

All eyes were on Martins. Her expression betrayed no emotion, it was the face of a person occupied purely with thought and analysis. When she spoke her tone was shockingly more personable, “I must say, you make a good case. You also took quite a risk fully revealing classified information to me like that.”

She drummed her index finger on the desk and pondered for several more seconds, “Give me five hours to consider your offer and discuss it with my fellow Councilors,” She held up a hand, “You have my word I will not fully disclose the Gryphons’ new program or research. I simply don’t want to make the same mistakes as Mathas. I can’t, in good conscience, decide something unilaterally for my party. I’ll see you all back here at eleven.”

And just like that, it was over.
The group found themselves out in the corridor, walking slowly towards the main atrium.

Hutch was the first to speak, “I’ll admit, no offence, I didn’t think you could do that.”

Wrenn shrugged, “Neither did I, so no offence taken.”

Laura smirked, “I told you. He's as a keeper. You should see if you can get him to accept that transfer offer before we bury Korvan. Anyone want to grab lunch?”

Hutch shook his head, “Want to yes. But I have an inspection scheduled for the new security measures.”

Sildinar nodded, “Rather; ‘we’ have an inspection scheduled. We offered our tactical services in ensuring that the upgrades will be sufficient to protect the Bureau in the future.”

Wrenn shrugged, “I actually thought I’d get out of here for a few hours. Go downtown, find a latte... pretend the world isn’t coming to an end like the rest of the population does every day.”

Laura snorted, “Suit yourself then. I’m going to find a tall beer. I’m off duty.”

“Approaching 23rd Street Station. Please be careful when exiting the train.”

The mono-rail subway passed out of the tunnel and into the above-ground station so quickly that it was dizzying. The old three-rail system of the previous century had fallen out of use due to lack of efficiency and the dangers it presented to passengers. Modern subway trains used a single rail with the power source buried in the center, insulated away from any passers-by.

Subways, and anything smaller than light-rail, were still running on actual rails because maglevs weren’t worth the extra materials and energy over such short distances, where they couldn’t accelerate to more than 100 mph.

Wrenn stopped after passing through the doors onto the platform, looked up, and took a deep breath. The smells of rubber, metal, and chemical sanitizer assaulted his nostrils, but he didn’t care.

It was a Thursday, and for New York Thursday was sun day. Most major cities of the world had a sun day; a twelve hour span during ‘daylight’ when a massive network of holographic projection arrays and colored arc-lights mounted on rooftops would be pointed skyward and turned on to create the illusion of sunny blue sky.

The system couldn’t be left on every day. The energy cost was astounding, and the maintenance was already intensive, even with a one out of seven days schedule.

Wrenn had once been told by a very elderly gentleman that the illusion was in no way similar to a real sunny sky, that it was more like a foggy pre-dawn in Maine, before the collapse. Wrenn had to take his word for it, he had never seen a clear blue sky in his life, except in artistic renditions of pre-collapse Earth and Equestria.

The only times he had been outside the cloud layers around cities, the sky had been a dull sickly shade of gray tinged with teal, and the sun had been blocked out, both results of the extreme chemical imbalances still plaguing the atmosphere.

Three resounding synthetic musical notes snapped him out of his sky-induced thoughts and back to reality.

“Please stand back, train now departing from platform two. The next train is scheduled for 8:45. This is 23rd Street station, serviced by Orange and Blue line trains. Remember to keep your personal belongings with you at all times. Unattended baggage will be seized by the military police forces and destroyed without delay.”

Wrenn made his way down to the street lazily. He felt oddly comforted by the seething masses of Manhattan’s sidewalks. A place where he could be apart, but not alone. Lost in a crowd.

As he strolled aimlessly down the street, hoping to spot a coffee shop, he amused himself by watching the people. Mostly humans, but with an appreciable enough smattering of Ponies that they weren’t an uncommon sight.

A fair number of converted humans, and even a few native Equestrians, had opted to live on Earth until the bubble claimed it once and for all. Some for the adventure, others to learn the culture or history first-hoof, and most had a seemingly endless altruistic desire to help the dying world and its people however they could.

Wrenn wondered to himself if that was how the PER had begun. A single convert who’s psyche hadn’t quite clicked after the process. A person who saw the dying pains of Earth and felt motivated to ‘help’ beyond offering a hoof in friendship.

Just then he spied a small ‘hole-in-the-wall’ type coffee house tucked into the corner of an older building that was itself sandwiched between two gleaming new mega-skyscrapers. Wrenn dashed across the pedestrian crosswalk with only seconds left on the timer, and slid in through the old-style push/pull doors.

The inside was done up in the manner of an old twenty 'aughts coffee shop; faux distressed wood floor, granite bar, stone hearth with a holographic fire, hanging colored industrial style lights that would have been ‘chic’ in the twentieth century.
The works.

Wrenn seated himself on a stool at the bar and asked for the biggest iced latte on the menu. Made with Equestrian coffee. While it wasn’t in short supply at the Bureau, and it was extremely expensive anywhere else, Wrenn still wanted to get out and have his drink with a change of scenery. He certainly wasn’t going to hork down any of the synthetic swill most customers bought. It was cheaper by a factor of ten, but in his mind it wasn’t even coffee.

While he waited for the iced concoction, he stared idly at one of the holo-screens on the back wall. Apparently Pony sports had become something of a fad. Wrenn found it oddly satisfying to watch the pastel Equines as they tried their hooves at human games, especially considering how different things like football and hockey were when a third of the team could fly, a third could effortlessly kick a one hundred yard field goal, and a third could perform telekinesis.

Wrenn’s drink arrived about the same time as the holo-screens switched to a question and answer based game show, mostly made up of human contestants. He stamped his thumb to the proffered DaTab, his DNA automatically authorizing a digital transaction, and sipped the iced delicacy, savoring the flavor.

On the screen, the next contestant had opted for the computer science category.

“This protocol defined interactions between computers on wide area networks, such as the internet, until just after the turn of the century.”

“TCP/IP” Wrenn mumbled around his straw.

“Uhh... what is TCP/IP?”
“Correct”

The contestant went several more successful rounds with basic computer related questions, most of which Wrenn also knew the answers to. He found it refreshing to be engaged in something so trivial, even if it was only temporary.

“These repositories of data are used in assembly language coding to store information in binary or hexadecimal.”

The contestant looked a bit frazzled and stammered. Wrenn rolled his eyes, “Oh for crying out loud, *registers!* how can you not know that?” He realized a moment later he had blurted it out a bit too loudly for propriety, but to his relief no one seemed to have noticed.

“Not bad. Most of you are pretty obtuse with computers considering you invented 'em.”

The voice startled Wrenn so much he nearly spilled his latte. His head jerked from left to right and back again, searching for its origin.

“Uh... hey... down here chief.”

He glanced down and to the right and noticed he had company. A female unicorn with a short straight cobalt mane and tan fur had taken up a seat on the stool next to him. Her cutie mark was some kind of rune Wrenn couldn’t place, so he assumed her talents lay in the magical realm.

“Oh. Hi. So... uh... you have an interest in computers?” He had heard of Ponies, even non unicorns, taking an interest in computers before. Hoof compatible keyboards were even for sale at certain electronic retailers, and holographic interfaces could be scaled effortlessly to hooves.

Yet the concept of a ‘nerdy’ Pony was still uncommon enough that he found himself intrigued, especially since this particular unicorn knew what a register was, meaning she wasn’t just the average computer user thrilled to even get the browser working.

She tossed her mane and shrugged, “Yeah. Call it an extension of my talent. I have a thing for knowledge magic. Finding things out, concealing them, calculating them... I’m Sky Writer. Y’know, etching knowledge in the stars and all that stuff. Most people call me Skye. Apparently there’s an island somewhere out there named after me.”

Wrenn leaned over and offered a hand, noticing as he did that the rune on her flank was made out of lines drawn between small points of light, like a constellation.

“Wrenn. Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn.”

Skye stared at his hand like it was purple and growing extra fingers. “You really don’t know how to do this do you?”

“Uh.. you’re the second pony to look at my hand that way in as many weeks... so no I suppose not.”

She placed her hoof in his hand and shook anyways, “You really haven’t gotten to know many of us have you?”

“Ah... none actually. I don’t have a lot of friends. And the ones I do have are relatively new. And very much not ponies.”

She snorted, “Well, you’ve *got* friends. That's a good start. Most of mine weren’t big on me ‘jumping ship’ to come to Earth. Thought it was a load of crap that I wanted to come study glowing boxes full of words. But then I was always the odd mare in the herd. What’s your special talent?”

“You mean my career? I’m a soldier. Usually Earthgov special forces deployments, but I’ve had quite a run as a sort of.... ConSec liaison, if you will, these last weeks.”

“Nice. You know anyone hiring over there? Nobody seems to like the idea of pulling in a Pony for computer work besides the Bureaus, and they already have a lot of qualified human techs.”

Wrenn frowned, “No I’m sorry. I don’t think...” he paused as something occurred to him, “Scratch that. Here’s a related hypothetical question.”

“Shoot. You’ll get my best possible hypothetical answer.”

“Say I was looking for something, but I wasn’t completely aware of what I was looking for... suppose I knew certain circumstantial variables but not the exact sort of file or activity log I needed.”

Skye grinned wryly, “Speaking hypothetically; That's one of relatively few situations where my magic and my tech knowhow can cooperate to get unique results. Speaking realistically; I’d say anypony stuck in that kind of situation is looking for somepony intruding in their systems, but doesn’t know where to start.”

Her acute observation surprised Wrenn. Most native Equestrians didn’t feel a desire to learn to interpret human subtexts, much less follow through on it.

“I can’t promise anything, but if I throw in a coffee will you hop the subway back to the Bureau with me and give us a ha... err... hoof? Maybe if I put in a good word they can find you an opening.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then grinned, “Eh. Why not. I’ve tried everything else. You’re on. Hit me with your worst.”

“Now you see it.... Now you don’t”

A series of all but invisible slits near the ceiling of the corridor lit up and began to pulse. With each humming throb the green odorless argon test-gas that had been distributed into the space vanished into the slits at incredible speed.

“The new PER potion cylinders are capable of dispersing a gas ideally into an enormous volume of space by proportion to their size, almost instantaneously. We created a system of vents spanning the building’s existing system, but hermetically sealed. Each ingress port is tipped with a Thaumatically charged filter; it can draw in offending gas almost as fast as it is created. We got the idea from the cylinders actually, they seem to use Thaumatic components to fire off the equivalent of a fog spell, which is a simple Unicorn spell that happens to be able to distribute gas ideally.”

The young earth pony grinned widely. Hutch clapped him on the back, “You boys never cease to amaze me. I didn’t get half of what you said, but I gather it's a good defense against the new potion bombs and that's all I needed to hear. Good on ya, I officially owe you drink.”

Sildinar stared up at the new vents, his telescopic eyes examining details as small as a millimeter in width. “I agree with the commander. Your work is superb.”

The stallion stammered, he knew that any sort of praise for defensive workings coming from a Gryphon was high praise indeed.

Kephic grinned, “Scratch one from the PER tricktionary.”

Varan shook his head, “The refit only affects our Bureau, and perhaps given enough time other Bureaus and government facilities. The general population is still at risk.”

The young pony interjected, stammering all the while, he still wasn’t used to dealing with Gryphons, “Actually... uh... we might have a solution to that. too. maybe. Its going to take time, months at least, but we might be able to engineer... ummm.... think of it as a Thaumatic detector for the type of spell used in the cylinders.”

Hutch snapped his fingers, “Well then get on it. If you had any other work, drop it. As far as I’m concerned this is now your baby. Have at it.”

“*Totally* legit. That’s the phrase isn’t it?” Skye had never been inside the Manhattan Conversion Bureau itself, and she was clearly impressed by the architecture.

Wrenn nodded, “Yep thats the one. Only problem is that it's been out of date for at least a hundred years.”

“There’s always a catch with you people and slang.”

“Oh yeah. It's pretty messy. Listen, I hope you don’t mind hanging around for a while. I have a critical meeting shortly, then after that I should be able to get you into a room with a fully wired up terminal.”

Skye sighed, “I suppose I’ll go terrorize some small children with my inane technobabble. Gotta amuse myself somehow right?”

Wrenn wasn’t entirely sure she was joking, but he left her to find some way of passing the time on her own, and set off at a fast clip to the appointed conference room, fingers crossed that no one in the group would show up late.
Councilor Martins didn’t strike him as the sort of person who would look upon tardiness with a forgiving visage.

He quickly discovered that he needn’t have worried, everyone else was already assembled in the corridor.

“Coffee Cup.” Varan said without looking up from the DaTab he was busy typing on.

It took Wrenn a second to realize he was still carrying the remnants of his latte.
He quickly disposed of the cup in a trash bin, and straightened his shirt.

“Right then. Ready when you are.”

Once again Commander Aston lead the way into the room.
This time, however, she stopped short just inside the door, and Wrenn had to backpedal to keep from tripping over her.

Eventually Aston stepped aside, allowing everyone else to see the source of her shock.

Councilor Martins was standing behind the desk, almost in the same spot where she had been that morning. Flanking her on the left side was a Gryphon in burnished steel armor with brass filigree, and diamond trimming. On her right was an Alicorn with a blinding white coat and flowing multi-hued mane.

Martins shrugged, “Welcome back. I confess I’m just as surprised by our visitors as you are. I’m even more surprised by the conversation we’ve just had.”

Celestia stepped around the desk, “The daily messenger brought news of the attack on your city. I anticipated serious political ramifications, so I came as soon as I could. King Siidran is here to represent his peoples’ interests in this affair.”

The king inclined his head, “A crisis of this magnitude can not go unanswered. Action must be taken to maintain balance. On this the Princess and I agree wholeheartedly. We are here to convene an emergency summit with your governmental council, and to appear before your media, if they will have us.”

Martins glanced between the two dignitaries, then at Wrenn, “There’s more. Celestia has offered me a deal; My party will support the new Gryphonization program, and in exchange she will lend her direct support to our sleeper ship project, both in terms of media endorsement and in terms of sending her magicians and scientists to assist in construction efforts and locating a suitable world.”

Hutch’s eyes grew wide, “You would support the Genesists? But why? I thought Conversion was your big gift to the human race... why support something that sits in opposition to it?”

Celestia’s laugh was an airy, joy filled sound that seemed to brighten the room, “Conversion is only one part of what I seek to give your kind. My goal is not Ponification. That is simply one possible means to the overall end; saving the inhabitants of this world. If my aid can provide the critical push needed to give your race other options, then I will provide all the aid I can muster.”

Wrenn sidelined the growing list of questions he was longing to ask both monarchs in favor of a single query, “So. What happens now?”

Martins placed her hands on the desk and leaned forward, “Now we wage politics.”

Siidran sighed, “I was hoping you would not say that.”

Chapter 7

The headquarters of the Human Liberation Front could tell any observer a great deal about the organization. Only the high level leadership, collectively known as ‘The Cabinet,’ was privy to the exact location of the facility, but even the average HLF soldier who had been there could tell that it was in the North American Midwest somewhere, given the usual high temperature and low humidity levels.

The installation itself had once been a secret US Military bunker. After the merging of world powers into Earthgov, the facility had been lost; the secret of its existence known to so few that it had vanished from all but a smattering of deeply buried paper documents.

When it had been discovered that the Equestrian bubble was growing, a group of military generals within Earthgov had called for an orbital strike, believing firmly that the royal sisters were responsible for the expansion despite their denials.

The Earthgov ruling council had voted unanimously to drop the motion, but not all of the military personnel involved had abandoned the idea, and thus began the HLF. A group of angry soldiers seeking a more proactive solution to the oncoming end of the world.

As Conversion debuted and began to generate momentum, and controversy, the HLF had morphed from a secret organization devoted to radical action to save Earth, into a paramilitary force dedicated to the extermination of Equestrian kind. The base, known simply as ‘HQ’ had been a secret ace held in reserve by one of the founding members of The Cabinet, an asset he was happy to donate to the cause of a 'free Earth.'

Mr. Utah had been part of the movement since its inception. Like all the members of The Cabinet, his codename was the only way he was officially known to members of the front.

Mr. Utah’s particular nome de guerre was derived from the names of the beaches at Normandy, the same as the other four members of his section. The Cabinet had four sections, each comprised of five members, all with code names derived from the second World War.

The corridors through which Mr. Utah walked were the purest expression of the HLF; concrete, steel, warning stripes, and harsh illumination from fluorescent lighting. Spartan, militaristic and aggressive, efficiency through and through. For a moment, he was reminded of the warehouse facilities under Manhattan. The only things missing were the shipping containers and the melted remains of his contact.

Ironically enough, the report from that very same mission was part of what had brought The Cabinet together for this emergency meeting. Normally all twenty leaders wouldn’t be in one place at the same time, except for their twice a year strategy meetings. But this was a special case.

While an initial failure to counter the new threat of Gryphonization would not have been cause for such a drastic step, the serious nature of the most recent PER attack was more than enough cause in and of itself, especially in conjunction with the former problem.

Mr. Utah stopped long enough to light one of his trademark cigarettes. He was alone in the stretch of corridor, and most other members of the cabinet envied his ability to acquire real nicotine infused cigarettes. No one begrudged the smell or the smoke, but Mr. Utah preferred not to share his preferred stress reliever.

He didn’t like to share anything he valued, which mainly consisted of power, influence, wealth, and cigarettes. He was only part of the HLF because Ponification and the ideals of Equestria did not mesh well with his manipulative self-centered hardball style of ‘self improvement.’

Some of The Cabinet members resented him, thinking that he was part of the HLF more for his own gains than because he believed in saving humanity. That wasn’t how Mr. Utah saw it. The way he figured it, his desire to live in a world where he was free to get what he wanted, however he wanted it, was one of the best survivalist qualities of humanity that stood to be lost in Conversion. So of course he was fighting to save humanity.

The tell-tale click of stiletto heels alerted him to the presence of another member of his section.
“Mrs. Juno.”

“Mr. Utah. Still indulging that habit of yours?”

“Still traipsing around in those ridiculous shoes?”

“They’re a fashion statement.”

Mr. Utah took a long pull on his cigarette, then released the cloud of noxious fumes in Mrs. Juno’s direction. The backlighting of the fluorescent fixtures made the substance appear as a thick chalky blob.

“And these are a stress reliever.”

To his disappointment, the silver haired woman didn’t cough, wince, or even give a trifling indication that she had noticed the act.

“If your position is taking a toll then I could always recommend someone else to fill your seat in the Cabinet.”

“My position is indispensable. Your company may contribute several hundred billion a year, but mine provides something infinitely more valuable.”

Mr. Utah knew she couldn’t argue with that. The head of command section himself, Mr. Churchill, had openly admitted that Mr. Utah’s company ties were the most important asset the HLF currently had on retainer. He allowed himself the tiniest beginnings of a grin as he finished his cigarette.

The low notes in his voice reverberated ominously off the concrete surfaces, “Well then. Let’s not keep the cabinet waiting shall we?”

The Cabinet Room’s defining features were twenty seats ringing an oval shaped steel table, a hanging circular fluorescent fixture of roughly the same dimensions as the table, and a wall sized holoscreen. Everything else was smooth, dull gray concrete, wreathed in shadows, save for the two entry and exit doors, which were large incredibly thick sliding plate-steel affairs that had been built to withstand the backwash from a nuclear strike directly on the facility.

The men and women seated around the table could be visually divided into two groups; those wearing business suits that cost more than six thousand dollars, and those wearing military uniforms identifying them as holding the rank of captain or above.

In reality there were three main groups of people at the table. Politicians, business owners, and soldiers. Each section of The Cabinet was made up of one of these groups, with the fourth and final command section having representatives from all of them.

Mr. Utah was seated with Mrs. Juno and the other three members of ‘Normandy Section,’ the business owners of The Cabinet. Every single one of them held a highly influential position of leadership in a Fortune 500 company, each with a quarterly income greater than the combined yearly salaries of every occupant in every outlying settlement of North America put together and doubled.

Normandy section represented the funding for the HLF. Mr. Utah’s company provided less money than the others, but made up for that in unconventional assets. Mrs. Juno’s, by contrast, brought nothing unique to the table, but contributed the most raw cash by an order of magnitude.

Mrs. Juno was the CFO of Avicor, which provided all the avionics for Earthgov military craft.

At the head of the table stood a tall, gray haired, grizzled looking man in a general’s uniform. His face was clean shaven except for a small military style moustache gracing his upper lip, which gave him a decidedly glowering air, even when his expression was neutral.

“Alight then. If everyone's here, then let's begin.”

The man’s voice was informal, at first blush, but underlying the casual southern tones was a hard edge of authority that demanded attention and respect. There was a reason his codename was Mr. Churchill.

The holoscreen blinked to life, displaying a schematic of the Liberty Bell tower.
Mr. Churchill spoke, his clipped tones conveying deep displeasure, “For those of you who might be behind on global news, the PER has overstepped their bounds again. This attack confirms and underscores something we’ve suspected for a long time; they have a new benefactor.”

Mr. Churchill stepped over to the screen and jabbed his finger at the tower, “Two years ago? They couldn’t have pulled off something of this magnitude if their lives depended on it. Aside from the lack of clear leadership, they just didn’t have the tech to pull a stunt like this. Come on people, we have *military* assets and two high level tech firms in our deck and *we* couldn’t replicate this if we wanted to.”

He stepped back to the head of the table and put his hands on the shiny surface, leaning forward so that the light from above accentuated the harsh angles of his face, “Does someone wanna tell me how we didn’t see this coming, and what we’re gonna do about this?”

Mrs. Stuka, a young Asian woman from ‘Aircav’ section, stood to answer. Aircav represented the military leaders contributing to the HLF, and Mrs. Stuka held a position in the Earthgov Special Forces as a high level analyst.

“Before I boarded the flight to come here, I received word that ConSec believes they have a mole in the New York Bureau. Earthgov military command puts no stock in the assertion, so it was only a small addendum to a report. But it would explain why neither of us had any advanced warning of the attack. We rely on the military for our intelligence, and ConSec is responsible for the PER. If they’ve been infiltrated, then in a sense so have we.”

Mr. Churchill nodded, “Put pressure on the higher ups at the Bureau to take the issue seriously, then let them handle it internally.” He turned to the man on his left, “Mr. Stalin, how are we planning to retaliate?”

His second in command, a young man with a Fu Manchu and short cropped black hair stood and tapped the holoscreen controls. “ConSec analysts were able to recover a DaTab at the site, which was used to transmit a real-time voice message during the attack. They haven’t been able to pull anything meaningful off it. We have.”

The screen changed to represent signal waveforms as Mr. Stalin continued, “We were able to scan the drive for residual bits of data, and from those we reconstructed enough of the OS to determine a transmission frequency to within four hertz. Using our access to satellite monitoring we quietly pulled down scans of the surrounding five hundred square mile radius for the time of the attack, and ran it through a comparative analysis AI.”

The screen changed again to display an appreciable chunk of the North American Eastern Seaboard. Overlaid on the map, triangulation lines and waveform data sprang into existence.
“The results led us to this.”

There was a collective murmur from the table as the map scrolled and changed.
“Needless to say, we’re preparing to make use of this data even as we speak. By the end of the week we will have the needed assets in position for our retaliatory strike.”

Mr. Churchill nodded, “Good work. Coordinate with Ms. Corsair for the action plan. I want a draft passing my desk by the end of tomorrow. Mr. Akagi, Mr. Essex, make sure Midway Section is prepared to bottleneck the media. We want the story on this to break on our terms.”

The two men, both major Earthgov politicians, like everyone in their section, nodded.
Mr. Akagi spoke for both of them, “We should be able to filter the data that gets out, prevent anything dangerous from leaking.”

Mr. Churchill turned to the members of Normandy section, “While we’re all assembled there is another piece of business we should deal with. I’m sure you’re all up to date on the Conversion Bureau's new Gryphonization program, and the dangers and opportunities it presents. Mr. Utah, would you care to fill us in on any new developments?”

Mr. Utah stood and straightened his suit, “Due to the interference of the PER we haven’t been able to acquire a sample of the new serum yet. In fact we have good reason to believe that the attack on Philadelphia was part of a follow up attempt they were making to get a sample themselves, after the maglev debacle. Fortunately, we have a respite. Mr. Argus was kind enough to contribute an asset to the project, so their new program is on hold, giving us time to create another inroad.”

Mr. Churchill glared, “How soon?”

“We’ve already begun.”

“Good. Get it done.”

Wrenn could tell Skye was annoyed with him just by her expression. The tone of her voice only confirmed it, “What did you do, stop for another coffee on the way back?”

He had, in fact, stopped in a break room to pour himself some coffee, but he didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention that, “We had... unexpected guests. This is commander Hutchinson...” He gestured to Hutch, who had followed him down from the conference.

Wrenn had briefed him on the way, and he seemed eager to make to some progress on the mole issue. Wrenn had been afraid he wouldn’t take kindly to a civilian consultant, but the issue hadn’t even come up.

Hutch leaned forward, “Call me Hutch. Non-negotiable. Pleased to meet you.”

Wrenn continued unperturbed, “...He’s agreed to let you have access to a command level terminal. With one condition.”

Skye rolled her eyes, “I guess you guys have to cover all the bases huh?”

Wrenn nodded, “Let me introduce you to Kephic.” He nodded at the Gryphon, who had just arrived from the adjoining hallway.

Skye looked him up and down, then grinned, “A Gryphon? Nice. I had no idea any of you guys were on Earth.”

Kephic inclined his head, “Nice to meet you. Wrenn tells me you’re pretty skilled technically.”

“Meh. I guess you could say I’ve been branching out. You don’t mind working with... you know... a Pony?”

Kephic raised an eyebrow, “You don’t mind working with a Gryphon?”

“Not really. You guys are cool, I never believed all the scary bedtime stories.”

Wrenn chuckled, “I’ll leave you two to your work, Kephic will brief you on everything you’re allowed to know. Call us if you dig up anything?”

Kephic nodded, Skye threw an imitation salute with her hoof, “Will do chief.”

Wrenn had been leery of the idea, but amazingly he had managed to fit himself and three Gryphons into the back of a VTOL. Initially he had intended to board the second craft with Celestia, Hutch, and Commander Aston, but King Siidran had insisted he ride along in the first VTOL. That made Wrenn slightly nervous.
It also excited him a great deal more than it worried him.

While all of their guests could fly, it was diplomatic protocol for them to arrive by transport provided by Earthgov. The two VTOLs were being escorted to Harrisburg by a single Scythe, which hovered between them in VSToL mode, the cover plates on its back flung wide to reveal a massive fan. The fighter kept weaving to avoid pulling ahead.

Earthgov had decided to construct its North American headquarters in Harrisburg because the settlement had been all but nonexistent at the time. That gave them the leeway to build the complex exactly as they saw fit.

“Sildinar told me what you’ve accomplished in the last week. I’m impressed. Your courage deserves recognition.”
Siidran’s voice reverberated in the small compartment, Wrenn could feel the bass deep in his chest.

He tried not to look as embarrassed as he felt, “Its all part of the job sir. Wouldn’t have it any other way. I mean, a ‘thank you’ every now and then never goes unappreciated, but I’m not one for media attention. I’ve had my fill of that.”

The king nodded, “Yes. I read all about the incident. Losing one’s eyes is a trauma no one should have to cope with. Nevertheless, I hope you’re ready to endure media attention again.”

“Again?”

“My son probably told you that he personally recommended you to be the first human to convert to our species. After meeting you myself I’ve decided that I agree with his assessment.
I intend to do my best to keep the program on track, with you at the tip of the spear.”

Wrenn thought he understood the metaphor, but his expression must have betrayed his confusion. Varan smirked, clearly enjoying the moment, “ ‘Head of the line’ is the human phrase I think.”

Wrenn was shocked. He had known that Sildinar vouched for him, but he had never expected to receive special treatment like this. “I.. I’m not sure how I can ever thank you. But what about the fellow I’m preempting?”

Sildinar shook his head, “No one on the list knows of the existence of the program yet, or the fact that they’ve been selected. No one is losing their place in the program, just being delayed a few weeks. In a sense you’re not pre-empting anyone.”

Wrenn sat back hard in his seat, trying to process this sudden change of events.

“How are you going to swing this with Earthgov? It’s already going to be a stretch to convince them not to postpone the program, much less allow me into it. That's a whole ‘nother can of worms.”

Siidran nodded, looking pensive for a moment, before speaking, “I have some thoughts on the matter, but I’d rather not share them until I’ve spoken to the council. The situation is, as you have pointed out, quite delicate.”

For a few minutes there was silence, punctuated only by the occasional jolt as the craft encountered a pocket of turbulence.
Wrenn smiled, “So did Kephic ask to sit this one out, or did you make him stay back because of the incident with Korvan?”

Sildinar answered first, “Both. We all hate politics, but him most of all. Out of all of us, he is the youngest by several years, and he has not yet learned how to temporarily stifle his inner urges in order to remain diplomatic.”

Siidran snorted, “I hardly blame him. We have much in common with your species, Isaac Wrenn, and we have found much to admire, but your politics are enough to drive anyone to insanity.”

Wrenn laughed, “I think if you asked any human outside the government, and maybe even a few politicians themselves, you’d find we share that in common too.”

“Sigma 1, Sigma 2, this is Harrisburg control, you are cleared to start your approach on vector C-3 toward pads nine and ten. Escort Alpha, snap to heading 259 and make a circle pass, then await vectors to the initial.”

The pilots of all three craft acknowledged.

Wrenn sighed, “Last time I was here, I got a medal for making the biggest mistake of my life, and shooting my best friend to the head.”

Varan glanced up at him, “Not looking forward to being back?”

“Not particularly.”

The two VTOLs crabbed in sideways over the landing pads, and touched down with very little regard for passenger comfort. With military pilots it was all about speed and efficiency.

The Harrisburg Earthgov complex was a large cluster of swooping glass buildings with minimalist steel frames, interconnected by arching pedestrian tunnels and paved exterior footpaths. At several points ringing the complex were landing pads of various sizes, a runway, and a secure maglev terminal serviced by a spur of the nearby main-line from DC.

The space between the buildings, outlined by the footpaths, was filled with holographic plants and synthetic grass material in a vain attempt to make the site seem less dull and colorless.
It didn’t matter much to Wrenn. He found it amusing that all the lengths wealthy institutions went to in order to cultivate an aesthetically pleasing color palette were pointless to him. It was all the same shade of blue in the end.

He wondered, as the VTOL’s doors slid open, if the Gryphons appreciated the decoration.
Their eyes were incredible, just watching them for a few minutes would provide ample proof of that. Could they see through the illusion, which was already tenuous to human eyes?

Councilor Martins and several of her party members were already waiting at the edge of the landing pads. She had left the Bureau ahead of everyone else, mainly in order to gather the Council, since an emergency meeting could only be convened by a Council Member or a military General.

“The session convenes in ten minutes. Lieutenant Wrenn, Commanders, you will need to make your way to the public seating area. You aren’t technically being called before the council, but you will be allowed to sit in since you all have a vested interest.”

Wrenn reaffirmed his estimation of Martins. She was a ‘get it done’ person through and through.
He smiled inwardly, perhaps it was a good thing, Martins working more closely with the Gryphons. They seemed to share many of the same views on politics, but Martins had the ability to put aside her disdain and play the game. Wrenn shivered to think just what they might be able to accomplish together.

He turned to the Gryphons, “Thank you again, for what you’re doing for me. I’d wish you good luck, but if you’re anything like me you believe in making your own luck.”

Siidran and Varan nodded, Sildinar stepped forward and proffered a claw, “The sentiment still holds then, doesn’t it?”

Wrenn reached forward and the Gryphon grasped his hand and arm warmly, medieval style. The Gryphons claws might have made Wrenn nervous under other circumstances, but he trusted Sildinar too much for that to matter.

It took him a second to fully realize it, but these creatures from another world had become the closest friends he had. So much about them was alien to him, but the rest was deeply familiar.
They were warriors, and warriors who understood loyalty.

Beyond their fascinating and enviable biological characteristics lay a deeply rooted psychological mindset that Wrenn appreciated.

He wondered what it would be like to live in a culture of similarly minded people.
He desperately hoped he would get the chance to find out.

Nothing more needed to be said. Wrenn, Hutch, and Aston split off to follow two security guards to their appointed seats. Celestia, Siidran, Varan and Sildinar followed Martins and her fellow Councilors, presumably to the antechambers to prepare for the commencement of the session.

Chapter 8

Wrenn had been inside the Earthgov council chambers at Harrisburg many times before.

The Council spent a third of the year there, the other two thirds were divided between the European facility in Poland and the Asian facility in Singapore.

The central chamber was made up of a large glass dome, held up by an interlaced triangular pattern of girders, on which were mounted lights at various intervals.

The glass was tinted, lending a foreboding aspect to the already grim sky visible through it.

The Center of the room was occupied by a podium ensconced on the floor in the center of the Earthgov emblem; Three globes showing three different views of the world.

Ringing a little less than half of the room on the side the podium faced were several rows of seats divided into sections. This was where the Councilors sat. Exit and entry doors filled the wall space at the halfway points of the room.
On the opposite side of the Council, occupying less than a third of the room’s circumference, was lower-set seating for the public and the media.

Today only Wrenn, Hutch, Aston, and their two stony faced guards occupied the section.
Emergency Council sessions were closed to the media and the general public, unless special invitation was issued. Since classified data was being discussed, naturally, nothing of the sort had been done.

As they waited, Hutch fidgeted, “Could they have made it... I dunno.... more inviting?”

Aston shrugged, “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose? Every command center, every hall of politics, every seat of government; they’re all a power play. Architecturally speaking.”

Wrenn smirked, “I wouldn’t know. I can’t see the color of anything past the next row of seats. I can do a pan and zoom dynamic face scan on people as far away as the back row of council seating though. Makes it easy to spot the liars.”

Hutch sat back and yawned, “Which is to say what? All you have to do is look at any one of 'em to see a liar.”

Aston elbowed him, “You know that's not entirely fair. Martins and her party are doing us a big favor, and a lot of the Council wants to side with us. They’re just intimidated by Korvan.”

Hutch snorted, “Martins lies like the rest of ‘em make no mistake, she’s just lying on our behalf now. Mark my words; once a politician, always a snake in the grass. Always playing the angles. All the angles.”

Before Wrenn could voice his agreement, the Council started filing in.
Men and women from every race and every background. Very little united them visually besides their immaculate dress, and their age. No one was under thirty five, which was considered the approximate agreeable entry age for a Council member.

When all the delegates had taken their seats, a gray haired South-Asian woman took the podium.
The chairman, or chairwoman, was selected by random drawing for every session, with the person who last served discounted from the drawing.

“I hereby call this emergency session of the United Earth Government Council to order.
I, Councilwoman Saura Sakia of the Populist party preside as Chairperson.
I hereby take note for the record that a full Quorum is present, we may begin.
For the first order of business, the Chair recognizes Princess Celestia, leader of the Equestrian nation.”

Celestia stepped from her place by one of the doors to the center of the room, as Chairwoman Sakia returned to her seat. The Alicorn dwarfed the podium, presenting an imposing, but not particularly hostile, visage despite the fact that she was standing much lower than the Council.

“Assembled Councilors, thank you for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice. Allow me to extend my sympathy over the recent attack on your city of Philadelphia. If there is any way in which I can provide aid or assistance, you need only ask.”

The princess paused, allowing just the right amount of time for her words to sink in, before continuing, “I know our agreements allow me nearly unfettered access to your media, but I thought it not only polite, but prudent, to ask your permission and your advice before making a public statement about the attack. The issue is very serious, and I don’t wish to inadvertently say or do something indelicate.”

There was a quiet murmur. Wrenn pegged the tone as generally favorable. He had stood by Korvan’s side, just as each delegate’s current bodyguard stood by their side now, over the course of many Council sessions. He had long since learned to measure the mood of the assembled dignitaries by their vocalizations.

Celestia was shrewd. She had begun the session by ostensibly placing herself in a submissive position, paving the way for her to act as a sensible, amicable arbiter when Siidran came in with his significantly more charged words.

Now the Councilors were all typing at their small holographic consoles, entering a vote and a comment. When the results had been tallied by the resident AI, the Chairwoman would present the finding.

Sakia stood a moment later, reading from her DaTab, “The Council moves unanimously to grant its blessing for you to make a statement at whatever time and in whatever way you see fit, and as per your request, all interested Councilors will have the opportunity to submit their assessment of the situation and recommendations via your attaché.”

Wrenn wondered who Celestia’s attaché was, and where they resided.

This was the first he had ever heard of the position, but it made sense that the Princess would want someone to handle the Earth side of things, in terms of paperwork and keeping an eye on the climate.

Celestia inclined her head, “Thank you Councilors. With regards to the attack, I request permission to bring forward a motion.”

Chairwoman Sakia nodded her assent, “The Chair will permit a second order of business. State your motion for the Council.”

Everyone had known this was coming. This was the real reason for the meeting, and Wrenn suddenly felt nervous. When Siidran started to speak, the lieutenant knew he was going to become the center of attention, for at least a few minutes.

All that time spent as Korvan’s bodyguard, Wrenn had been all but invisible. No one ever paid attention to security. Not once, in his entire tenure, had Wrenn ever been noticed by the Council. He didn’t much care about their opinions of him, but his future was in their hands now, and that prospect did nothing to brighten his day.

Celestia paced for a moment before speaking again, “I bring forward the motion to re-affirm your accords with the Gryphon Kingdoms, and to fully support, both politically and in the media, the timing and nature of their new Conversion program, despite recent events.”

Wrenn stiffened and sucked in a breath. This was where the compost was going to hit the turbines. Celestia hadn’t pulled any punches, her motion made her intentions completely clear.

Most of the council had probably expected her to propose a compromise of some sort, until now that had been her modus operandi; prevent conflict by suggesting well thought out mutually agreeable solutions.

This was something entirely different. This time she was calling the Council out, betting that they would hold to a tighter moral code than usual. Wrenn didn’t hold much hope, but if anyone could do it Celestia could.

Sakia’s face was drawn, Wrenn couldn’t see the color in it, but he guessed by the strain of her muscles that it had drained to a shade of white almost as pale as Celestia’s coat.

The Chairwoman seemed slightly flustered, but managed to regain her composure quickly, “Let the record show that the motion has been put forth, as stated. At this time, the Council will hear any reasonable objections from seated members.”

Wrenn wasn’t surprised when Korvan stood.

“The Chair recognizes councilor Mathas Korvan, of the Bio-Technological Combine party.”

Korvan moved to the podium. Celestia stepped aside, but she did so slowly, forcing Korvan to get closer to her than he probably would have liked. Wrenn decided that the Princess had a greater skill for political machinations than she liked to let on.

Korvan stopped to gather himself before speaking. His voice carried well, filling the domed chamber, “The Biotech party submits that at this time, due to the charged climate created in the wake of the PER attack, that the Council should formally request that the Gryphon Kingdoms move back the timetable on their new program in order to allow things to stabilize and to prevent serious backlash from the public.”

Councilor Sakia swept her gaze around the room, “Will anyone second either resolution?”

Councilor Martins stood, “On behalf of my party, I second the Princess’s motion.”
The words created quite a stir in the council. Wrenn thought Korvan’s mouth was actually going to hang open until something flew in. Clearly he hadn’t expected that, not even in the darkest corners of his mind.

A man Wrenn recognized as Councilor Emmile Vastris, of the Socialist party, stood as well, “The United Socialist Party seconds Councilor Korvan’s motion.”

Judging by Korvan’s momentary relieved expression, Wrenn guessed that he had not expected Vastris to come to his aid. That was quite surprising. Usually a move like that had to be bought with a lot of favors, money, threats, or a combination thereof.

Chairwoman Sakai looked just as stunned as everyone, but she managed to find her voice, “Both motions have been seconded. As per Earthgov standard protocol, each motions’ proponents will be given time to argue their case, then there will be a fifteen minute recess after which the issue will go to vote. The computer will now provide a fair and random coin flip to determine who will speak first.”

One of the fringe benefits of positronic AI was that they could produce ‘true randomness.,’ or at least something so passably close that there was no discernible error.

The AI’s surprisingly pleasant tenor voice echoed through the room, “Councilor Korvan will have the right of first statement.”

There were advantages and disadvantages to being first in a resolution vs. resolution debate. In this case Korvan’s disadvantages outweighed his advantages because he had not been prepared to speak on the issue. Wrenn knew he would improvise well, but with any luck he might make a few small mistakes. Enough to level the playing field.

“Honored Councilors, our position is admittedly complicated. Princess Celestia’s resolution is born of an understandable desire to support her allies, and their desire to maintain the initial schedule put forth in the accords is likewise understandable.”

Korvan paused to draw a deep breath, “But they are not the only interested and affected parties in this matter. Our political situation is already unstable in these difficult times; our economy continues to suffer, terrorists strike fear into our populace, and our world teeters on the brink of extinction. After the most recent attack, and the likely backlash it will generate, is this really the time to ‘muddy the water’ with something new and potentially controversial?”

He glanced down at Siidran, Varan, and Sildinar, “Their world isn’t dying. They aren’t on any sort of clock. Why can’t they simply hold off because it would aid their allies? Their friends?”

Wrenn got the impression that Korvan had more to say, but hadn’t had time to formulate his thoughts into coherent sentences. He returned to his seat, and Celestia resumed her post at the podium. Beyond his nervousness, Wrenn found he also harbored a sort of curiosity. He was interested to see how Celestia would handle something so fractious and conflicting.

“Councilors I will admit that my opponent presents valid points. Your world is suffering more than its fair share of ills, and ours is under no such specter of loss. But I submit that the fundamental premise of his argument is flawed. He claims that Gryphonization will only add to the backlash caused by the most recent PER attack...”

Here she paused to gaze around the room, “...But I rather think it will help assuage the public. You can offer them another choice, you are giving them a new option, a different way out.
In a world where one’s primary concern is having a choice, this stands to be the perfect answer to the PER attack, if you choose to present it properly. If we jointly show a strong face and an unyielding spirit, then these extremists will see not a government cowering in fear, but a steadfast bastion of protection. If you delay this program, you play into the PER’s plan. Why else would they attack you now, and in such a fashion? This new option scares them. The biggest way you can strike back, at the moment, is to do exactly what they don’t want.”

She paused, as if trying to decide whether to stop there, or proceed, “Aside from all this, you owe it to your allies. They have as much a right to present their species to the Earth as my kind does, and they should not be made to wait any longer. Their King has remained my ally despite the fact that I sometimes made... unpopular decisions. Can you not find it within yourselves to emulate them and honor the agreements you have made?”

With that, Celestia returned to her position by the door.

For several seconds, silence reigned. Finally Chairwoman Sakai stood, “There will now be a fifteen minute recess. The Chair is obligated to remind all delegates that they may have no contact with the media, the public, or members of other parties during this recess. You may each proceed to your party’s ante-chamber.”

Once the chamber had been emptied of Councilors, Wrenn stood and stretched.
Celestia and the Gryphons made their way over to the public seating.

Hutch chuckled, “Princess, that was a fine speech. I think you genuinely scared him. Does me good to see them put in their place like that.”

Commander Aston cocked her head and stared at King Siidran, “If you don’t mind my asking sir, why didn’t you speak on the issue instead of Celestia?”

Siidran chuckled, “My kind has no love for machination of this sort. Celestia has a better standing with the Council, and greater skill at political maneuvering. I’m all too happy to let her represent my interests in this. I disagree with her plenty of the time, but I still trust her in this matter.”

Varan glowered, “Your Councilor Vastris... Who is he? Why did he support Korvan so suddenly? The man was practically leaping out of his chair...”

Wrenn shrugged, “Beats me. He wasn’t on the council when I was Korvan’s bodyguard, he’s a new appointment. How do you think the vote will go?”

Siidran shrugged, this time Wrenn nearly chuckled out loud. The gesture was so amusing with wings. “I can not say. All I know, is that as much as I would like to simply dictate terms, we need this to be a mutually agreeable step. If my kind forces this, then it will taint all our future relations with humanity. I’m not keen on politics, but I’m even less keen to upset an ally needlessly.”

Celestia nodded her agreement, “Let us hope then, that Councilor Martins and her party prove to be as valuable a sponsor as you have estimated,”

“The council will now choose a resolution. Please enter your vote now.”
Sakai sat down to enter her own vote. Even though she was Chairwoman, she retained the right to vote, since not doing so would unfairly dock her party one seat.

The room was totally silent except for the hum of the ventilation, and the quiet warble of the Councilors’ holographic keypads.

When she was finished, Sakai stood and waited for the AI to deliver the results.

Wrenn found himself unconsciously scooting forward to the edge of his seat.
In a combat zone he had a weapon and a target. The objective was simple; kill or be killed.
You could reach out and strike your enemy down if you were resourceful and quick enough.

Here, the battle was fought with words, impressions, and machinations of emotional manipulation. Victory hinged on opinion far more than Wrenn would have liked, and waiting for the results drove him to the brink of insanity.

A teal square materialized before Sakai. The hologram was tinted so that it could only be read from her side. Wrenn began to think that if she took any more time, that he might stand up and scream.

Finally, Sakai spoke, “The Council has voted. With a majority of 131 to 90, and two abstainers...”
She looked up at Celestia, “...to approve Princess Celestia’s motion over that of Councilor Korvan. Let the record reflect this decision, to be carried out immediately as previously described. We are all in accord.”

The council quietly echoed her words, “We are all in accord.”

Wrenn thought he detected a hint of rage boiling beneath Korvan’s stony visage as he said the words. He collapsed backwards into his chair. Celestia’s words had done the trick, swaying more of the Councilors than he had expected, by far.

There was a shuffle, the Councilors clearly thought the session was at an end and were already making preparations to leave.

Siidran stepped from the shadows near the door to stand by Celestia at the podium.
As the Councilors began to notice the Gryphon’s presence, they slowly fell silent.

Siidran spoke, his voice commanding just as much attention as Celestia’s. It struck Wrenn how much more resonant the King’s voice was than Korvan’s, and he had once admired Korvan’s voice.

“I have a third order of business, if the Council will hear it.”

Sakai seemed a bit confused, but she nodded, “The Chair recognizes King Siidran of the Gryphon Kingdoms. State your motion.”

Siidran glanced back at Wrenn, then faced the council again, “As you know, our accords stipulate that I have the right to change the candidate list for our new program in whatever way I see fit, but the move is highly discouraged without the assent of this Council. Therefore I submit to the council that, for services rendered in defense of important materials and innocent lives, Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn should be given the honor of the first position in the new Conversion program.”

The stunned silence in the chamber was a testament to the gravity of Siidran’s words.
Wrenn had never seen so many politicians speechless at once.

Sakai seemed unaware of the full charged nature of the suggestion, and recovered quickly, “Let the record show that the motion has been put forth, as stated. At this time, the Council will hear any reasonable objections from seated members.”

Korvan was already halfway to a standing position, and he spoke before being given leave, which as far as Wrenn knew, had only happened three times before without the Councilor in question being declared in contempt.

“I object. The Gryphon Kingdoms have already assented to the list of candidates we put forth. By their own recent arguments, they should hold to the agreement they’ve entered into.”

Sakai glared, “You will remember your place as a dignified delegate of this council, and will speak only when given recognition by the chair. Make it clear that you understand and accede or you will be declared in contempt, brought up for disciplinary action, and your objection will be stricken from the record.”

Korvan gritted his teeth, practically spitting the words, “I understand and accede.”

Sakai nodded, “Very well, an objection has been raised. In accordance with the protocol dictating issues of persons brought before the Council, the Chair will now call for sponsors of both candidates. Who will stand for Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn?”

Varan and Sildinar stepped forward, Sildinar speaking for both of them, “As members of the Paladin order of our kind, the highest military circle we can be inducted into, and as warriors who have fought with him, we stand for Lieutenant Wrenn.”

Hutch stood, “As his current acting commanding officer, I stand.”

Aston was up nearly as quickly as Hutch, “As an officer who has commanded him in the field of battle, I stand.”

Councilor Martins, to everyone’s surprise, stood as well, “I personally vouch for the Lieutenant as well.”

Wrenn thought he might cry. He had been alone in the world for a long time. A display of trust and friendship was almost alien to him. Suddenly he was reminded of how much he had missed having friends.

He managed to shake himself in time to catch Korvan’s reaction. Wrenn vowed to remember it as long as he lived, it was priceless. For a moment the mask completely slipped, and Korvan’s rage was written on his face as plain as ink on paper.

Chairwoman Sakai nodded, “Who will stand for...” She squinted at her DaTab, “Commander Quintus Selfridge?”

Once again, Councilor Vastris stood unexpectedly, “As an honored member of the Earthgov council, I stand for Commander Selfridge.”

Korvan probably would have stood as well, but protocol stipulated that whoever put forth a candidate for something of this nature was not allowed to stand for them as well. The fact that they put forth a candidate was considered enough of an affirmation of their support.

There was an extended pause as Sakai allowed time for others to stand.
When no one else rose, she tapped the holoscreen in front of her, “Both candidates have sponsors. One sponsor for each will be allowed to speak on their behalf, then there will be a vote. The computer will flip a fair coin to determine which sponsor is first.”

The AI’s voice issued forth once again, “The Sponsor of Lieutenant Wrenn will have the right of first statement.”

Siidran nodded towards Sildinar, who stepped forward to the podium.

“As a fellow warrior, I have had the opportunity to fight beside Lieutenant Wrenn, and to socialize with him afterwards. He is the definition of an honorable warrior; he fights in defense of his beliefs, and of the people he is sworn to protect. He values the lives of his fellow combatants, and civilians alike, and he possesses no small measure of skill. He has few friends, but that is not from any flaw of character that I have been witness to, beyond his tendency for self isolation.”

Sildinar glanced wryly up at Councilor Korvan, “As I understand it, Lieutenant Wrenn is responsible for saving Councilor Korvan’s life in this very room, a fact that seems to have gone unnoticed by said Councilor. More recently he participated in the rescue operations in Philadelphia, he had a hand in saving my fellow warrior...”

Here Sildinar inclined his head towards Varan, “...he saved several innocent lives during an attempted hostile bombing, and he aided in the defense of the Manhattan Conversion Bureau. Since giving him the first position would in no way preclude you from then continuing with the list of candidates we have agreed on, I see no reason why you shouldn’t reward one of your own soldiers for outstanding accomplishments.”

Vastris stood next, looking nervous, “I have little further to say. I hold the highest rank of any sponsor who had stood today, that and the fact that we have already agreed on the list of candidates should be enough. Lieutenant Wrenn’s implants will further complicate the issue, adding a considerable amount of strain to an already inadvisable situation.”

Clearly the Counselor had not been prepared to speak, Wrenn wondered if he could even remember the name of the soldier he was ‘sponsoring’.

Sakai stood, “The vote will now commence.”

Sildinar glanced back at Wrenn. He hoped his expression conveyed the thanks he felt for the Gryphon’s words.

Once the sound of typing had died away, the teal square once again appeared before Chairwoman Sakai.

She pursed her lips, “The Council has voted.”

Chapter 9

Wrenn sat alone in the Council chamber. He had commandeered the seat behind Korvan’s while the Council was in recess.

111 to 111, and one abstainer. Deadlock.

The Chairman had asked the abstainer, a Councilor from the Agricultural Sciences party named Andrea Miyagi, to cast a deciding vote. She had in turn invoked the right of arbitration, meaning that over the course of the next hour she would be allowed to interview Wrenn’s sponsors, and Councilors Vastris and Korvan, with a neutral party, in this case Celestia, as arbitration.

She would then cast the deciding vote.

This left Wrenn alone with his thoughts. As much as he had deluded himself into believing that he liked to be alone, he was keenly feeling the absence of his friends, especially in this particular place.
He decided that he hated that circular colorless chamber.

After the first twenty minutes, there was a rustle and the side door opened.
To Wrenn’s surprise, Sildinar stepped into the room.

“I thought they were going to be a full hour?”

Sildinar nodded, “They are, but Councilor Miyagi dismissed myself and Councilor Vastris.
She said she had heard enough from us in our speeches and was more interested in interviewing everyone else.”

Wrenn shrugged and sighed. Sildinar made his way up to Wrenn’s row and took up a sitting position on the floor. The disparity between the floor and Wrenn’s seat almost put him at eye level with the Gryphon, but Sildinar still had a few inches on him.

Wrenn turned and offered a wry smile, “What you said... It meant a lot to me. Its been a long time since I had a friend who would stick his neck out for me that way.”

Sildinar looked down at Councilor Korvan’s seat, “So this is where it happened? The attack?”
Wrenn nodded, Sildinar stared down at the seat then back at Wrenn, “You mentioned you shot the attacker. You called him your best friend. What did you mean?”

Wrenn gazed down at the place where he’d lost his eyes. He didn’t want to discuss it. Or did he? He had never worked out all the emotions the incident had created, he’d just wrestled them away into a dark corner of his mind and barricaded them there so he wouldn’t have to look at them, or analyze them, or care about them.

He took a deep breath, “A lot of stuff was kept out of the media report. My name, for example.
I was interviewed anonymously. I got a lot of ‘attention,’ but nobody knew who the nameless faceless soldier was, even thought I ‘spoke’ by teleconference in several interviews.

That was Korvan’s way of keeping the spotlight on himself, good publicity and such.
In retrospect I’m actually glad he was a selfish cuss. Its kept me out of the picture...”

Sildinar nodded and waited for Wrenn to continue.

“...Something else that didn’t make it into any of the reports, military or otherwise, was my relationship to the attacker. I told the higher-ups that I had no connection to him. In truth? That man was my closest friend. He was like family, until the day he decided to take politics into his own hands. He came into the chamber on pretense of raising a motion, pulled out a bioplasmic grenade, and lobbed it like a world series baseball champion.”

Judging by Sildinar’s expression, he didn’t understand the reference completely, but he understood the intended meaning.

Wrenn laughed, a harsh barking sound that echoed off the steel stanchions of the dome.
“Do you know that back then, my callsign was 'Trigger?' Because I had, and continue to have a track record of being quick to the draw and shooting to kill. No hesitation, no pause, no remorse. Just like a good soldier is supposed to right?”

Now Wrenn’s voice was cracking. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why, he thought he’d been over this with himself enough times to be rid of his regrets. He tried to keep his face blank, but Sildinar’s expression betrayed his sympathy. Wrenn figured it must be hard to hide tells from someone with such good eyes.

“So I see the grenade coming. I do what any good protection detail is supposed to do. I shoved Korvan down to the floor, and pulled my pistol. I managed to catch the tail end of the grenade with the butt, sending it up. That sucker blew in mid air, right above me. Any closer and it would have melted my head into Proterozoic goop.”

Wrenn sighed and stared out the dome, watching as a maglev slid into the secure terminal and some big wig or another disembarked with the usual fanfare.

“In the half-second before my eyes melted, I had the perfect firing position. So I took the shot. They tell me the bullet went right through his occipital lobe. He probably didn’t even get a chance to hear the grenade go off. Dead before he hit the floor.”

Sildinar cocked his head, “And you’ve never told this to anyone?”

Wrenn shook his head. For once, the Gryphon seemed truly shocked.

“How have you dealt with it for so long?”

“By refusing to deal with it. I just pretend the issue doesn’t exist.”

Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “I take it your kind has the ability to ignore emotions of that magnitude. We do not.”
The Gryphon stared out at the same fixed point he was eyeing. He wondered how much detail Sildinar could pick out at that range.

Wrenn turned to the Gryphon, “How would you deal with something like this?”

Sildinar faced him, “The way you are now. Discuss it with a friend, perhaps not all at once, take out my emotions on a few practice dummies. Perhaps even some live prey if it's close to claw.”

Wrenn decided to take his chances. He hadn’t had any intention of making new friends, but somehow it had happened anyways. Perhaps that was for the best.

“Well when this mess is over for better or worse, maybe you, and me, and Kephic, and Varan can take out our emotions on some practice dummies then talk things out over beef strips and something ice cold.”

Sildinar smiled, “I would like nothing more.”

The two passed the rest of the half hour in friendly silence, eventually moving back to the public seating area so as not to get caught doing something which was technically frowned upon.

Almost precisely on the hour, the Council began to file back in. Sildinar moved to rejoin the other Gryphons and Celestia, Hutch and Aston came to sit beside Wrenn.

He leaned over to Hutch and whispered, “How do you think it went?”

Hutch shrugged, “Heck if I know. Talking to that Miyagi woman is like talking to a block of granite. If she’s intimated that she’s picked a side, then I’ve missed it. I tell you what, she grilled us all though. And Korvan? he is not happy.”

Chairwoman Sakai stood and cleared her throat, “The abstainer has agreed to cast a deciding vote.”

A woman who Wrenn assumed was Councilor Miyagi stood, she was unusually young for a politician. Wrenn guessed she was no older than thirty nine.

Sakai glanced over to her, “The Chair recognizes Councilor Miyagi.”

“I have agreed to cast the deciding vote. After interviewing proponents on both sides of the argument, I have concluded that only one major issue stands between Lieutenant Wrenn and the position.”

The woman looked down, staring directly at Wrenn, “The lieutenant’s implants are a major cause for concern given the public sentiment towards cybernetic augmentation. I asked my aide to make a call during the interviews. He determined that Lieutenant Wrenn’s name has never appeared in the media, and certainly never in conjunction with his implants. Therefore I wish to propose a compromise.”

Miyagi took a deep breath before continuing, “If the lieutenant will agree to have his implants surgically removed immediately, before the program is made public, and if all record of his having possessed them, and his military actions while he possessed them, are sealed, then I will agree to cast my vote in his favor.”

Wrenn didn’t even need time to consider the proposal. He stood and made his way to the podium, his mind blanketed by a haze, as if someone had switched on a fog machine inside his skull. It seemed to him as if some other person reached down and opened his mouth, “I will agree to those terms.”

Councilor Miyagi nodded, “Then I will formally cast my vote in the lieutenant’s favor.”

The Chairwoman tapped at her holoscreen, “The Council has voted. With a simple majority of 112 to 111, and no abstainers to approve King Siidran’s motion. Let the record reflect this decision, to be carried out immediately as previously described. We are all in accord.”

The council again echoed her, “We are all in accord.”

The words snapped Wrenn back to reality. He nearly tripped over his own feet, walking back to the public seating. The shock had only now begun to hit him.

The Chairwoman closed her holoscreen, dismissing it with a flick of her hand, “Thus concludes this session of the United Earth Government Council.”

With that it was over.

Wrenn, Hutch, and Aston got up to join Celestia and the Gryphons.
Martins descended from the Council seating area and approached the group.

“It seems you managed a great victory today. Two really.”

Aston shook her hand, “None of it would have been possible without you.”

Wrenn reached out to shake her hand as well, “You didn’t have to stand for me. That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“I know, Lieutenant. But unlike some of my fellow Councilors, I respect my friends. You needed the support, I could give it.”

“Well thank you, it was more appreciated than I can ever properly put into words.”

Martins smiled, “Well you can repay me by coming by the construction site sometime. I want to know what you think of our ships from a military standpoint. And the media will be following you with a lot of interest, you could always point them in my direction.”

“I’d be happy to.”

With that Martins turned to leave, Celestia went with her, the two deep in discussions of logistics and potential future media moments.

Then Councilor Korvan stepped up.

“Isaac. I want a word. Now.”

Wrenn braced himself inwardly. He didn’t want to have to deal with Korvan, and he wasn’t sure he could keep a civil tongue in his head if the man pushed him, “Whatever you want to say, say it to all of us. I’m not choosy about how deeply my friends are involved in my affairs.”

Korvan leaned in, Wrenn could feel the heat of his breath, “Why? You know me, you know the positions I hold, the strings I can pull, what possessed you?”

“You tried to walk in there and take control of The Bureaus. You tried to stonewall my friends, you asked me to *spy* on them for you... what in the hell gave you the idea that we were just going to lay down and take all that flack quietly?”

“For this, Wrenn, I’m going to burn you. You’ll wish you had *died* when that grenade went off.”

Wrenn chuckled, “I play rough Councilor. I took a grenade to the face, then I went thirty two for thirty two on Special Ops suicide missions putting people like you into unmarked body bags. I’m still here. You push this? There won’t be a hole deep enough for you to hide in.”

Wrenn turned to leave, tossing back over his shoulder, “And as for your offer? since I’ll be out of my job soon, allow me to officially go on record with my response. Take your offer, stick it in your shiny hat, and shove it as far up your ass as your overblown head will fit.”

Wrenn stepped out into the corridor and took up a quick military stride towards the landing pads.
The Gryphons joined him sedately, Hutch and Aston had to jog to catch up.

Aston glanced at Wrenn, her face still stamped with shock, “Did you really have to antagonize him like that?”

“Yes.”

Hutch snorted, “Listen, Lieutenant, I understand the impulse, but what did it accomplish?”

“It made me feel better sir. Besides, its not fair unless I warn him what he’s in for.”

Siidran chuckled, “Brave words. Regrettably I can not stay here long enough to properly greet you as a member of our kind, but when you journey to our lands know that my halls are as open to you as they are to my own blood.”

Wrenn smiled, “Thank you sir.”

“Don’t call me sir, not yet at least.”
With that, the King of the Gryphons took to the sky.

Wrenn rubbed his temple, “Getting these puppies out is gonna hurt like the dickens. I hate surgery.”

Varan clapped him on the back, the force nearly sent him sprawling, “It will be worth it.”

“Oh yeah. A million times over.”

“You guys are not gonna *believe* this!” Skye’s tone conveyed enough excitement to add to Wrenn’s own sense of growing anticipation, which was, in his mind, quite a feat.

After the group had returned to the Bureau, Kephic and Skye had accosted them and dragged them up to Sildinar’s office, they refused to say what they had to show. They wanted everyone to see it for themselves.

On the way, Sildinar had filled Kephic in on the results of the Council session.

The Gryphon had been the happiest Wrenn had ever seen him. Wrenn could still feel the needlepoints of his talons from where he had given him a very strong, slightly terrifying, shoulder hug.

Kephic tapped a control panel, bringing the room’s wall screen to life, “I have to admit, she’s not as good as you said Wrenn. She’s better. And what she found is a nasty surprise.”
He turned to glance at Hutch, “Don’t worry Commander, I made sure she didn’t access anything classified. Just routine data and lots of technical readouts and activity logs.

Skye gestured with a hoof, “Ok so this? This is a histogram of your up/down traffic over the last week. Notice anything out of the ordinary?”

There was a chorus of murmurs, a few heads shook.

“*Exactly* it's all perfectly normal! There’s nothing in it to suggest that a mole is sending out your super secret important stuff, even by encrypted microburst.”

Aston raised an eyebrow, “Soooo... what then? The mole is planting dead drops?”

“Not exactly. Sorta. You’ll see, it's really clever actually. After we determined that data wasn’t being sent and received on the network, I checked for major uploads and downloads to physical media. It turns out that every day, at 6:31 in the morning, a huge amount of... stuff, gets dumped to a flash drive that's always on a specific port in a lobby computer.”

Wrenn stared at the screen, “So the mole has command level access, and is shunting the data there for pickup by a courier?”

Skye shook her head, “No, see, that’s the odd part. No one with command level access copied a correlating number of matching classified files on the days in question. So I kept digging and found another doozie; your processors are running something they shouldn’t be.
Exactly 1.2 teraflops of something.
Your mole isn’t a person. Its an it.
A virus, but not really a virus.
You have an unauthorized AI tagging along in your system.”

Hutch closed his eyes as if trying to make sense of what Skye had said, “We have a... WHAT?”

She nodded, “Mhmmm. Enemy AI. You guys have a lot, and I mean *a lot* of safeties to prevent this kind of thing, but that's why its so clever. They, whoever they are, figured out a way to bypass all that.”

Aston stared down at Skye, “How?”

“All AI are patterned off of brains right? They take you in, put you under a tomographic electron imaging---” noticing the looks she was getting Skye sighed and rolled her eyes, “--a big spinny thingamabob that looks at your brain and makes a positronic copy of it. Then they strip out the stuff they don’t need, add in the stuff they do need, and boot it up.”

Varan nodded, “Yes. So the point being?”

“The point being they always do it with human brains. Except this time they did it with a Pony brain. Your safeguards are designed to see the ‘thought’ patterns of a human AI, the Pony AI is different enough to slip past. It also doesn’t hurt that it's very non-confrontational, as AIs go, probably picked that up from the Pony side of things.”

Hutch stood agape, “Son of a gun. Those clever...”

Skye snorted, “Clever yes, but not as clever as little ol’ me. I’ve bottlenecked the AI. Its stuck in a repeating endless diagnostic cycle. You can pull it out and dissect it as you like. I’m totally looking for a job, by the way, incase you happen to need someone qualified.”

Hutch rubbed his brow with the back of his hand, “I’m not sure we’re necessarily looking for...”
He paused as he noticed the looks Wrenn and Kephic were giving him.

“....then again, you did just pull off something our best security analysts couldn’t do, in a tenth the time it would have taken them if they could. Tell you what, come to my office later, I’ll get you setup for a background check, then we can give you a psych test and issue security clearance.”

Skye pumped her hoof up and down in a reasonable imitation of a fist pump, “Yesss!”

Hutch looked at the screen, “As for this AI? shut it down, pack it up, and stick it somewhere safe so we can tear it down to the... well whatever makes up an AI. I want to know just exactly how it got into our system, as I’m sure most of my superiors will.”

Aston glanced at Hutch, “How *are* you going to explain to them why you allowed in a civilian consultant to do a job that you were expressly ordered not to do?”

Hutch shrugged, “I’ll BS something. It’s a necessary skill in our job. Right now, I think we should focus on catching the courier before they figure out we’ve snagged their AI.”

Kephic cocked his head, “You have a plan?”

Hutch smirked, “Of a sort...”

“I got nothin.” Wrenn mumbled the words quietly, his hidden throat mic picking them up and relaying them to the rest of the team.

Wrenn was seated in the Bureau lobby, wearing a casual suit and ostensibly reading a DaTab.
Hutch had figured that putting a five foot eleven Special Forces soldier in ConSec armor in the lobby would be a major turn-away to the courier.

All Wrenn had for armament was his laser pistol, and his KA-Bar, which was locked away in a secret compartment in his right boot.
Some tricks never went out of style.

The objective was to take the courier alive. They might be able to provide some kind of information on how the PER had managed to sneak a malicious AI into the Bureau's systems at root access level.

For the last hour and a half, Wrenn had seen no one so much as approach the terminal where the rouge flash drive was plugged in. His implants offered him the unique ability to ‘see’ the terminal while also appearing to be fully engrossed in the DaTab. A capability he wasn’t going to particularly miss if it meant being able to see in color again.

Just as Wrenn was beginning to think the courier wouldn’t show, a woman in a white uniform stepped into the lobby pushing a silver cart full of boxes. The containers were stamped “Gavin/Schummel” The medical firm that supplied the Bureaus with most of their chemicals, medical supplies, and even the nano-particles that were such an integral component of potion.

Wrenn ‘watched’ as the woman pushed the cart straight to the desk where the terminal holding the flash drive was stored. Anyone else would have had to lean forward to see the woman pocket the drive, Wrenn just adjusted the wavelength of his implants.

“We have a winner.” he muttered quietly as he powered off the DaTab and stood, as casually as possible. Nobody wanted a violent scene in the lobby of a Conversion Bureau, especially not after the recent PER attack.

Wrenn allowed the woman to make her way to the lift. She stopped in several places to deliver packages, never noticing she was being trailed. When she finally stepped into an empty lift, Wrenn dashed after her.

“Hold the door!”

He slid in quickly, squeezing past the cart.

“Thanks.”

She nodded, but didn’t speak.
Wrenn opted not to start a fight in the elevator.
The space was too confined for his fighting style, and if the woman was PER she might have a potion dispensation device.

That would be a bad way to end the week.

The lift emitted a soft chirp and the doors hissed open. Fourth floor. That made sense, a lot of the conversion rooms and medical labs were on the fourth floor. If the woman was a Gavin/Schummel delivery agent, then most of her stock would be destined for that floor.

Wrenn quietly exited the lift behind her.
The corridor ahead was empty.

The woman must have pegged him as a tail, because the instant she had verified there was no one else to be seen, she tried to cross-draw a hidden knife with her right hand.
Wrenn leapt forward and placed his elbow between her hand and the hidden holster, allowing her to fracture her own wrist with her momentum.

He took a step back and drew his pistol, “Hands on your head, down on your knees. This little pea-shooter will do a heck of a number on an unprotected head.”

The woman shook her head, “You’re so deluded. Why do you fight the inevitable?”

Wrenn had, somehow, missed the little silver cylinder the woman had palmed into her left hand.
She turned her palm outward and triggered the device before Wrenn could bring himself to react.

As the purple mist began to issue forth, a black and white blur cut the space between Wrenn and the woman. Both humans were knocked back as Kephic darted into the hallway, absorbing most of the cloud of potion in his wing feathers. The rest was quickly siphoned off by the new vacuum evacuation system.

Wrenn pulled himself off the floor and re-trained his pistol on the woman, “What took you so long?”

Kephic snorted, “Your lifts are slow. It would have been easier to fly up and break a window.”
He yanked the woman to her feet, her struggles were in vain. His claws gripped her arms like a pneumatic vise.

She spat, “Now you shall shed the form of a monster and be reborn in light!”
Her face bore a triumphant smirk.

For over twenty seconds no one moved or spoke. Wrenn tapped his foot, trying not to grin.
“Would you like to tell her? or shall I?”

The woman’s face changed from triumph to panic and rage, “Wha... why isn’t it *working?!*”

Kephic laughed, “Didn’t you know? We’re immune to potion.”

Wrenn desperately wished he had a camera.

“So, let me get this straight... Command was about to send down new orders? Orders to find and eliminate the mole?” Aston and Hutch were walking across the lobby when Wrenn arrived, so he only caught the tail end of their conversation.

“Command suddenly decided to take us seriously?”

Hutch turned to him and nodded, “Like I told Laura, right out of the blue. We hadn’t even made a big deal of the issue, just an attachment to a memo, figured it was easier to deal with it internally.
Ask forgiveness instead of permission.
Lo and behold they practically want to pin a medal on me for this, despite the fact that I basically burned the rule book to do it.”

Wrenn shrugged, “Well sir, most people just call that a good day and hang up the coat.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like relying on ‘luck’ to explain my successes.”

“Me either.”

Hutch sighed, “Anyhow, that's tomorrow's problem. Laura, I hope you have a good trip back”

She gave Hutch a quick hug, “I’m sure I will. Korvan was so busy trying to do damage control after that Council session that he didn’t pay me one whit’s worth of attention. So my job is safe for now.”

Aston turned to Wrenn, “Sorry I can’t stay to see you grow feathers, but I have a Bureau to protect and I’ve been away longer than I usually like.”

Wrenn nodded and extended his hand, “Thanks so much for your help ma'am. Bringing Martins into the fray probably saved all our hides.”

She bypassed Wrenn’s hand and gave him a hug as well, “Hey, unless you’re on my turf, it’s Laura, or if you really have to, commander. Ok?”

Wrenn nodded, “Sure thing Commander. Safe journey.”

Hutch glanced at him, “Where you headed?”

“To see if Kephic finally managed to clean the goo out of his feathers.”

Kephic had indeed managed to clean out his feathers, Wrenn found him draining a huge mug of coffee in the dining area.

“I wonder if the scientists who created that stuff intentionally made it as sticky as possible.”

Wrenn laughed, “Had to use extra soap?”

“Industrial grade solvent.”

“Ah.”

Wrenn poured himself a mug, then gestured to Kephic, “Want to see me off?”

“Are you going somewhere?”

“Fourth floor. They scheduled my surgical appointment for today. Getting my implants removed.”

Kephic got up and followed Wrenn into the hall.
The two walked in silence to the lift.
They had to wait several minutes for a completely empty car. Squeezing just one human in with a Gryphon was tight, any more would be downright awkward.

Kephic broke the silence first, “Will it be painful?”

Wrenn teetered his hand back and forth, “Sorta. Not so much the surgery, but my brain has been trained for years to expect these signals. When they’re gone it’s going to go nuts trying to cope. Also I’ll barely be able to see anything outside two meters.”

“Well, that won’t last long.”

Wrenn grinned, “I know. But sometimes I’m not the most patient guy, so even a day and a half is going to be hard for me.”

“You’ve survived worse.”

“True.”

The lift reached the fourth floor.
Wrenn and Kephic exited and walked, slowly, towards one of the Bureau's many surgical bays. All Conversion Bureaus had an extensive set of medical facilities, it was a good precaution considering the complications inherent to the process of changing someone’s species.

Kephic glanced over at Wrenn, “How long will it take?”

“Thirty minutes, tops.”

“I’ll wait then. You’ll likely need the extra set of eyes.”

“Thanks.”

Wrenn paused at the door, “Is this what it’s always like? Back home, I mean.”

Kephic shrugged, “Sometimes we don’t get along. That’s a problem every species has.
But when we make friends, they usually end up more like family, especially among warriors. Ties forged in battle do not break.”

Wrenn nodded, “Well, its been a long time since I had family.”

Kephic smiled, “You won’t have to wait long for that either. You keep hanging around with us you’ll end up part of our dysfunctional little clan.”

Wrenn laughed, “Your Earth humor is getting better.”

“Thanks. But I was at least partly serious.”

“I know.”

With that Wrenn stepped into the surgery bay.

Chapter 10

“The news isn’t good.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Veritas stared hard at the man behind the desk, “Are you sure?”

“He sighed and leaned back, “I have to know sometime. There’s little sense in postponing it.”

The violet unicorn levitated a DaTab and perused the information one last time before beginning, “First off, they found the AI. After that it was only a short deductive leap to the courier, they took her alive. She shouldn’t be of any value to them though.”

The man snorted, “At least there’s a silver lining.”

“Well... you haven’t heard the worst of it yet. They intend to go ahead with the first Gryphonization.”

The man sat up sharply, “What?”

Veritas nodded, “Yes. They intend to go on with it. They had an emergency Council session, legitimized it by a fair margin. They’ve changed candidates too.”

The man sat back, appearing to regain some of his composure, “Well, given everything else, that doesn’t surprise me. Let me know when it hits the media, otherwise I’m not to be disturbed.”

“What will you be doing until then?”

“Examining our options.”

All he could see was gray, interspersed with the occasional flash of light from a holo-imager.
It made Wrenn nervous to be outdoors, yet unable to see the world around him. He could see the microphones in front of his face, and he could see the first row of cameras in front of him. Beyond that, existence consisted of gray shapeless fog punctuated only by subtle changes in lighting.

It made Wrenn even more nervous to be staring down so many cameras. He decided he was actually thankful he couldn’t see the full extent of the media circus that was focused on him, relaying his likeness and words to most of the planet.

From somewhere beyond his visual range, a woman’s voice rang out, “Andrea Sorens, Amerizone News; Lieutenant, can you tell us anything about your conversion? Why is this so different from any other retired soldier ‘joining the herd’ ?”

Wrenn had to resist smiling, not just at the amusing slang for Conversion, or the fact that everyone here firmly believed he had spent the last few years in retirement, but because they were all clueless as to why they’d been brought here. They had simply received an invitation from Princess Celestia, and that was interesting enough to draw almost every major media outlet on the continent.

“No, not really. Classified means classified, right up until the moment something goes public. Stick around, you’ll find out.”
To Wrenn it seemed like quite an irony; he was only there because the rule ‘classified means classified’ had gone out the window, then been hauled back up and thrown out again.

A male voice reached his ears, but the speaker was still out of his visual range. This time it came from closer and to the left, “Tell us about why you finally decided to opt in. Why hang around in retirement all this time, then suddenly decide to go for it today?”

It was a tricky question, but Wrenn had been expecting tricky questions, “That’s something I think I’d better discuss after the fact. If you burn through all the interesting questions now, what's left to report at the end of the week? Enjoy your all access look at the Bureaus, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

Celestia was nothing if not shrewd, in order to maintain media attention she had invited select reporters to spend the next week getting an unprecedented in depth look at the Bureaus, at least the parts that wouldn’t pose a security risk if they were filmed. Wrenn was willing to bet the meager contents of his bank account that nobody would be allowed to see the inside of the ConSec wing, or the Potion Vault.

Meanwhile, he would be spending the week as the first ‘student’ in the new revised induction courses for converts. They needed someone to test the system and give honest feedback, and Wrenn was officially it.

The reporters erupted in a clamor of continued questions in a desperate attempt to get his attention, but the interview was over. Wrenn knew they would dissect his service records, try to dig up details on his private life, and plaster him all over the news feeds for a while. Then, for the rest of the week at least, he would be old news and the focus would be on the Bureaus at large.

What Wrenn really dreaded was going public after the Conversion. The media had been trying to dig up information on Gryphons, and every other non-pony species in Equestria, for a long time. But without electronics across the barrier, backwards flow of media information was essentially choked.

When the press found out that humans could become Gryphons, and that the Gryphons wanted to present themselves to the media, there was going to be an instantaneous crush of reporters, all trying to make it big on the biggest scoop since Ponification and Equestria became household words.

Wrenn slowly made his way up the front steps and back into the Bureau. Without his implants he was forced to use a sonic guide-stick, which was similar to a walking stick, but with an integrated radar. The device relayed a picture of the path ahead as beeps and chirps to a wireless earpiece. It took a lot of getting used to, and it was very imprecise in his inexperienced hands, but it got the job done.

It certainly helped that he could still see what was immediately in front of him, for more reasons than one. Wrenn had a good visual memory, and he had spent a fair bit of time in the Bureau. He already knew areas of it well enough to walk them blindfolded, so it was simplicity itself to compare what he was seeing to what he knew of the building layout, and extrapolate the part shrouded in haze.

He made his way carefully to the lift and rode up to the second floor.
His journey to Conversion was supposed to mimic that of someone new to the process, so he was going to ‘meet’ his guides.

The auditorium would have been awkwardly large for a three person meeting, so Wrenn was scheduled to have his orientation in a smaller meeting room. When he arrived he found Sildinar, and a female Earth Pony he didn’t recognize, seated at a round table.

Sildinar was not going to be the guide or teacher for the Manhattan Bureau, but none of the Gryphon staff were being shipped out to Bureaus until the process had been trialed and made public. If all went well, each Bureau would receive two guides and four guards.

When Wrenn asked, Kephic had told him that there were no shortage of volunteers for the jobs. Gryphons were possessed of an adventurous spirit, and may were just as curious as Ponies to learn about human culture and technology. Perhaps even more so, since their interest also extended to weapons, tactics, and the history of human wars.

Sildinar nodded his greetings, and deferred to the Earth Pony. She was maroon, with a short cropped white mane streaked with occasional bands of russet, her cutie mark looked to Wrenn like some variation of swirling fall leaves.

“Hello, I’m Autumn Wind. You’ve already met Sildinar, right?”

Wrenn nodded, “I'm Lieutenant Wrenn. Nice to meet you.”

She smiled, “Nice to meet you too. I know you’re here to be given the new Gryphon potion, but we needed someone to do a run through of the new orientation and primer class, and I guess that's you. I promise I’ll try to keep it brief, since your mind is already completely made up.”

Wrenn held up his hands, “Please don’t abbreviate anything, I’m glad to get an opportunity to learn more about both cultures. Its not everyday you get to take a peek at history from another world.”

Autumn smiled, “Then shall we begin? You’ll forgive me if some of this sounds strange, but it’s intended for people coming after you.”

Wrenn gestured for her to continue.

She launched into what was obviously a rehearsed speech. It was *well* rehearsed, but Wrenn could tell it was pre-prepared.

“Welcome! You’re here to be converted, a step that will mark a major turning point in your life. You might be aware that the Conversion Bureaus have recently added a new option; We now have Gryphon potion available for those who can pass an independent screening created and administered by the Gryphons. In light of this, we have a new primer course which all applicants, regardless of their choice in potion, are required to pass through. Hopefully this primer will give you a good look at both races, and help you understand your potential choices.”

Wrenn nodded, “That’s very good!”

Autumn shifted uncomfortably, “I thought it sounded a bit rehearsed.”

Wrenn chuckled, “A little. It was still well worded.”

She smiled, “Well, there’s no particular order to this, so I’ll let Sildinar go first.”

Sildinar picked up a DaTab lying on the table. He thumbed it, and a holoscreen sprang to life on the wall. It was close enough that Wrenn could mostly make it out, but he scooted forward in his chair to clarify the details.

Sildinar tapped the DaTab, and a map filled the screen.

“Your media has told you much about the Equestrian nation, and so I expect you recognize that part of the map, at least in passing. This map, as a whole, is a combined cartograph of the parts of the wider world that have been explored at length by both our species. If you look to the north, you can see the Gryphon Nations.”

Sildinar zoomed in to that part of the map, “Our territory encompasses a great deal of mountainous terrain. Within that space are tundra, forests, hidden valley glades, highlands... in short a wide variety of climates. Our Kingdoms are each independently ruled by, what you might call, a constitutional monarchy, and these monarchs form a council who swear fealty to, and counterbalance, our high king.”

Sildinar stretched out a wing, “We are a flighted species. We are strong, but not as strong nor as durable as an Earth Pony. Our greatest advantage in combat is our speed. Our reflexes are unmatched by most living beings. We are immune to magical meddling, but at the same time we can not cast magic or wield it ourselves. Our hearing is better than human, but not as good as an Equestrian. Our sense of smell is nothing to brag about either. The sense that sets us apart is our sight, which is unparalleled by any living creature.”

Sildinar turned from the screen and reached under the table. He withdrew his sword from where it had been lying on a spare chair, and placed it on the table. It was larger than any human sword Wrenn had ever seen, and he could hear and feel its weight as it came to rest on the faux granite surface.

“We are a warrior culture. Make no mistake; We have artists, poets, singers, writers... we have rich and full lives beyond the hunt and the battlefield. But fighting is also an integral part of us. Fighting for the safety and freedom of lord and land. Fighting for the betterment of our world. The media may have told you that Equestria is a peaceful place free from danger. That may be true of the nation, but not of the world. As a world, Equestria has many dark and unsavory dangers that would throw all into chaos if given the chance. We’re the ones who make sure they never get the chance.”

Sildinar paused to stare into Wrenn’s eyes. Wrenn marveled at the way the light played off the Gryphon’s golden irises.

“If you love peace, and quiet, then perhaps you will find a place in our culture. We too believe there is a time to rest, a time to lay back and be still. But if you desire peace for the rest of your life, unmarred by adventure, or danger, then join the Equestrian nation. Our culture thrives on danger and war as much as we thrive on peace and calm.”

Sildinar glanced at Autumn, “Equestrians espouse friendship as one of the most important things one can possess in life. We think similarly, but our culture approaches the subject differently.
It is difficult to explain to an outsider, but suffice to say, you will not be lonely among our kind.
To a Gryphon, family, whether related by blood or not, is everything.”

Sildinar sat down. Wrenn wondered how Autumn was going to fare, that was a tough act to follow. She stood and cleared her throat, a small demure sound, and then she began, “Life as a Pony is different from what you might expect. It’s true that our lives are generally peaceful, but there is a certain adventure in exploring, and building, and creating a life for yourself among friends. If you choose to take ponification serum, there is no guarantee which species you will become. Unicorns are keepers of knowledge, and great spellcasters. Earth Ponies, like me, are often farmers and builders, but not always. We are very strong and durable. Pegasi, like Gryphons, can fly, and are some of the fastest beings in Equestria. They can also manipulate the weather, and are responsible for controlling it within the bounds of the Equestrian nation.”

She cast a look back at the map, “We are ruled by the royal sisters, Celestia and Luna, who raise the sun and the moon every day and night. With the influx of Converts, our nation is expanding, and there is room for all on the borders, and for those who wish it, there are places in existing settlements as well.”

She glanced down at the sword on the table, “We have no love for conflict, but we are capable of fighting to defend what we love, if necessary. If all goes well, you will never have to experience that, if you choose to become a Pony.”

Autumn looked over at Sildinar, “Both serums amplify and suppress things in your nature. You’re still you, and nothing about what makes you a person changes, but you may find your outlook on life shifted. Ponification suppresses the impulse for conflict, and greed, and amplifies one’s gregarious tendencies. Gryphonization suppresses the desire to do immoral things, and amplifies emotions and conscience. Whatever you choose, choose carefully, because that will be your future.”

Wrenn was impressed, “I have to admit, you’ve definitely piqued my interest. Perhaps I’ll visit a Pony settlement one day. See how you live life.”

Autumns expression told Wrenn that a Gryphon visiting a Pony settlement would be somewhat unusual, but that only strengthened his resolve to try. Wrenn was thrilled at the idea of absorbing another new culture.

Sildinar stood, “If you’re ready, we can begin at once. At this point I would tell a candidate whether they passed my initial evaluation or not. You obviously have.”

Wrenn nodded, “Ok. Lets get started.”

Wrenn rolled over and switched off his alarm clock. Setting it was little more than a precaution. Years of military service had taught him how to wake up exactly when he wanted to.

It was hard for him to believe how quickly the week had passed. The daily routine had reminded him of university, except that the classes consisted of only one student, and the same teacher every day. Sildinar had been a tough task master. Wrenn had learned more about Gryphon history and culture in a week than he could remember from years of Earth History studies.

He also noticed that the Gryphon had been evaluating him at every turn, sometimes throwing him curveball questions about his beliefs, or his outlook on life, or his answer to a moral dilemma.
Judging by Sildinar’s reactions, Wrenn had passed with flying colors.

He had still been able to join the other Gryphons, and Hutch, at the lunch table, despite the hectic nature of his schedule. Sildinar had even made sure to clear the time on Wrenn’s schedule, telling him that when the program went live, candidates would be encouraged to spend time with the other Gryphons in the bureau, both staff and new converts, to get a feel for their social interactions.

Wrenn also suspected that the staff would be evaluating the candidates too.

But he had passed, as far as he knew, and it was at last the fateful day.
Even if he hadn’t been, literally, counting down the minutes, Wrenn would have known by the feeling of anticipation boiling in his gut. He hadn’t been so jittery since his first live fire combat mission.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He certainly wasn’t going to miss the old ones.
He glanced out the window of his quarters. The pre-dawn was a shade of foreboding gray, as always, lit from underneath by the trillions of lights in the city, all a colorless shapeless void to Wrenn.

He wondered what he should do with his meager possessions and his bank account. His military salary hadn’t been that good for most of his career, but a few years Korvan’s stipend had done some favors for his ledger. He just hadn’t done anything with the cash.

He didn’t have an apartment, he had always rented on a weekly basis during leave. He had a storage locker in Phoenix with a few items, none of which could pass through the barrier, and he had his military issue gear, all of which would be turned in at the end of the day. That was it.

In the end, he decided to freeze the account. He might find some use for it later, he expected he’d manage to pay a visit to Earth now and again. The storage container could just sit. There wasn’t much in it, and Wrenn figured it wasn’t worth the trouble to unpack.

As he showered and brushed his teeth, he wondered if Gryphons had to do something to clean their beaks on a daily basis. He figured he’d soon learn. Abruptly, he realized how little the week's courses had conveyed about what to expect from a biological standpoint, and made a mental note to highlight the disparity in his final feedback submission.

Breakfast started out quiet, and lonely. The Gryphons were busy preparing for the press conference, and Hutch had morning duties to attend to, leaving Wrenn alone with his thoughts. He didn’t get too much peace and quiet, however.

Wrenn couldn’t see the man coming, but he could hear the squeak of his shoes on the polished floor. “Reporter? Or Staff?”

The question must have caught the man by surprise, because he paused, “How did you... I thought you couldn’t see?”

Wrenn nodded and tapped his right ear, “Sure can hear though. I've dropped more than one target in the dark by pinpointing their footfalls. By the way your shoes squeak they’re a nice formal pair. So. Reporter, or staff?”

“Reporter. I’m Stanley Carradan, with the Global News Network. I know we were told ‘hands off’ until after the Conversion, but I saw you over here, alone for once, and I couldn’t resist.”

Wrenn snorted, “Well make it quick. Once I’m done here, I have a final physical check.”

The man pulled out a chair and sat down. “You know, you always sit with those Gryphons. Besides the Commander, I’ve never seen any other humans sitting with them. All week long. How did you get to know them?”

“We met under interesting circumstances. They fascinated me, I managed to impress them.”

“So... in other words... classified stuff?”

“Very classified stuff.”

Wrenn could tell Carradan was disappointed. But reporters were a tenacious breed, and Wrenn fully expected him to try and milk the little illicit exclusive for all it was worth.

“If I had to guess, I’d say there’s more to this Conversion. What are they gonna pull on us?”

Wrenn glared. The man was sitting close enough for him to see his face now, “I can’t tell you. Sheesh, is it that hard to wait a couple hours and find out?”

“In my business kid? News is all about getting the scoop first. Sometimes that’s a matter of minutes...”

Wrenn interrupted, “Don’t call me kid. I’ve killed more people than you’ve met in your life, and for every camera you ever faced down, I faced down ten gun barrels.”

“A bit touchy. Nervous?”

“Would you be calm with the idea of having your entire biology taken apart and rearranged at the quantum level?”

“Touché.”

Wrenn shoved his plate away and stood. He was already tired of answering questions, and he expected the evening would be slam full of them.

“I guess I’ll see you after the fact.”

“Yep.”

“Joy.”

All potential Converts had to undergo one last medical exam. While some who sought ponification were suffering deformities, and even debilitating or lethal diseases, the attending physicians still wanted to fully understand any pre-existing conditions before administering potion.

Wrenn was tended to by a human doctor, and the same nurse Pony who had patched him up after the maglev bombing.
He smiled at her, as she worked a blood pressure sensor, “I never got your name.”

“It’s Hart. Racing Hart. Like the deer, not the organ. Though trust me, the puns just never seem to end once I tell people I’m a nurse.”

Wrenn chuckled, “You have to admit, it’s ironic.”

“And a bit frustrating.”

“I can imagine.”

She glanced up from the machine, “Wrenn? Good luck.”

He smiled, “Thanks.”

Hutch, Kephic, Varan, Sildinar, and to Wrenn’s surprise, Celestia, were all waiting for him outside the medical bay.

Hutch jerked his thumb at the Gryphons, “They have some sort of final ceremonial moment they need to have with you. I’m just here to wish you luck.”
He reached out, and Wrenn shook his hand firmly.

“Thank you sir.”

“Hutch.”

“Yes sir.”

The man laughed and stepped back down the hall, “Stop by and say hi once you finish with the reporters.”

“Will do.”

When he had gone, Celestia stepped forward, “Before you begin, may I have a word?”
Wrenn nodded. The Alicorn amended her statement, much to everyone’s surprise, “Privately.”
The Gryphons seemed willing to defer, however, so Celestia set off down the hall at a slow walk.

Wrenn followed. For a few moments they didn't speak, then the Princess broke the silence, “Isaac Wrenn, you’re no fool. By now I’m sure you have, like many converts of sharp mind, several pressing questions that few others think to ask.”

He nodded, “Yeah... A few thoughts occurred to me. For one thing, I’ve often wondered how you are going to deal with the better part of eight billion people immigrating to your world. For another, I don’t think you’ve put all your cards on the table. I think you have bigger ambitions than just giving us another option, though I don’t doubt altruism is a major factor.”

Celestia laughed, “As to the first question, Equestria’s surface area is already one and a half times the size of Earth, and will soon grow to be much larger. Space is no concern. If you’re referring to cultural issues, and the populations of the various races in my world... well... one of the less altruistic reasons for this new option is keeping the numbers balanced.”

Wrenn nodded. He had theorized along those lines, but it was nice to hear confirmation directly from the horse's mouth. Literally.

Celestia glanced past Wrenn out the large bank of windows that took up one wall of the corridor, “As to your second question, no. I haven’t put all my cards on the table. If I did, I don’t think it would go over very well. Most species, mine and yours included, need time to adjust to drastic change. If I wasn’t patient, the instability caused by my actions would be unimaginable.
The idea is to save whoever we can, and benefit both sides in the process. Not cause chaos and disharmony through ineptitude.”

Wrenn nodded again, Celestia continued, “Isaac... I’m going to show you one of my cards. You’re about to become the first of many humans who will choose Gryphonization, and as such you have a great deal of influence, whether you realize it or not, and whether you want it or not, on both sides of the barrier. I feel as though you need to know something few others do, because you can do good with the knowledge.”

That made Wrenn nervous. Being taken into the confidence of what amounted to an Equine demi-god was not something they covered in basic. He swallowed, “Alright. Shoot.”

Celestia stopped and turned to face him, “Once, further back than our recorded history goes, Ponies and Gryphons shared a much closer friendship. We lost hold of that in the intervening dark ages of chaos. Our collision with your world has changed many things. Our nation is expanding again, at an unprecedented rate. And beyond our borders, the world grows to encompass new and uncharted things. Things even I know nothing of.”

She stared at Wrenn, her eyes boring into his, impressing upon him the gravity of her words, “There is much change, and uncertainty, in our future. To thrive, we need to stand together. Not just as individual races, but as fellow beings. We need the old alliances. We need a world where Ponies and Gryphons can live, and work together.”

Wrenn shivered, “So *that’s* what the primer course is all about. You’re trying to slowly bring your kind, and theirs, back into contact. Let friendships form---”

She nodded, “---form naturally. Yes.”

“And you want me to... what? help this along whenever I can?”

She nodded again and smiled, “If you’re willing.”

Wrenn shrugged, “Well... I’ve met Ponies and Gryphons now. I’ve known a few of both enough to get a feel for their way of thinking, if nothing else. And I certainly agree with you... if you’re facing a frontier type situation, you need the friendship of beings with a little more fight in them. Do you think all the...” Wrenn searched for a good metaphor but couldn’t find one, “... the ‘bad vibes’ that your kind has for Gryphons can be overcome?”

Celestia inclined her head, “In the grand scheme of things, it’s only a minor cultural stigma, born more of fear of the unknown than anything. Gryphon culture is unique, and very different from ours, but I believe we can learn to get along, and get along very well at that.”

“Well.. If I can help, then I will.”

She smiled, “Thank you, Isaac Wrenn.”

The Conversion room was essentially a stark white rectangular prism. The walls, ceiling, floor, and even the inner surface of the door, were coated in a slick, reflective, pure white bio-phobic material that wouldn’t even hold on to the oil from a fingerprint.

To one side was a vacuformed biobed of the same material, with a medical sensor cluster suspended above it. The biobed was clearly designed to fit something bigger than a human.

Against the opposite wall was a dark gray cabinet with a thick, locked sliding door.
Lighting came from two almost invisible slits at floor level, and two slits at ceiling level, all at the junctions of the walls, which projected enough luminescence to eliminate all shadows.

The back wall was covered in holo-screen projected medical data, except for a small alcove near the corner that served as a changing room, which was set apart by a sliding opaque panel.

Kephic, Sildinar, and Varan had managed to find standing space in the room despite the presence of Wrenn, and a human doctor. Wrenn sat on the edge of the biobed, facing the three Gryphons.

Sildinar stepped forward, coming eye to eye with him, “Isaac Wrenn. You have passed our evaluation of your character and spirit. We are ready to accept you into our kind. Are you prepared for the responsibilities and the dangers that come with this decision?”

“I am.”

“Then, we look forward to welcoming you to our species.”
Sildinar gripped Wrenn’s shoulders once, Kephic and Varan did likewise, then left the room.

Then Wrenn was alone with the doctor and Sildinar.

The Gryphon went over to the cabinet, entered a long combination and provided his biometrics.
The door slid open to reveal a stack of plastic cups, and one Gryphonization potion cylinder.

Sildinar unscrewed the lid, and poured a third of the liquid into one of the cups.
The glow was strong enough to shine through the plastic.

While the Gryphon was busy doing that, the doctor handed Wrenn a medical slip made of disposable paper, “You should get changed into this.”
Wrenn took the garment and stepped into the alcove.

He pulled the small sliding panel shut, and shed his uniform.
It struck him that it was the last time he would ever remove it.
He slid into the paper medical gown, and returned to the main room.

The doctor moved over to the holo-screens, and nodded his assent.
Everything was ready.

No more tests, no more obstacles, no more waiting.

Sildinar handed Wrenn the cup, “I’m glad its going to be you. It wouldn’t have felt right if the first outsider to join our kind had been someone we hardly knew.”

Wrenn looked down at the golden potion. He had been fantasizing about the moment from the second he first laid eyes on the stuff. It had finally arrived.

“Thank you again. For everything you did to bring me here. For being my friend.”

Sildinar smiled, “It was my pleasure.”

“Will I dream?”

“No one knows for sure.”

“Guess I’ll find out...”

With that, Wrenn put the cup to his lips, turned his head back, and swallowed all the potion in a single go. He lay back on the table as the sedatives set in, and he just had time to note that the potion tasted a bit like liquid chestnut.

Wrenn got the answer to his question instantly.
He had heard all about the dream newfoals experienced when they drank standard potion, but he knew it wasn’t necessarily applicable to Gryphons.

What he was seeing was, from what he had heard of the ponification dream, a completely different experience.

The sensation of flight came first. The feel of the wind, the vague idea that the ground was passing by beneath him...
Then the darkness lifted and a blurry view of the world came into being.

There were mountains, some so high no vegetation could grow, others covered in verdant forests that stretched down into hidden valleys, broken only by the occasional lake or river. Above, the sky was a perfect shade of blue. Something Wrenn had never seen before, not in person.

He couldn’t quite feel his body, but he got the idea there were wings behind him. As he flew on, apparently by instinct alone, a settlement came into view. The architecture, blurry though his vision was, astounded him. It looked like something Celtic, but it was built of granite and marble, carved right out of the face of a mountain, with staggering scale and sophistication, and all shaped from swooping organic curves that seemed impossible for stonework.

Wrenn could see Gryphons, coming and going. He was only dimly aware of what they were doing, but the impression they conveyed was vibrant; a living breathing civilization going about its daily routine.

Suddenly he was among them, images and half formed sensations coming and going so quickly that each blurred into the next, leaving only emotions behind. Fighting, hunting, eating and drinking together, creating, exploring... and all throughout the overwhelming sensation of camaraderie. The feeling of family; brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and fathers, each dedicated to him with the same loyalty with which he was dedicated to them.

Just when Wrenn thought that the emotional whirlwind might overwhelm him, the darkness came again.

The first sensation to hit him was the sound of the medical equipment. A soft whirr, punctuated at intervals by beeps from the readouts.

Sound was quickly followed by smell; the antiseptic tang of cleaning solution, exactly the same as it had been when he entered the room.

Then suddenly Wrenn was aware of his body. For a split second his brain panicked. There were so many new sensations. As his mind began to calm down and sort out the new inputs, he became aware of a dull ache between his shoulder blades.

He rolled over onto his stomach, almost reflexively, and the pressure let off instantly.
The realization that he must have been lying on his wings.... his *wings,* brought him fully back to consciousness.

His eyes snapped open, and the world assaulted him with color, and shapes, and textures, and light. The room was white, with very little color to punctuate it, but to Wrenn it was awash in varying hues. The lights were just a shade off of pure white, creating an interplay of subtle yellows in their reflections along the walls. The holo-screens cast blues and greens and even a few reds all over the room, leaving little traces of color that made even the hard technological edges of the environment seem to come alive.

Wrenn could see details at a level he never imagined possible. Imperfections in the vacuformed plastic of the biobed, pits in the heads of the screws at the corners of the potion cabinet, individual sub-pixels in the holo screens, he could see it all as a whole, and yet review each tiny detail in every object in the room in less time than it took to form the thought.

He tried to sit up, and promptly careened off the bed and onto the floor, ramming his head into the wall in the process.
“Ouch! Dammit!”

The doctor bent down to see if he was all right, “You shouldn’t try to stand. Your brain is still adjusting to the input from your new inner ear.”

“Fantastic. Tell the next guy that *before* he tries to get up.”

His voice had deepened. Not enough to be surprising, but enough to be just ever so slightly noticeable.

Wrenn was suddenly aware that he had a beak. No teeth, no lips, just a sharp yellow beak.
His throat was doing all the work of making the sounds his teeth and lips would have once been responsible for, his beak was just moving in time to the words.

He dimly recalled once being told that birds had something called a ‘syrinx’ that made them capable of replicating polyphonic sounds entirely in their throat.

He glanced down and back at his own body and jolted sharply.
He was red, two tones of it, but he was definitely red. Mostly a shade of dark maroon, but with brighter red chest fur and feathers, and trimming on his ears and wings.

His wings.

That was going to take some time to process.
He experimentally flexed them, but discovered that he couldn’t put them out to even half their length in the confined space of the Conversion room.

“Holy cow...” he mumbled softly to himself.

He took stock of his legs, did some thinking, then made another attempt to stand.
The second time he managed to make it to a quadrupedal position. That gave him a chance to glance down at his paws and claws. They had sprung into being fully formed, and wickedly sharp. His back paws were covered in the same red fur as his body, but his forelegs changed over to scales like an eagle’s leg, ending in dexterous four digit claws with opposable ‘thumbs.’

He decided to get the hang of walking on four legs before trying to switch to two and test out the talons. There would be plenty of time for learning the ropes.

He took a cautionary step, and found that as long as he didn’t concentrate too hard on it, his body seemed to know what it was doing all on its own.

He did his best to disengage and just let his legs do the work, and suddenly he was at the door.
“So. Clean bill of health?”

The doctor nodded, “As near as I can tell. You’ll have to stop back by the medical wards later. We have a doctor coming in from Equestria who specializes in Gryphon biology. He will need to give you a complete workup, to make sure you’re as healthy as you look.”

Wrenn nodded, “Thanks.”

He reached up and tapped the door control with his right claw, only losing his balance part way in the process.

Outside, Kephic, Varan, Sildinar, and Skye were waiting for him.

“Skye?”

She nodded, “Yep! I wanted to see how ya turned out. You turned out great, by the way.”

Kephic gave him what he assumed was a bear hug. It mostly involved the wings.
“Welcome.”

Wrenn smiled, “Glad to be here... I... I’m not even sure how to begin processing it all it's...”
He looked beyond his friends, out the windows, across the gap between the Bureau and the next building over, and into the corresponding room in that building.

He could, if he focused, still see details as small as a millimeter.
He became so entranced experimenting with his new eyes that Skye had to shake him out of it.

“Uh.. hey.... Earth to Gryphon... helooooo?”
Wrenn shook himself, “Sorry... its just... trying to get used to being able to see again. And the telescopic vision... Wow...”

Sildinar nodded, “Understandable. I imagine it would be quite a change for someone with average human vision, how much more someone who has been deprived of most of his vision for so long?”

Varan clapped him on the shoulder. Wrenn suddenly realized he was able to look any of the Gryphons in the eye without tilting his head up. “You’d best adjust fast. The press is getting anxious.”

Wrenn groaned, “I’m going to need a few minutes. I can barely open a door without falling flat on my beak.”

Kephic laughed, “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”

Wrenn breathed deeply, noticing for the first time, the feel of the ventilation system against his feathers. It reminded him of the dream, in a small subtle way.
“All the same, I’d like ten or fifteen minutes to get the feel for... well... everything.”

Sildinar nodded, “You might want to start thinking about what you’ll say too.”

“Oh. Yeah. That.
*Shoot*...”

Chapter 11

Since the press had taken over the front steps and lobby of the Bureau once more, Wrenn had come down to the newfoal quarters, which played host to new Converts and the native Equestrians staying at the Bureau.

The floor had a few small lounges of its own, made a good walking or running circuit, and none of the press would be there, making it perfect for Wrenn’s purposes.

Somewhere on the same level, construction crews were hard at work extending the facilities to incorporate appropriately sized and designed living spaces for new Gryphon converts, unaware as to exactly why these new rooms had to be built to such peculiar specifications.

After figuring out how to comfortably sit on his haunches in a chair, curl up and lie down, stand without falling, and use one of his claws from a quadrupedal stance without doing a faceplant, Wrenn had begun to practice walking longer distances by moving between the lounges.

There weren’t many newfoals there during the day, most were in classes, but those that were visible, and the native Equestrians, gave him a wide berth. Wrenn tried to shoot them a friendly smile whenever they looked his way, and a few returned the gesture.

Once had had successfully managed to make a circuit of the entire floor twice, Wrenn decided to try jogging. The first time, he concentrated too hard and ended up launching himself face first into a sofa, eliciting a few muffled guffaws, followed closely by curious looks, from nearby Ponies. Wrenn was glad of the durability and pain tolerance of his new beak.

The second time, his legs started to work in concert, but he found himself focusing too hard again, and he ended up doing the equivalent of a belly flop into the carpet. He was suddenly grateful for the new layers of feathers and fur protecting his skin. The last time he had gotten rug burn had been when he was a kid, but he could still remember how much it had hurt.

Against his feathers and fur, the texture of the carpet was definitely a strong sensation, but it didn’t leave behind any sort of lasting pain or discomfort. He discovered, lying there, that his fur was not like human hair, it had a much stronger nervous system connection that let him feel more sensations of touch and texture, but at the same time seemed to be less oversensitive; the sensations were strong but not demanding, and filtered against pain.

On the third attempt he succeeded in distracting himself by chanting, under his breath.
The words were old, but simple, a holdover from the spiritual predecessor to Earthgov Special Forces, “One two three four, I love the Marine Corps. One two three four, I love the Marine Corps...”

As long as he focused on the rhythm instead of actually trying to control his legs, he found that they worked in perfect synchronization. He wasn’t so much jogging as loping, and he suddenly realized just how fast he was going; as a human he would have been forced to run flat-out to keep up with the pace he was currently setting, and that was just an easy accelerated stride.

Disaster nearly struck as he passed the next lounge. The rooms were an extension of the hallway, a curved bulge with exterior windows filling one wall, generally populated by tables, sofas, and floor cushions.

Wrenn spied a familiar face occupying one of the cushions, and he stopped to join her.
That would have been the end of it, except that he thought too hard about stopping, defaulted to the old two-legged method, and nearly tumbled into a wall before his body instinctively corrected for him. In the end, he managed to just skid on his paw pads, and the slick part of his fore-claws, until friction stopped him.

Wrenn shook himself, and stepped into the lounge, “Hey Callie. Long time no see.”
He certainly wasn't expecting the welcome he received.

With a sound that was more of a shocked squeak than anything, he suddenly felt a pair of hooves connect squarely with his beak. Being an Earth Pony, Callie had a very strong kick, and Wrenn was still trying to cement his sense of balance.
He nearly ended up flat on his back, but to his amazement, his muscles stepped in once again, reflexively, and righted him.

As he straightened up, he caught a glimpse of her tail disappearing around a corner.
He raised his voice, “Hey! hold up!” The sound probably carried to half the floor, his throat could produce quite a ruckus now. He hadn’t intended to be quite so loud.

Wrenn set off to follow her at a more sedate pace, hoping not to frighten the little Pony.
She was standing around the corner, looking as intimidating as she could manage, but Wrenn’s eyes could pick out the hidden tells of fear, even panic, "Who are you? What do you want?"

He mentally kicked himself. She probably hadn’t had time to recognize him, and now she was too keyed up to make the connection on her own.
“Its me. ‘Soldier man.’ I wasn’t trying to scare you, but hey... you need to work on your people skills. Socking someone to the beak isn’t exactly love and tolerance.”

"S-soldier...man...?"

“Uhuh. In the flesh. Well... in the feathers now.”

"Wha-what happened!? You got turned into a..." she looked him up and down,
"...Griffin!?” She paused, “Did the ponification process have a glitch?”

Wrenn chuckled, “No no... I’m not even sure that’s possible... No this was intentional. You remember I said they showed me something I couldn’t tell you about? This is it. I’m supposed to go live on the news in about ten minutes. I’m the first. First human to become a Gryphon.”

As he said it, the enormity of it hit home again. He was no longer human. He had wings, a tail, claws, golden eyes, feathers even.

She blinked at him for a moment, "It really is you then." She sat down, giving him a sheepish smile, "Sorry for kicking you. Reflex reaction to getting pounced on."

Wrenn smiled, “My fault really. I should have known you wouldn’t recognize me immediately. Good thing my skull is even thicker now. The beak helps too.”

She nodded, looking a bit nervously at the aforementioned sharp protrusion, "So what's it like? Being all feathery?"

Wrenn shook his head, “Hard to describe. The eyes are just *incredible*! I haven’t figured out the wings yet... But I’m really looking forward to it, that’s for sure. I feel strong enough to bend steel, but I’m still getting the hang of letting the body drive. The sensations... Is this how life is for you? Seeing and feeling so much?”

"I couldn't say. I've never been a griffin. But I love being me, if that's what you're asking."

Wrenn inclined his head, “True. So what do you think?”
He spread his wings, this time to their full extent.

"Ooh, pretty..." she closed the distance between them with a quick, peppy trot and nuzzled the feathers a bit curiously, "I've wished I was a pegasus at times...being able to fly... So you haven’t flown yet?"

“No.. I think that’s something to try after I’ve had another night’s sleep and some time to practice walking more. But if you want to fly, I could always look into getting you a VTOL ride. And have you considered jetpacks? Not the most elegant solution, but hey...”

"Last time I tried something like that, I sort of got into an argument with a tree..."
She winced, “...And lost."

Wrenn shook his head, “That doesn’t sound fun. But the offer still stands. VTOL pilots generally don’t tangle with trees. Though I was in one that had ‘an argument with a tree.’ I’m still here, but the VTOL isn't, not in one piece anyhow. So I guess you could call it a draw.”

She nodded sympathetically, "Well, I ship out tomorrow for Equestria. After some recent events, I was told that it would probably be best if I went somewhere less dangerous..."
As she spoke, Wrenn noticed a small flecked marking across her flank that almost looked like a burn in the final stages of healing.

He shrugged, “Well, all the Bureaus are under increased military protection now. But things are standoffish with the PER, which means the HLF usually isn’t far behind. This time it’s different. Bigger. As much as we’ve done our best to make things safe again, I don’t blame you for wanting to go home.”
He paused, then gestured to the vanishing wound, “That happen during the evac?”

She flicked her ears back. "Sort of. I was trying to help during the PER attack, but there was an explosion and I got caught in it. Someone grabbed me and got me to safety, but not before I got singed. The doctor suggested I head home to recover from 'mental trauma' or something."

Wrenn’s ears flicked back as well, a emotional reaction not unlike the frown on his beak, “You *should* have followed the evac order. War is my territory, leave the combat zone to me.”

His face softened and his ears perked up, “Though speaking of home, where do you live? I’ll pay you a visit when I get to Equestria and find some free time. I know Gryphons visiting Pony settlements is unconventional, but it’s not exactly taboo or anything.”

"Ponyville, for now. I'm moving around a bit. Just be careful you don't scare everypony when you drop in." She shot him one of her smiles, pure and joyful; a sharp contrast to the fake grimaces, and dull expressions he had been party to so recently in the halls of power. Somehow he was reminded of Commander Aston, during her more relaxed moments.

“Well, you had all better get used to...” he paused, savoring the words, “...my kind. The more you push the frontiers, the more of us will be coming to live with you to provide protection.”
He smirked, “If you have someone you really want to prank though, I imagine I’ll be much better at the pouncing thing by the time I come to call.”

She giggled, “That might be interesting... I'll consider it. In the meantime, my transport leaves in five minutes. I'd better get down there. Until I see you next, Wrenn. Be careful."
She gently headbutted his chest.

He gave her a quick hug, encircling her with one wing, "You too. The more the barrier expands, the longer the trip gets, or so they tell me. Stay safe."
He glanced down at her burn again, “I mean it. No silly heroics. You have friends, here and at home, and none of them want to have to come scrape you off the pavement and stitch you back together. I expect to find you happy and healthy and in one piece when I visit. Got it?”

She nodded, her bow flopping with the movement, "Got it."

As he descended in the lift, Wrenn thought about Callie, and the journey she had ahead of her.

When the barrier had first appeared, getting to Equestria was relatively simple; a Convert would take a transport ship to the barrier, then transfer to an Equestrian ship which would take them to an Equestrian port.

Even after several years of expansion, all that had appeared on the Equestrian side, in most places, was more ocean. True there were areas where the main continent had begun to expand dramatically, but there were still large swaths of safe ocean to journey over as well.

After several months of observation, scientists had made a chilling discovery; the relationship of Equestrian space to Earth space was not one to one. For every meter of Earth consumed, Equestria was gaining 1.7 meters.

Complicating matters; two years prior, new land masses had begun to appear, proving the longstanding theory that Earth’s space was being completely consumed and altered as it was swallowed by the bubble.

Oceans were still easily accessible on the other side of the barrier, but scientists were starting to paint a grim collage of predictions; in another few decades the Equestrian nation proper would be thousands of miles journey from the inner barrier edge. By the end of the bubble’s expansion, the remaining circle of Earth would be further from the capital of Canterlot than the distance between New York and Singapore three times over.

Wrenn wondered how they were going to cope with that morbid fact. Even if one could find a safe water route, there was no guarantee that there wouldn’t be hostile forces along the way, and the distance would make the trip prohibitively long by sailing vessel.

Celestia had recently reassured the media that a joint team of magicians and scientists were working on the problem, and that a solution was close, but she never seemed willing to say just what they were doing.

Wrenn trusted her, especially after having met her, and given that Earth scientists and Equestrian magicians had met with so much success in their past joint ventures, he had no doubt that the issue would be laid to rest before the end of the year.

The lift arrived at ground level, and the doors opened to a mercifully empty lobby.
The press was swarming outside, likely filming some sort of introductory speech from Celestia.
As he stepped out of the lift, Wrenn could actually hear the Princess’s voice, muffled as it was by the walls of the building. Perhaps Gryphon ears weren’t as acute as a Pony’s, but they were certainly a step up from human.

Wrenn immediately noticed that the other Gryphons were waiting for him by the doors.
The glass had been electro-tinted, so the press couldn’t see in, and no one inside could see out, in theory. Wrenn found that if he concentrated, that his gaze could pierce the artificial opacity and pick out a reasonable approximation of what was outside.

As he walked to join them, Wrenn re-appraised the three Gryphons with his new eyes. He had seen them outside the Conversion room of course, but he had been so dazzled he hadn’t thought to seriously examine his friends’ features in full color and resolution.

Varan and Kephic were carrying on a conversation, and Wrenn quickly discovered that his new eyes enabled him to see all sorts of complex emotional indicators on their faces and in their bodies. Like a Pony’s face, a Gryphon’s face produced many of the same expressions as a human’s, but there were even more emotional markers, such as ears, the position of the head crest, the tilt of the feathers around the eyes, and the tenseness of the muscles in the legs.

Wrenn found that his mind was naturally picking up on an interpreting those new signals. He had thought the Gryphons expressive before, but suddenly it was as if he could read their entire complex emotional state from a glance. Looking at Sildinar, Wrenn couldn’t pick up on any of the new tells, however, so he assumed that if they wanted to, they could mask or turn off most of the visible signs.

Wrenn made a mental note to ask the Gryphon to teach him how to put on such a stoic visage, should the need ever arise. He was also curious to know if Gryphons could pick up on human tells as easily as their own, and as easily as he had picked up on Callie’s, but he was going to find that out for himself soon enough.

As he arrived at the group, another new oddity struck him; his mind was moving at variable speeds. When he had noticed the new information he was seeing and interpreting, he had mentally stopped to examine it more closely. That had taken, he could have sworn, ten or twelve minutes. But he had never stopped walking, changed his pace, or broken his stride, so the entire chain of thought had to have occurred within several seconds at most.

Now that he was closer, and wasn’t concentrating on any one thing, time seemed to be moving at the same pace as always. Wrenn had experienced the phenomenon in battle before, but it had never been something he could control, and it had never reached such an extent. It had always been an effect that lasted four or five seconds, dilating that time into ten or twelve.

What he could access was a whole new level of perception and thought, and he wondered if that was how Varan had managed to hold off so many PER soldiers for so long without taking any damage himself.
If he was literally capable of thinking minutes’ worth of thoughts in the span of a second, he could easily evaluate his enemies, their armament, their motives and intentions, and plan a series of counterattacks before they could process the initial neurological impulse to raise their weapons.

His speed of perception and movement would then let him execute his plan at an accelerated pace that an average opponent couldn’t even stay abreast of, robbing them of the ability to defend themselves properly.

Wrenn wondered what a fight between Gryphons, or between a Gryphon and a similarly endowed species, would look like. Before, he wouldn’t have been able to appreciate it, but he found himself anxious to see the results, given that he could process them and learn something from the experience.

He felt oddly childish in his new state; most of his past military training would be useful, but not until he had adapted it and learned more about his body and the way it worked. For a moment, that left him the equivalent of a rookie again.

He realized he had missed most of the conversation between Varan and Kephic, but his ears hadn’t. If he thought about it, he could recall the entire portion he had heard, even though he hadn’t been concentrating on it at the time.

Wrenn had heard of humans who could do that, but as far as he knew it was a fully innate species trait of the Gryphon brain.

He moved to join the group, “They ready for us?”

Kephic snorted, “Define ready. Ready, as in, is the press anxious and ready to see us? by all means. If you mean ready, as in, is their world ready for this? That’s open for debate.”

Wrenn noticed that Kephic said ‘their’ instead of ‘your’ and somehow that made him feel both strange and pleased simultaneously.

Varan shook his head, “You’re underestimating their capacity for adaptation. I think it will go over quite well.”

Wrenn glanced at Sildinar, the question inherent to his expression.
Sildinar inclined his head, “I agree with Varan from the standpoint of opinion, but I refuse to make any technical judgements until I’ve seen the press reaction for myself. Do you have some idea of what you will say?”

Wrenn nodded, “Nothing exact, but I think I can work it out as I go.”

Sildinar nodded, “Good. I’ll introduce you, then it’s your speech.”

Wrenn raised both eyebrows, “No pressure then. And Sildinar? Make it good. The PER and the HLF will be watching, and I’ll bet my stipend neither of them wanted this to happen. I think we should rub it in. Make a show of it. Let them know we like to come out swinging.”

Sildinar nodded abruptly, “Agreed.”

The four Gryphons stepped to the doors and waited. This close they could hear Celestia’s words, and she would make it obvious when she was finished. They only had to wait a moment, she had timed her formalities perfectly, not too long, not too short.

As she stepped to the side of the doors, they exited, Sildinar first, Wrenn last.
That in and of itself caused a stir in the press. Wrenn noticed it, but he was too busy to analyze it. He walked out onto the top step and nearly froze.

He had to make a conscious effort to keep walking while still taking it all in.

All the years with implants had dulled Wrenn’s impressions of space. Everything beyond two meters had been homogeneous, some shade of blue, and so much of an eyesore that he tried not to look at it unless he had to. Consequently, he had come to think of the outside as a bigger inside, with the exception of sun days, when the color coming down off the more normal sky made everything seem a bit livelier within his normal vision range.

But with vision that could see to the horizon and scope out the pits on a golf ball at four kilometers, outside was a whole new world. It would have been stunning if Wrenn had been upgrading from human eyes to Gryphon, but he had suffered years of forced digital isolation.

All at once he could truly see the sky, pick out individual patterns in the clouds, see the way the light from the invisible sun fell off across buildings all the way to the hazy line where earth and sky met. The range of colors alone was enough to be blinding. True the world was mostly grays, teals, and silvers where the more modern buildings stood, but to someone stuck in one end of the spectrum it was like seeing nature itself for the first time.

After the color, the scope hit him. Computer graphics tended to create a flat perception of space. But with the capacity to pick out every detail on every object in sight with binocular vision, then compare that to the entire picture as a whole, the sense of scale was mind boggling.

For the first time in his life, Wrenn really did appreciate the engineering marvels of New York.
Maybe the skyscrapers were poor substitutes for the forests of old, but at that moment they were the single most beautiful thing Wrenn had ever seen.

He traced the path of light falloff as it bounced between the megalithic reflective structures, and inwardly his heart ached. He almost had to look away, it was such a shock. He had expected the sensation of freedom, being able to see and feel the world properly, but he hadn’t prepared himself for the emotional impact of truly living *in* the world again.

He must have felt the wind tunnel effect of the breezes coming down from between the mega-skyscrapers hundreds of times, but suddenly the sensation seemed new, and thrilling, and important. The way the wind passed between the feathers on his face, and ruffled the fur on his back and sides, was feeding his new instincts all kinds of incredible information.

Somehow, he knew it was going to rain in less than five hours but not sooner than two, that it would be a large thunderstorm, and that it would come from the north.

Wrenn tried to break it down, force his brain to analyze and trace the inputs, but the best guess he could muster was that whatever new instincts came with his brain were taking their information from a combination of the wind speed, wind direction, moisture in the air, and barometric pressure.
How he was aware of the latter was a complete mystery.

He remembered someone telling him that Pegasi could infallibly sense the weather, but their connection was magical. This was most definitely biological data being put through an instinct so primal and well honed that it could provide more accurate predictions than a computer, though likely not infallible.

As Wrenn finished inspecting the information his instincts were offering him, he was suddenly hit by the sounds. Being out of doors, the sounds matched the scope of the environment. Rather than bleeding together into the white noise most human ears picked up in a big city, he could start to separate out strands of sound; the varying pitches of car engines telling him what size vehicles were on the road, the whine of an overpassing passenger jet, and the thrum of the fan system somewhere behind the Bureau that provided heating and cooling.

It wasn’t perfect, he could still detect a threshold at which certain noises were too garbled to be made sense of, but it was still awe inspiring, especially when taken in conjunction with what he was seeing. Somehow his mind was assigning the sounds concrete sources, and he could feel them emanating from either spots behind or to the side of him, or places he could see in front of him. That only served to magnify the sense of scale the world projected.

It was the sounds that finally brought Wrenn back to reality; he realized a great deal of what he was hearing could be attributed to miscellaneous noise from the mob of reporters and press that occupied the rest of the steps.

He decided to shelve the exploration of his senses once more, and pay attention.
Sildinar was going to call on him to speak soon, and babbling inanely wouldn’t exactly do what he was experiencing justice.

The golden hued Gryphon stepped up to the bank of microphones the press had setup.
They were set well for his height, given that they had been calibrated for Celestia.
“Greetings. I am Sildinar, and I am a representative of my kind here to introduce a friend.
As you know, our species inhabits parts of Equestria to the north of Celestia’s realm. Like Pony kind, we value our friends, and we care for our own. Unlike Ponies, we can and do fight militarily for what we love, and we do it gladly.”

He paused and swept the crowd of camera lenses with his piercing gaze, “We aided in the defense of this very Bureau when it was recently attacked, and the PER was most certainly not ready for us. We do not engage in warfare lightly, nor half heartedly, and we consider your species to be friends. For some time, we have had secret accords with your government, kept this way in order to facilitate this moment. Because of this, we consider the PER and the HLF to be combatants, aggressive enemy armies. And so today, we go to war, first with our words, then with the actions that follow, and then with weapons and beak and claws.”

He paused to let the words sink in, “Humanity knows little of us, but we intend to remedy that. You will doubtless have many questions about the nature of our lifestyle, our mentality, and our culture, which we will happily answer.”

He glanced back at Wrenn briefly, “First, I wish to answer a more poignant question. You are curious as to why you’re here. Why would you be asked to cover the conversion of a soldier, an event so similar to the many who have gone before, and the many who will come after, that it is hardly noteworthy to you?”

He stared at several cameras in turn, “Because this conversion is not like any that have gone before, and sets the precedent for many that will come after. Because this conversion is our first act of war, and more importantly, it is a new gift to your kind.” Sildinar gestured to Wrenn.

His heart was racing. Not with anxiety, but with something akin to the thrill of battle.
Making history was a chance very few beings in the universe got, and Wrenn was overwhelmed that he was one of the few.

He stepped forward to the podium.

“Hello. To date, the Conversion Bureaus have offered you escape from your impending extinction through Ponification, and exclusively through Ponification. Today marks the first day where that is no longer the case. Today, you have a new option. I’m Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn; and incase you missed it... I am a Gryphon.”

The sudden silence only reigned for a tenth of a second, before it was deafeningly supplanted by a chorus of questions. A mad scramble for answers.

Wrenn raised his voice to be heard, and the effect, amplified via the microphones, overbore even the thunderous clamor.

“I *know* you have questions....” silence again, “...That’s why we’re here.”
He gestured to each of his friends in turn, “Sildinar, Varan, Kephic...” he jabbed his ‘thumb’ talon back at his own chest, “...and myself are here to give you a complete picture of this alternative to Ponification. I can tell you right now, it’s a very different future. Ponification dampens aggression, but we are an aggressive species. Ponification is free to all, but Gryphonization has a set of requirements.”

Wrenn raised his voice slightly again, to ensure no one interrupted him, “I understand that may be unpopular at first, but our species lives by a strong sense of morality, and we have no desire to bring anyone into our kind who doesn’t already have a strong moral compass. Some of you won’t wish to join us, our lives are made up equal parts of peace, and war, or the hunt.
This is not an adventure for the timid, or those seeking an eternally peaceful life.”

He imitated Sildinar, sweeping the crowd of lenses with his gaze. He hoped he was coming across as partly intimidating, partly outgoing, and partly awe inspiring, though he was afraid he was just coming off as hot air.

“This is an adventure for those who aren’t ready to hang up the sword for the plow. For those who believe in fighting for a greater cause. For those who want to be able to get up, and knock upstarts like the PER and the HLF on their collective ass, because they threaten our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness. I expect to have days of peace, to settle down sometimes, and maybe write, or learn to sketch. To become part of a rich culture. But I also expect to be able to get up and heft a sword, or a rifle, when its time. To answer the call of battle.”

Wrenn stared into several lenses in turn, trying for a slightly less intimidating expression, “When I stepped into that conversion room this morning, I could barely see. Now I can see every hair on the head of every reporter, camera tech, and sound guy out there. What is it like to be a Gryphon? Like nothing I can easily describe. Simple words do it a grievous injustice, but its all I have. Imagine feeling like you’ve just stepped out of a fog, and into the real world, for the first time in your whole life. Imagine knowing that you’re part of something, that the very nature of your species means that you have family; brothers and sisters.”

He swept the crowd again, “The PER wants to take away your choice. Your free will.
Celestia, and the Bureaus, and the Gryphon Kingdoms? They’ve just *given* you a new choice.
And take it from me, its a *good* one.”

Wrenn stepped back, and Celestia returned to the podium to deliver closing remarks.
Wrenn and the other Gryphons stood beside her, two on each side, until she was finished.
The moment she was done, the five of them hustled back into the Bureau.

The crush of reporters was instantaneous and violent, and none of them wanted to be swept up in it. Wrenn guessed that most of the next day would be exclusives, panels, and interviews, with barely a break for food.

For the first time, Wrenn decided he wanted the attention. Not for his own sake, but so that he could make more attempts at describing what he was feeling, and seeing, and experiencing.
He wanted others like him to see the good in Gryphonization. He wanted it to succeed, more than ever.

Once the doors had been secured, Celestia smiled at him, “Well done Isaac.”
Sildinar nodded his assent, “You sell yourself short on your speaking skills.”

Wrenn shrugged, “I didn’t think it was *that* good.”

Kephic punched him lightly in the shoulder, “You’re kidding, right? That was a fantastic speech. Even Varan thought so.”

Varan grinned, ever so slightly.

Wrenn yawned, a maneuver that opened his beak wide, “Well, I’m not sure about the rest of you but I’m starved. They say Conversion burns up all the energy in your metabolism, and I could use something fresh and meat related. And I really want to learn how to eat with a beak.”

The final remark elicited laughs all around.

Chapter 12

Vandenberg Air Force Base had endured for over a century. It had survived the global collapse, budget cuts, changes in governmental structure, and the total reconstruction of the Earth’s armed forces under a single banner.

Under Earthgov it served primarily as a cargo terminus for military shipments; food, munitions, and medical supplies, all headed for bases, ships, and warehouses. Its usual daily visitors included CAA-7 Cargo Jets, Support Airships, and several of the larger types of VTOL used by the military for heavy lift missions.

Mr. Utah finished off his second cigarette, dropped it to the tarmac, and stamped it out with the shiny black heel of his right shoe. He was completely at odds with his environment. A man in an expensive suit standing in the taxiway of a military cargo airport, surrounded by corrugated steel, gray concrete, and the thrum of turbine engines, all lit by the eerie glow of high powered arc lamps and their slightly dimmer orange tinted halon counterparts.

As he looked on, in mild amusement, the activity around him began to grind to a halt.
First the CAA-7 turning onto the runway slowed to a crawl, then made a ninety degree turn into the return taxiway and cut its engines. Next, the security patrol VTOLs swung into position over clear spaces on the pavement, touched down, and went silent.

A support airship overhead, which had been on a slow departure vector, accelerated and snapped to a heading that would take it out to sea, getting it as far from the base as possible.
Over the next twenty seconds, every craft moving on the ground, including support vehicles, loading gantries, and transport trucks, ground to a halt as the tower relayed their new orders.

For once, the tarmac at Vandenberg was nearly silent. As Mr. Utah continued to watch, the overhead lights began to switch off, quadrant by quadrant, in sequence. Following their example, the halons came next, then every light in every hangar, and on every vehicle, until all that remained were the guide-lights on the taxiways, and the runway lights.

These remained for a few moments, and then all at once the taxiways went dark and the runway lights began to switch off, one by one, starting at the approach end and terminating with the last light at the end of the concrete strip.

The entire airbase was now shrouded in darkness, save for the dim red glow emanating from the control tower windows, and the smoldering orange tip of Mr. Utah’s third cigarette.

Protocol ILS-Dark was, according to the Earthgov military operating procedure manual, only to be used in situations where the people or materials involved were classified ATS.
Above top secret.

It wasn’t that aircraft couldn’t land safely on a perfectly dark runway, modern instrument systems were easily good enough to handle that. It was more a matter of keeping the landing, and more especially the taxiway situation, as safe and controlled as possible. Nonetheless, sometimes secrecy superseded safety.

In the distance, the sound of an active turbine engine broke the stillness.
The sound became gradually louder, and closer, until finally a black unlit shape was barely visible against the dark sky, winging it’s way down to the runway. At the last possible second, the craft flared, touched down, and slammed its twin engines into full reverse, slowing quickly enough to make the first turn off.

The jet was a new business model aircraft, a sleek combination of curves evocative of forward movement, formed from a single carbon-fiber composite surface. Unlike a traditional business jet, this craft was painted in a digital camouflage pattern of dark grays above, and solid stealth black below.

It had no running lights, no tail number, no registry flag; no identifying markings of any kind.
Mr. Utah knew it also had no registration, no safety inspection card, no flight plan, no radar signature, and no known home base.

For all intents and purposes, the Jet that was coming to a stop less than twenty yards from him, did not exist at all.

The engines spun down to idle, and the side door popped open, unfolding into a stairway.
A man in beige pattern digital camouflage full body combat armor, with a kevlar/nanopolymer outer vest, and a similarly colored helmet with a silver tinted opaque visor, gestured to Mr. Utah.

He extinguished his final cigarette, and made his way into the aircraft.

The jet’s interior was the diametric opposite to its utilitarian exterior. The lighting was subdued, punctuated tastefully by blue floor lights at even intervals. The seats were covered in a fine gray synthetic leather, there was a small bar with a granite countertop, several holoscreens, and two doors, one to access the cockpit, the other the lavatories.

The cabin was configured to seat five, but the craft’s maximum passenger capacity was eighteen, so the interior was spacious to the point of luxury.

“Mr. Utah. Sit down, please.”
The voice belonged, unmistakably, to Mr. Stalin.

He did as he was asked, taking up a position opposite the HLF leader. He kept his posture rigid despite the comfortable nature of the chair; Mr. Utah seldom allowed himself to relax when he was alone, much less in the company of a superior and two bodyguards.

Mr. Utah frowned, “Sir, do you mind enlightening me as to why I was pulled away from a critical oversight phase in project Ragnar?”

Mr. Stalin glowered, “Ragnar is a long term initiative, it can wait. This takes precedence, especially given that it could mean an end to the status quo as we understand it. Mr. Churchill wants you to spearhead an immediate countermeasure insertion.”

Mr. Utah raised an eyebrow, “What’s happened that would be important enough to unbalance the situation as-is?”

Wordlessly, Mr. Stalin pressed a button on the arm of his chair, and a holoscreen flared to life, displaying the Global News Network, “...but sources inside the Bureaus are telling us that the new program will take its next batch of pre-selected converts within the month, and we could see openings for applicants by the end of the quarter.” We’re going to go live to New York where our own Connie Sarrtan has more...

Mr. Utah’s face bore an expression equal parts confusion and concern.
Mr. Stalin gestured for him to continue watching, as the news anchor disappeared, replaced by a female reporter standing outside, the Manhattan Bureau framed behind her.

“Thank you Chad. We’re standing on the front steps of the Manhattan Conversion Bureau, where only hours ago, military serviceman Lieutenant Isaac Wrenn revealed to the world the existence of a new kind of Conversion; they’re calling it Gryphonization. As the name implies, the Bureaus will soon be offering a serum that can convert humans, into Gryphons; but there’s a catch...”

Mr. Utah was not usually an emotive person, but he allowed himself a contorted half-snarl.

The reporter continued, “...Apparently, unlike Ponification, Gryphonization is not open to all. While any who wish to seek entry to the program are encouraged to apply, the Gryphon Kingdoms have a specific set of entry requirements, which should be forthcoming in later segments. Anyone who falls short will be denied access to the serum. This revelation has generated mixed sentiments, but right now the overall emotional tone here is one of celebration.”

Mr. Stalin sat back, “They managed to pass a set of resolutions before the Council. Took us completely by surprise, and Churchill isn’t happy about it in the least.”

Mr. Utah leaned forward, “What are we planning to do?”

Mr. Stalin held up a hand, “There’s more.”

Both men turned their attention back to the broadcast, “The overt positive tone towards this new form of Conversion can be attributed to more than the advent of a new choice, or even the fact that Gryphons are capable of maintaining a sense of aggression; a fact that is making the option highly popular in military circles according to initial polls. Analysts are attributing some of the positive image to the fact that the Gryphon Kingdoms have effectively declared war on the two most prolific terrorist organizations our government is facing.”

The broadcast cut to a clip of Sildinar’s opening speech, “...we consider the PER and the HLF to be combatants, aggressive enemy armies. And so today, we go to war, first with our words, then with the actions that follow, and then with weapons and beak and claws.”

Sarrtan returned to the screen, “Lieutenant Wrenn also touched on the issue strongly in his speech...”

The image again shifted to a recorded clip, “This is an adventure for those who aren’t ready to hang up the sword. For those who believe in fighting for a greater cause. For those who want to be able to get up, and knock upstarts like the PER and the HLF on their collective ass, because they threaten our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness.”

Mr. Stalin muted the screen, “This has gotten out of hand. If we don’t contain the situation immediately we’re never going to get another chance at this. You number one priority is still acquiring a sample of the serum, but your secondary objective is to publicly dispose of these four,” He tapped his chair arm again, and the broadcast vanished entirely, replaced by images of four Gryphons.

“Sildinar and Lieutenant Wrenn you saw. The other two are part of the initial team of envoys that was sent here to oversee the start of the program. If we eliminate these four, we can do significant damage control in the media. Right now they’re the face of this thing, so make sure that whatever you do, you make the results very public.”

Mr. Utah nodded, “We can begin immediately.”

Mr. Stalin motioned to one of the bodyguards, who in turn knocked on the cockpit door.
The Engines began to spool up again with a barely audible whine, “Where do you need to go?”

Mr. Utah removed a cigarette from his front jacket pocket, “Kansas. We’re going to kill two birds with one stone.”

Eating with a beak hadn’t been as strange as Wrenn had been expecting. Remembering what he did about birds of prey, he had guessed it would involve a lot of tearing at his food in an uncivilized fashion, and horking down the butchered strips of meal whole. He had never noticed the other three Gryphons doing it, but he couldn’t really recall how they ate either. He had never paid enough attention to that specific detail to notice.

He quickly discovered that, while a strong tearing motion was sometimes involved, that once the food was inside the beak, Gryphons could chew and swallow the same way a human or Pony might.

He had felt around the inside of the yellow chitinous structure with a talon and discovered an invisible ridge formation tucked up inside the structure of the beak. By working his jaw muscles in a chewing motion, the sharp ridge could perform the exact same function as a set of teeth.

Wrenn had found that comforting, he hadn’t wanted to learn a whole new method for eating.
Granted, there were some differences, especially when initially biting, or drinking, but they weren’t frustrating or unduly strange.

He was also happy to learn that his sense of taste was exactly the same as it had always been.
Wrenn didn’t know for a fact if Gryphons had more of a taste for meat because it was their staple food, but he had always preferred it, even the purportedly nasty synthetic versions, over everything else, so it wasn’t a big change for him.

He found that he could also consume and enjoy fruits and breads, but testing poultry and vegetables would have to wait; the Bureau didn’t have any poultry products on hand, and most vegetables were reserved for newfoals due to their scarcity.

The mealtime conversation had mostly consisted of Wrenn asking the other Gryphons lifestyle questions. He had discovered that his beak did not need brushing like a set of teeth, merely that it be washed out with some sort of liquid drink every night before bed to prevent anything from clinging to it on the inside and turning into the ultimate case of bad breath. Apparently the substance that made up his new beak and claws was so dense that microbes couldn’t do much to ablate it.

Through toying with his napkin, and further queries, he had learned that his sense of touch was quite strong and precise, but not forceful. Kephic had told him that once he had laid his claw in an open over by mistake, and hadn’t experienced more than a dull sense of pain; but most definitely the strong sensation of heat, and the texture of the stone making up the oven.

Wrenn gathered that a Gryphon’s sense of pain and discomfort was adjusted differently than human’s due to their durability. Varan had warned him that some parts of the body were more or less pain sensitive than others, and were sometimes more attuned to specific types of pain.
This was generally determined by how vulnerable a given body part was to certain dangers.

Before the end of the meal, Wrenn had asked about bathing habits. The consensus had been that it was similar to a shower, but that a key difference was the need to actively raise one’s feathers and ruffle one’s fur to get the water down onto the skin. Apparently Gryphons secreted a substance, like many birds, that gave their feathers and fur some waterproofing, and also acted as a strong repellent and poison to insects and parasites.

Mercifully, Celestia and Sildinar had conspired to keep Wrenn’s schedule clear for the rest of the day so he could learn to inhabit his new body comfortably. He appreciated that gesture, even thought he would have said he was already comfortable, just not particularly skilled.

He decided to drop in on Hutch first. He wanted to check on Skye too, but he had no idea where she was, and the Commander likely would.

Wrenn found him in his office, a decently sized space abutting the ConSec main situation room, separated by a pair of transparent glass sliding doors.
He rapped once on the transparent slabs, then let himself in.

Hutch whistled, “I saw the broadcast, but man... it’s not easy to get used to you being taller than me.”

Wrenn inclined his head, “Sorry sir.”

Hutch snorted, “I’m not ‘sir’ anymore, and you know it. You turned out well Wrenn. Better watch it, you get to Equestria and the female of the species is going to be all over you.”

Wrenn stopped short. He hadn’t yet met a ‘female of the species,’ and he’d certainly not given any thought to the idea of branching out that way. He immediately decided he didn’t like the idea any more now than he had the day before, or any day before.

He shook his head, “No thanks. I’m still married to the job, as it were.”

“Suit yourself. Just don’t forget to visit now and again.”

Wrenn nodded, “I won’t. I expect we’ll have a few more chances to talk before I leave, I’m supposed to be here for one or two more weeks.”

“Lunch?”

“As usual after tomorrow. Big day, interviews, panels, the whole mess.”

“Good. See you after that.”

Wrenn jerked his thumb talon back in the direction of the door, “You wouldn’t happen to know where Skye is would you? I figured I’d check in on her as well, invite her to the lunch group.”

Hutch tapped the holoscreen on his desk, “They put her in...” he tapped several more keys, “...the seventh floor offices. Program analytics and digital security. I gather she’s having a field day, the techs down there are having trouble keeping up. You found her in a coffee shop? Heck of a find. Tell her I said ‘hey’ and that I’m impressed.”

“Sure thing....”

Wrenn waited until he was halfway out the door before adding, “...sir.”

Skye was busy in the central seventh floor server room, doing something to a command terminal with her horn. Wrenn could see the distinctive glow of the magic from the moment he stepped out of the lift.

He made his way through the hall, past half a dozen techs whispering in awed tones, about him or Skye, he wasn’t sure which, and crept up behind her.

He waited silently until she was finished. He knew what it was like to have your concentration broken in the middle of a delicate job, and he hated it when people did it to him, so he liked to be mindful of the work others might be doing.

When her horn finally ceased glowing, Wrenn tapped her on the shoulder, “”Hi.”
She didn’t jump, he figured that he must have sat there long enough for her to notice him.

“Hey feathers. What's up?”

Wrenn shrugged, imitating, unconsciously, the maneuver he had seen the other Gryphons perform, doing it with both their shoulders and wings, “I figured I’d see how the new job is treating you. Maybe invite you to lunch, we all try to eat together whenever we can, Hutch, and...” he paused to restructure his sentence, “...Hutch and us Gryphons.”

She nodded, “Sure. I don’t really know anyone here well besides you and Kephic. I don’t mind the meat eating too much.”

Wrenn had completely forgotten how offensive that might be to a Pony, and he was relieved that Skye seemed to treat the idea the same way she treated everything but her computers; in a relaxed fashion.

“What are you working on now?”

She glanced up at him, “What do you think? Security measures to keep out non-human AI of course.”

Wrenn dipped his head and stared into the server tower, tracing the paths of all the circuit boards he could see, just to count the pathways. 52,128 in one bay alone.

“Makes sense. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Yep. Hey Wrenn? Nice job on the speech.”

“Thanks.”

After leaving Skye, Wrenn went to inspect his new quarters. His old ones had been emptied out, and all his military gear taken up for processing.

His new accommodations were the same as the other Gryphons. Since the new wing of the building for Gryphon converts wasn’t complete, they had been staying in converted two-man offices, which were the only rooms that were properly sized and not desperately needed day to day.

The other three Gryphons were staying on the same floor as Sildinar’s ‘office’ and only a few doors down, so Wrenn expected to find his room there as well. It was the last door on the left, just past Kephic’s room, according to the digital nameplates on the access keypads.

Wrenn’s room didn’t yet have a keycode, so he quickly set one, trying for as long a random combination of numbers as he thought he could safely experiment with.

The interior was spartan, but someone had already folded out the sofa and put some cushions on it. Because it was an office there was no built-in bathroom, but there was a mirror of sorts by way of the holoscreen. The intended use of the integrated camera system was for conference calls, but Wrenn didn’t want to make a call. He wanted to see his reflection.

He tapped a few controls, then stared long and hard at the image in front of him.
It was an odd sensation; not being used to one’s own reflection. He didn’t feel as though the face in the mirror wasn’t his, quite the contrary. It simply felt new, which was an adjective that was rarely associated with one’s own face.

Wrenn stared into his own eyes, and shivered. The realization dawned on him that those piercing orbs, made seemingly out of molten gold, were *his* eyes.

He shifted his gaze to the feathers on his head, then pulled out to a wider focus, looking to see if he could recognize himself. It was a silly endeavour in his mind, so he was surprised to meet with some success; he could see a kind of resemblance between his old face and his new one, if only in the sense of secondary features and basic facial proportions.

He spread his wings, marveling at the sheer span of them. He was now bigger than some classes of drones he had worked with in his military career, and the thought amused him to the point that he cracked a smile.

Now that he could see his expressions in the mirror, he was able to discover how a solid beak could portray expressions usually made, in his own experience, by flexible lips. The curve of the beak itself never changed, but the skin at the hinges did, and the tilt of the joint there influenced the perception of the lines of the face as a whole; in effect the beak served as a static magnifier for a relatively small group of muscles.

The rest of his face had several regions analogous to a human one. He didn’t have eyebrows, per se, but the area of the head above his eyes could move and react in a similar fashion. Muscles under the feathers in his cheeks also seemed to be involved in emoting, and as he practiced other expressions, he noticed his ears instinctively following along, serving to further magnify the expressions on his visage.

Once he finished imprinting his own features on his memory, he began practicing standing and moving on two legs.
He continued to have success applying his strategy of letting his body drive; it was an adult body so it came, somehow, with instincts and muscle memory for most basic actions, and perhaps some complex ones like, flight, dives, rolls, and dodging.

The effect of being bipedal was jarring; he was suddenly far taller than the average human, and he got the idea that fighting from that stance with a sword would give him devastating reach and power. He had seen Varan do it, and that made him all the more eager to learn.

He spent several hours just practicing transitioning smoothly between the two states of movement, until he could do it without looking ridiculous, or breaking his stride. He wasn’t perfect yet, but he felt reasonably confident he could move around in either stance without making an idiot of himself.

He had thirty minutes until the dining area opened for dinner, so after a brief debate with himself over the pros and cons of doing it, he turned on the news.
Most of the coverage was devoted, unsurprisingly, to the revelation of Gryphonization.

It was the most sensational thing, outside of terror attacks, to have happened in several years, and the media was plastered to it with rapt and voracious attention.

Wrenn wondered, for the first time in his life, what his old squadmates thought, looking at him on the news, having at least been acquainted with him, and now living under a gag order from military command. They could never discuss having known him with anyone but themselves.

He opened up another holoscreen and started surfing the internet, trying to get a feel for public opinion beyond the news media’s official line. He found a great deal of positive feedback, more than he had been hoping for, along with the usual negative riff raff, which was to be expected.

His newfound celebrity status evoked mixed emotions. On the one claw it was exhilarating; the ability to do good by making a positive impact on people's opinions and decisions. On the other claw it was upsetting; the media was more a machine, or a monster, than a service.

They would rip him to shreds just as soon as build him up, depending on how they felt at the time.

Oddly enough, that scared him much less than it had before his Conversion.
Perhaps it was the innate knowledge that he was intimidating and awe inspiring by his very nature, or perhaps his sense of relief at finally being a Gryphon was so overriding that fear on a deep level wasn’t an option yet.

Whatever the reasons, he was happy to be, for the first time in years, content.
Maybe a serious conflict was coming, but he had claws, and a beak, and wings, and friends.

Thinking of his beak again, he was suddenly seized by the impulse to try out his native range of sounds. He faced the mirror and adopted a glowering expression. From somewhere deep down a throaty growl emanated. The sound actually gave Wrenn pause, it was quite unnerving; conveying a sense of power and barely restrained fury.

He thought about trying to make a call, imagining it might sound similar to an Eagle’s screech, but he decided that might be something best saved for outside. In the building the sound would carry quite far and probably disturb a lot of people, and Wrenn was trying to avoid attention until the next day.

In the end he shut off the holoscreens and decided to go for an early dinner instead.
Gryphons were possessed of an incredibly fast, hot burning metabolism that fueled their amazing strength, amazing endurance, and unbelievable reflexes and mental processing speed.
The fact that the Conversion itself had consumed almost all the energy in his metabolism only exacerbated his hunger.

Sildinar had mentioned over dinner that Gryphons tended to ‘snack’ a great deal, and eat modestly sized meals, rather than gorge on huge meals and go long periods after without eating.

Wrenn had laughed at his use of the word ‘snack,’ because the Gryphon had placed the emphasis on the ‘ack’ instead of the ‘sn,’ making it sound overly forceful.

He had been asked to compile a set of notes on his experience, and as he exited the repurposed office and locked the door, he mentally added a new one to his growing list.

Conversion makes you hungry.

Chapter 13

The man in charge of the PER usually didn’t involve himself with the minutiae of its operation anymore. There was a time when he had spent most of his days up to his elbows in electronic circuitry or chemical formulae, helping the organization to achieve the level of technical supremacy it needed to accomplish its goals.

Though he had two degrees in computer software and hardware, one in theoretical physics, and two minors in biology and chemistry, his concerns had gradually become more tactical and logistical in nature. Despite the drain on his schedule, he occasionally made time to visit the labs and keep abreast of projects.

He especially made a habit of doing so when he was stressed or depressed.

He liked to lock himself in one of the laboratories on an upper floor with a good view, and simply work unmolested by more complicated cares and worries; content in the knowledge that he was doing something with tangible, immediate benefits.

“There is nothing you could have done differently.”

The voice didn’t come as a surprise to him. More often than not, Veritas was the only thing that brought him out of his depressive streaks, “Can we really know that? I expected them to eventually go ahead with the program. Its not an unsalvageable situation. I just didn’t expect---”

She cut him off, her tone firm yet gentle.

“Self deprecation and recriminations won’t solve the problems at hoof. You’ve handled worse, so you can handle this. We have a window to accomplish our ends, and the resources to make it happen within that timeframe.”

He looked up from his work; he was soldering a connection in a small disc shaped device no bigger than the palm of his hand, “True. But at this stage---”

She interrupted him again, “At this stage we have a final opportunity to prevent this from devolving into a directly matched up war. Taking that opportunity is the only responsible course. And I believe you can do it. Regardless of the other issues at play”

She paused, “If you need an outlet---”

He interjected sharply, “I do.”

“Well then I have something we might be able to use. I’m sure you know the controversy surrounding cybernetics? Well as it turns out, I was able to find some hard data about...”
She paused short of saying Wrenn’s name, “...about the lieutenant’s implants. Enough to prove for sure that he once had them. We could make good use of it. In the media.”

He set down the soldering pen, and sat back, “You keep reminding me why I love you. How *do* you do that? You always know how to put these issues in perspective, and you always have a plan... where does that come from?”

She tossed her mane, the small but focused light sources in the ceiling creating the illusion that the strands of hair were playing host to a million pinpricks of starlight.

She stepped over to the window, and swept her gaze across the plethora of buildings that made up downtown Manhattan, finally resting her teal eyes on the distant silhouette of the Conversion Bureau, “Like your own talent for words... it is a gift.”

Wrenn had slept well, and he had never experienced such a return of energy in his life.
He was used to running on ‘half tank,’ as most soldiers referred to it. The inescapable, perpetual feeling of having only rested just enough to wake up again without dropping dead. The sensation of being fully recharged and awake was alien.

By contrast, the sensation of sleeping on his chest hadn’t been at all uncomfortable, or even seemed unusual. The changes to his skeleton made any position axially beyond sleeping on his side untenable. At first it kept him awake, simply because he was so used to sleeping on his back, that his brain expected it and didn’t want to switch off until everything was the right way around.

The stubbornness had quickly faded in the face of comfort. He realized his sleeping habits would have to be more akin to those of a lion, or tiger than a human. His rest had been uninterrupted, save for a short but incredibly vivid excerpt from the Conversion dream that had re-visited him in the wee hours of the morning.

The recurrence of the images and emotions didn’t surprise him. After the attack in the Council chambers, he had been ordered to see a therapist to be treated for possible post traumatic stress. Wrenn had asked a lot of scientific questions about the mind, psychology and dreams, mainly as a way of deflecting the therapist’s own lines of questioning.

She had told him that the unconscious mind latched on to things of emotional significance and tended to rehash them repeatedly in an unbridled and logic-free fashion.

Wrenn had neglected to tell her that he suffered, for over a year, recurring nightmares about the incident, to the point of being unable to sleep for weeks at a time. He had resorted to field issue stimpacks, but finally discarded them in favor of purely natural sleep aids when he nearly became addicted to the dopamine highs.

He wouldn’t be needing sleep aids ever again, as far as he was concerned.

Breakfast was a small affair, taken in Sildinar’s office. The press had moved in downstairs, and were all over the first and second floors of the building. Wrenn appreciated the forethought of allowing him a quiet meal, unperturbed by the hassle of answering a million and one questions.

It wasn’t that he was recalcitrant to present himself to the media, he just preferred a controlled environment in which to do so, rather than the crush of four dozen shouting men and women all vying for attention. The crush aggravated every instinct he had; Soldier, Human, and Gryphon.

Celestia wasn’t present, so at the moment it was just four Gryphons and four large portions of synthetic meat strips, fried up into something like bacon, and served with a loaf of bread.

Wrenn glanced over at Sildinar, “What’s the schedule for today?”

Sildinar swallowed the enormous bite of bread he had just taken, and waited for his throat to clear, “Celestia is making some opening remarks right now. We’re all scheduled to appear as a... ‘panel’ I think is the word, to answer questions from a variety of news agencies in turn.
That will take up the morning, with the exception of a short break we’re being given halfway through.”

He sliced off a strip of meat with one talon, speared it neatly, then devoured it swiftly, before proceeding, “We were all supposed to be guests at a lunch with dignitaries and military leaders, but I managed to convince them to put that off until next week.”

Wrenn bit into one of his own meat strips, savoring the subtle, but familiar tang of chemical synthesis that he had strangely acquired a taste for.

Sildinar took a sip from a coffee carafe. Gryphons could use smaller cups, but they were pitiful portions for them. Most of the time, they seemed to like to use either specially made tankards that fit their claws and desired portion size better, or actual serving carafes, when nothing else was available.

“After lunch, they have just you down for an interview alone with two reporters. Apparently it was on the insistence of several Earthgov Councilors. As far as I’m concerned you’re free to refuse if it is disquieting to you.”

Wrenn shook his head, “Nah. I can handle a couple of reporters just fine. We seem to have a penchant for projecting emotions into a room, and I think I’ve seen you look intimidating enough times to accomplish the same effect.”

Sildinar nodded, “Very well. Then after that we are all to be present at another press conference where I will read out the list of names for those in the next batch of test candidates. They all received notification letters last night, so this is just the public announcement.”

Kephic toyed with his carafe lazily, “We’re also going to announce the date when the program goes live at major Bureaus worldwide.”

Wrenn shifted his gaze to the black and white Gryphon, “It’s happening that soon?”

From across the room, Varan grunted in the affirmative, “Three weeks from yesterday.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow and went back to his meat strips. Keeping the timetable tight was a good move. It would rejuvenate the hype surrounding Gryphonization at just the moment when it might start to decline. He also approved, because having new converts to focus on would take the public gaze off him for a while, and that idea appealed to him enormously.

He suddenly realized that he might not be on Earth long enough to see the change, “So... When do we leave? to go home?”

Sildinar took another sip of coffee, “Two weeks. You need to learn to fly, well enough to make a long trip on your own. During that time we’re also going to do our best to help you adapt your military skills, and learn to swing a sword.”

Wrenn smiled, “I’m definitely looking forward to that. So will we be back?”

Kephic swallowed a meat strip before answering, “I expect so. There is, after all, a war on here. I, for one, refuse to miss more than a month or two of it at a time.”

Wrenn dipped his head once sharply, “Good. I was hoping you might say something to that effect.”

The panel was going to take place in the Bureau's largest amphitheater. The front half of the audience seating had been removed, replaced by a battery of cameras and area-microphones.
The massive theater style holo-screen that occupied the wall behind the stage was set to display a muted, slowly changing, nondescript art deco pattern.

The stage itself was playing host to two curved tables, one short, with space for the four gryphons, the opposite one long, with space for nearly a quarter of the assembled reporters.
Wrenn chuckled grimly as he entered the room, trying to imagine what kind of bribing, yammering, and fit pitching had gone on to get those lucky reporters their seats.

A tech bounded up with a bundle of tiny wireless microphones in his hand, but stopped short and stammered when it suddenly occurred to him that there was nowhere he could easily clip them on the Gryphons standing in front of him.

Wrenn waved him off, “I think we project enough to let the area mics handle it.”
The tech nodded and vanished almost as quickly as he had appeared.

As the four Gryphons took up positions at their table, Wrenn softly queried, “Is there anything I should keep out of the discussion? besides the obvious?”

Sildinar shook his head.

The frenzy in the room escalated as eleven reporters took their seats at the opposite table.
The lighting in the room changed suddenly, as the overheads switched off, giving way to the high power halogen lights behind the cameras.

A technician, clearly the one in charge, motioned from offstage with two hands.
Ten seconds.

The head of the Bureau, Mrs. Sunbeam, took the center of the stage. She had been asked to deliver the introduction since it was, after all, her Bureau.

When the tech’s fingers finished counting down, the lights on the cameras flipped from red to green, and the broadcast went out, live, to the globe.

Mrs. Sunbeam had adopted a radiant smile, and as she spoke, Wrenn began to realize that her name, like many Pony names, seemed to hold double significance, “Good morning one and all!
It is my pleasure to welcome a panel of reporters, and four honored guests, to the Manhattan Conversion Bureau. Over the next few hours, it is our sincere hope that this panel will answer many of the questions you no doubt have after yesterday’s revelations.”

She shot a glance at the reporters, “Our format is informal. We will start by having each reporter ask questions in turn, which any of our panelists might answer, and once everyone has had some airtime for their pressing queries, the floor will be open to each question as it arises.”

She stepped back to a separate seat that had been placed for her, midway between the two tables, “We’ll start with this end of the table.”

The first reporter nearly came out of his seat with anticipation, “This question is for Lieutenant Wrenn! After having gone through the process yourself, how do you feel about the Gryphons’ restrictions on entry to the new program?”

Wrenn put a little extra volume into his voice, not enough to be overly loud, but enough to make it project authoritatively.

“I feel as though it’s a good thing. Not just to maintain balance in our culture, and not just to hold to the honor of our code of ethics, but because it also benefits anyone seeking to become one of us.”

The reporter gave him a curious expression, “How do you mean?”

Wrenn gestured to himself, “I mean that I fit in well with our ideals and mentality.
Ours is a very forceful and strong culture, so these entry requirements, like the ones in the military, if you want a metaphor, help prevent those ill suited to the lifestyle from making a serious mistake; a lifetime commitment that they can’t enjoy or honor.”

The next reporter in line was quick to jump on the moment of silence that followed, “Would any of you mind recounting for us how Lieutenant Wrenn became the candidate for the first Gryphonization?”

Kephic nodded at the rest of the group, and launched into an answer, “We had the good fortune of striking up a relationship with Lieutenant Wrenn. Of all the people we had under consideration, he was the only one we knew personally when the time came, so he was the clear choice.”

The reporter pressed her advantage, “Can you be more specific about the circumstances of your meeting?”

Sildinar shook his head, “Apologies, but no. For now, it would be impossible to discuss the events without revealing classified information. You’ll have to wait for that story.”

The next question cut the second reporter off before she could begin pestering them for an answer, Wrenn mentally braced himself, the reporter in question was Stanley Carradan, “So, does your species really plan to go to war on our behalf?”

Wrenn found himself nodding in concert with the other three Gryphons, but it was Varan who spoke, in his usual clipped tones, “When we make a promise, we keep it. Come what may.”

Carradan quickly slid in another question, drawing glares from two of the reporters down the line, “What does keeping that promise entail?”

Sildinar fixed Carradan with a laser focused gaze, which caused the man to shrink back a little, much to Wrenn’s amusement, “It means we will bring warriors here, who will coordinate with your military to kill or capture every last HLF soldier and every last PER devotee, and we will show no quarter beyond that which is expected for women and children, until either they surrender outright, or there is no one left to do so.”

The next reporter stomped on Carradan’s foot beneath the table, and interjected her own question before he could speak again. The cameras didn’t catch it, but Wrenn did. He found it immensely relieving, to be able to judge the emotions of all the men and women across from him as if they were displaying them on blinking holo signs strapped to their heads.

A nervous tic here, a muscle relaxed there, a tiny hint of tension in the voice, a shift in the eyes...
The tells were endless.

“Despite the difficulties in getting large volumes of information and correspondence across the barrier in a timely fashion, a lot of stories, reports, journals, and such about life as a Pony have made their way back here to Earth. We have a pretty good picture of life as a Pony.
By contrast, we know very little about your kind. Is that going to change?”

Wrenn knew the answer already, so he took the question, “Yes it is. I expect to be returning to Earth, at times, and I will be glad to tell the tales of my life in Equestria. Beyond that, the initial courses and evaluation for Gryphonization candidates will convey great deal of information about us, including a quick primer in history and culture. As the number of converts increases, so too will the various streams of information.”

The next few questions were relatively mundane, and aimed at Wrenn; ‘how did it feel?,’ ‘did you dream during conversion?,’ ‘what was it like to have wings?’

Then the hardline queries started up again, “Why is your species going out of its way to befriend ours?”

Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “Just because we have a reputation as warriors does not mean we are any less amiable than Ponies, to those who can reciprocate honorably in kind.
We see a kinship in humanity; you are innovative, tenacious, and many of you are honorable. Like Celestia and her species, we have no desire to see you pass out of history and die.”

“But there are other motivations?” This from Carradan.

“Certainly. Symbiosis benefits both parties equally. We value the potential new ideas your kind can bring us. You have had thousands of years to invent, and write, and paint, and sculpt, and think in a world devoid of magic. A great many incredible and unique things have come of that, and part of the beneficial trade off in preserving them is having the future use of them.”

The questions went on. None of them trod too closely to the secrecy of Wrenn’s implants, and it became easier to answer them as the reporters became ever more predictable.
A few baited questions were asked, to which the four Gryphons always responded with blunt candor, much to the shock of the media moguls. They were too used to playing games with words, which was not something Gryphons did, especially not in a serious situation.

Several reporters tried to squeeze in an interview during the mid-morning break, but there was a locked room set up for the Gryphons and Mrs. Sunbeam, and the two armed and armored ConSec guards posted on either side of the door quickly discouraged any attempt at interrupting their few minutes of peace.

Wrenn finally got a decent, if brief, chance to talk to the golden colored pony, and found her every bit as pleasant as she appeared to be.

The second round of questions were far less taxing, they mostly consisted of viewer submitted material, and much of it was again simple questions about life as a new Gryphon directed to Wrenn. He enjoyed providing answers, coming up with heartfelt descriptions for his feelings along the way. Several questions went out to the rest of the Gryphons, and these mostly consisted of general questions about the species.

Only one tense question presented itself, and yet again it was from Carradan, who until that point had been mostly shut out by the other reporters, “So, could any of you shed some light on the political opposition you faced as you got this program off the ground? Did you feel any of it was valid?”

Wrenn jumped in before any of the others could answer, “No. I think its better not to coddle the issues facing us, but to meet them head on. The political opposition we faced was an inexcusable, but easily understandable, attempt at maintaining a status quo that died the day this planet did.
The past as we knew it is gone.
Nothing is going to bring it back.
The best thing you can do for yourself, your happiness, your family, and your species, is to invest in the future. Ponification is one option, Gryphonization is another, and if you find humanity suits you more, I’d direct you to the Genesists, one of whom I’ve had the privilege of making my friend recently. Despite the criticisms they’ve received, they are making good and legitimate progress.”

Wrenn glared at Carradan, and was satisfied to get the same unconscious shrinking from him that Sildinar had, “Celestia herself supports them, and as for my part so do I. Someone once called Earth humanity’s cradle... Well we are being kicked out of the cradle now, for better or worse, so buck up and figure out where you want to move in next and what you want to be when you get there. You have choices. Make them and be grateful you can, while you still can.”

That put an end to the hardline political questions, and for the last twenty minutes of the panel Carradan didn’t breathe a word.

Over lunch Kephic and Varan made a point of congratulating Wrenn on his answers, particularly the last thorny one. He did his best to wave them off. He was still a bit shy about speaking publicly, and if he were to tell the truth, also a little nervous about admitting to any oratory skills.

He had no problem with letting loose a modest boast or two over his shooting skills, or knife fight kill count, when it was appropriate, but he found any compliment to skills outside the military to be so alien that it was hard for it to fully register.

Sildinar was nowhere to be seen, but according to Varan, he was meeting with Celestia to finalize some things before she set off for Equestria. She was a monarch, and while her sister was capable of running the kingdom, apparently there was some business about the sun and the moon, and the fact that it was more taxing on her less practiced sister to juggle both.

Wrenn thought he recalled a historical account that might explain why Luna would be out of practice, something to do with a thousand years of exile, but he hadn’t had time to read the full story when he’d seen it. He assumed he would be able to get hold of the document again at some point.

Near the end of lunch, they returned, and Celestia shot Wrenn a glance.
He set down his mostly finished plate, and walked with her out into the hallway.
They had once again retired to Sildinar’s office, and the floor was practically deserted, giving them a moment of privacy.

She graced him with one of her warming smiles, “I just wanted to say a proper goodbye.
It’s been a pleasure getting to know you a little better Isaac. You are going to be a credit to your kinds.”

He was glad of his red feathers, they hid the blush he was sure was suffusing his cheeks,
“I hope so. I’m honored that you took the time to get to know me better. I hope I’ll see you again someday. Preferably soon.”

She inclined her head, “There is as much a standing invitation for your kind to visit my court as for my own. That goes double for my friends, and I consider you a friend. Whatever connotations your kind has among Ponies, I know our species are going to be close allies again. Preferably soon. Farewell.”

He returned her smile, “Farewell.”

As she walked down the corridor to the lift, Wrenn took a moment to stop and marvel at what had just happened. He was a Gryphon, standing in a human building, carrying on a conversation with a being above the standard mortal plane. The status quo of normality truly was a thing of the past.

The exclusive interview was to take place in a much cozier setting, so a low level office had been selected, and quickly turned into a suitable space, with two chairs for the reporters, and one for Wrenn, adjusted down to its stops so that he would only tower over then by a few inches instead of a foot or more.

The first reporter to enter Wrenn recognized, from earlier broadcasts, as Connie Sarrtan.
She smiled and offered a hand. When he reached out to shake it, she only flinched a little, but her grip strengthened when she realized he wasn’t going to impale her wrist.

“Hi. I just wanted a chance to introduce myself, and meet you in person, before the cameras start rolling.”

Wrenn nodded, “It certainly makes it easier to keep things informal during the interview itself.”

She sat down, “Yes, exactly.” There was a moment of awkward silence, “This is the closest I’ve ever been to one of you. You’re a bit intimidating, you know that right?”

Wrenn shrugged, “Why? Because I’m a soldier, or because I’m a Gryphon?”

“Yes.”

“Well, no need to be intimidated unless you’re a hostile target, or a hostile investigator.”
That seemed to break the ice, Sarrtan’s smile became more sincere, and a small chuckle escaped her lips.

“So those talons...” She stared down at one of his foreclaws, now resting on the chair for want of anything to do, “...did it take effort to learn not to spear things?”

Wrenn shook his head, “Some things take adjusting, but for daily tasks the talons aren’t much different to fingers. They’re less fragile, they can be more deadly, and they’re certainly more precise... but they pretty much work fine straight out of the gate.”

The conversation came to an abrupt end as another reporter entered. Wrenn was surprised, and slightly dismayed, to see it was Stanley Carradan. He was even more surprised to see a look of shock on Sarrtan’s face as well.

She glared at Carradan, “Why are you here? Where is my partner for the interview?”

Carradan shot her a wolfish glare, “He... offered to let me take this one. Why don’t we just say he ‘owed me a favor’, and leave it at that, eh sister?”

In some small selfish way, Wrenn was glad to see that the man’s annoying propensity for referring to people as family members in a patronizing fashion was not limited to him.

As a tech entered and began setting up the camera equipment, Wrenn leaned across the space and stuck his beak firmly in Carradan’s face, “If you get hardline with me,” he spared a glance for Sarrtan, “...or smart with her... or inappropriate... or crass, or if you even piss me off slightly, I’ll give you a ride off the top of this building. And I’ll wait till I’m over the deepest chasm I can find in this warren of skyscrapers, then I’ll kick you out, and let you see if the pavement respects the chip in your shoulder. Got it?”

“You wouldn’t!”

Wrenn sat back and smirked, “Yes. Yes I would.”

Sarrtan looked to be on the verge of tears, the laughing kind, and Carradan just looked sullen, with a twinge of respectful fear. The tech gave the minute warning, and both reporters fell to putting on their serious faces.

Wrenn found he had a slight itch in his left wing, and before he quite knew what he was doing, he had bent his head down and run his beak over the feathers like a comb. This not only relieved the itch, but pushed the feathers into a more orderly, well seated bundle.

He stopped and went back to watching the camera tech, but he decided he would have to do some kind of maintenance to all of his feathers in the mornings and evenings, even if it was just a quick preen. He knew enough about birds to know that feathers, and he supposed fur, needed to be kept up with more than just a dash of hot water now and then. He knew for a fact that his feathers were precision control surfaces when flying, so he knew they needed to be in order.

The tech gave the ten second warning, and Wrenn turned his attention to the reporters in front of him. Sarrtan, he decided, was just genuinely happy to have the exclusive. Carradan, however, was the epitome of a news hound. He wanted more sensation, to the point of impropriety.

Wrenn resolved that if he got snarky, he would simply verbally thrash him live on global television. Barely an inconvenience.

The camera’s light toggled to green, and Sarrtan jumped on the silence, “I’m Connie Sarrtan, here with Stanley Carradan to bring you an exclusive interview with the first human ever to take on the wings of a Gryphon. Greetings Lieutenant Wrenn.”

Wrenn smiled and inclined his head, “Hello.”

Sarrtan hurried to keep Carradan from butting in, “So I know you’re probably tired of this question, but what’s it like? This is something you’re probably going to have to describe more than once before we all start to understand, so would you mind taking another crack at it?”

Wrenn did the wing-shrug, and took a deep breath, “Why not? Well for starters there is the constant stream of sensation. There's a lot more to hear, and a *whole* lot more to see, and your brain ignores none of it. But it's not confusing or distracting, you feel as though you can handle it all, and if you concentrate you can even stop to analyze it.”

Carradan raised a disbelieving eyebrow, “What do you mean... stop?”

“”In the time it takes you to ask, if I try, I can change the speed my mind is working at. Accelerate it to the point that I can have relative minutes of thoughts in the span of a second. Here, I’m no good at arithmetic, but anyone can do basic stuff given enough time. You ask me any basic math question, with a complicated twist, and I’ll answer within a second. Every time.”

Truthfully, Wrenn wasn’t sure he could manage it. He was terrible at math. But he was confident he could slow down his thought-time enough to work it all out. Sarrtan pulled a DaTab from her messenger bag, “If it's alright with you, I’ll act as scorekeeper.”

Carradan sat and chewed a nail for a moment, looking pensive, “Righteyo then. What’s 12,628,272.541 divided by 225.16 times 12.12190.”

Wrenn could tell he was just spouting numbers.

He concentrated on the passage of time, and forced it to slow to a crawl, as far as he could push it. He could sense his ability to move, and breathe, fast enough that he wouldn’t feel as mired down as the two reporters looked, but his mind had still gone far beyond his body’s ability to follow.

He perfectly recalled Carradan’s numbers, digit by digit, and visually drew the division and multiplication boxes in the air in front of him. It was trying, exhausting even, mainly because he hated math, but he finally came up with an answer.

At his behest, time and his brain snapped back into synchronization. Sarrtan had just begun to depress the first key on the DaTab. Wrenn blurted out the answer, “4,626.81366”

Carradan gave him a skeptical look, but when Sarrtan finished typing in the numbers and pressed the enter key, her mouth hung open. She held up the DaTab, revealing the answer.
4,626.81366

Carradan looked shell shocked, Wrenn just grinned, “I told you.”

Sarrtan continued to gape, “Unbelievable. You can really do that at any time?”

Wrenn nodded, “It’s unpleasant and jarring if it lasts more than a few seconds. It’s more useful in combat, I imagine, when you do it repeatedly but very briefly each time. I spent about seven minutes in those two seconds that passed for you.”

Carradan snickered slightly, “Can it get stuck? Y’know, can you end up living with a melting clock effect or somethin’?”

Wrenn shook his head, “It takes a little effort to keep it up, actually, and that increases as time goes on, not to mention the discomfort. It’s not an unconscious or uncontrolled thing.”

Sarrtan collected herself and kept up the questions, “Can you explain, in more detail, the requirements for entry to the program?”

Carradan nodded his assent, “Yeah I think everyone’s interested in specifics.”

Wrenn pondered carefully before speaking, cupping the underside of his beak with a claw in a thoughtful manner, “I was never given an exact... rubric if that’s what you mean. I was told, and rightly so, that the main things Gryphons value are honor, courage, and loyalty. The main things we despise are deceitfulness, betrayal, and dishonor; whether by word or deed.”

Carradan leaned forward, “Whaddya mean you never had an exact rubric?”

“I mean I knew the general requirements, but I was never given some sort of list that said ‘if you’ve done this, that, or the other then you’re ineligible.’ I was however asked some moral dilemma questions at random moments.”

Sarrtan rested her chin on a hand, “Can you give us an example?”

Wrenn quickly selected one of the scenarios, “You’ve been taken by the enemy and imprisoned in a dungeon. Across from you, through a set of iron bars, is another prisoner. You have a small bell in front of you, which you can reach, and ring, despite your shackles. You are told that if you do not ring the bell, then you will be tortured, but not to death or in any way that will leave permanent damage, once an hour every hour for ten days. Then you and the other prisoner will be released.”

Wrenn paused for effect. Both reporters were leaning forward now, “But if you ring the bell, you will immediately be set free, but not before they execute the other prisoner while you watch.”

Carradan sat back and waved a dismissive hand, “Yeah yeah, obvious answer.”

Wrenn shook his head, “There are two complicating factors. First, its not asked that way. They want a more detailed answer, and they will judge your emotions. We have a lot of complicated emotional tells in our bodies, and extremely perceptive eyes. Humans? You are an open book to us.”

This made both Sarrtan and Carradan very uncomfortable. Wrenn could see the subtle shifts in their posture.

He forged ahead, “They can tell, even if you can’t for sure yourself, whether or not you would really have the fortitude to carry through with that scenario. The other complicating factor is that they expect it to provoke an emotional response of anger, and for it to occur to you that in a real scenario such as that, it’s on you to escape. No enemy is going to be so merciful as to let you get off that easily.”

Sarrtan sat back as well, “So it sounds as if it’s more of a psychological evaluation than the written test some of us were imaging?”

Wrenn bobbed his head enthusiastically, “Very much so. It is about one of us getting to know one of you, not about a cut and paste set of specific questions. The one unchanging thing is our moral code, so I’ll refer you back to that. If you are an honorable, loyal, courageous person who would be at home as one of us, then you’ll pass. If not, you won’t, and you will be better off for having been denied.”

Carradan snorted, “You keep referring to yourself as one of them... did it really take to you that quickly?”

Wrenn glared, “I say ‘us’ and ‘we’ because I am a Gryphon. Not just in body, they’ve invited me to be a part of their kind in a familial sense, as they will with all candidates who pass. I’m not about to forget my time as a human, or the things I saw, and learned, and did, or the emotion of it all... I'll carry the greater part of my Humanity with me forever. But I’m not physically a human anymore. I’m just being honest about it.”

Sarrtan surprised him with her next question, “So... you don’t see Conversion as any kind of betrayal of Humanity? Some Converts have feelings of regret before the procedure. Not you?”

Wrenn shook his head, “Humanity as we know it had a good run. And the important things, the things that defined the species; art, science, literature... the Equestrians are going to preserve all that.
Heck they have a whole ministry, staffed with hundreds of thousands of Humans, and Ponies, and maybe soon Gryphons, working around the clock to transfer our accomplishments to their museums, their libraries, and their historical vaults. They even went to the trouble to find a way to flash-copy our paintings and sculptures magically from the original to an exact duplicate made of Equestrian material. They’re transcribing every single book. Every last one. They even want to find a way to make Thaumatic computers so they can copy parts of the internet.”

He glanced at the camera, “Humanity in spirit, will survive, but if we face facts, we have to admit that homo sapiens is biologically a step behind, and we're living on borrowed time in a planetary sense. But, if you’re not ready to make such a drastic change, you don’t have to. Councilor Martins is always looking for volunteers to help with the sleeper ships, and I say go for it. The diversity of maintaining the Human form elsewhere is a good thing, if they can swing it.”

The rest of the interview was fairly pleasant. Carradan was a bit grating, but he didn’t ask anything overtly nasty, for which Wrenn was grateful.

Sarrtan just seemed enthused to be able to get some one on one answers.

Near the end, Carradan posed one final question, as the tech gestured that they only had a minute left, “So... You really truly believe that Conversion, whether to Pony or Gryphon, is a good future for most of us?”

Wrenn nodded emphatically, “Completely. I’ve seen enough to know. Take it from me, both are worthwhile futures as a part of an amazing culture.”

Sarrtan smiled, “Well that’s all the time we have, thank you so much for giving us a little personal insight Lieutenant.”

Wrenn reached out to shake first her hand, and then Carradan’s, digging in ever so slightly as he shook the man’s hand. Not enough to cause serious pain, but just enough to let Carradan know he had done it intentionally.

As the three of them smiled for the camera, Wrenn and Sarrtan genuinely, Carradan trying not to wince, Wrenn decided that it had turned out to be a good day. All things considered.

Chapter 14

The next morning Wrenn came down to the customary breakfast table to find Hutch, Skye, and the others waiting for him. He had slept in a few minutes, simply glorying in the comfort of waking up slowly.

The media was gone, having been forcibly evicted the night before.
Things were more or less ‘normal’ again, but there was still an air of action and muted chaos,
likely due to the coming advent of Gryphonization as a full blown program.

He found a place between Varan and Skye, and settled in to enjoy the same stuff the Bureau always seemed to serve for a Gryphon breakfast; bread and meat strips. He chalked up ‘diverse food’ as another thing he was looking forward to in Equestria.

“Morning everyone.”

Skye smirked, “Morning Mr. popular. Glad the circus is over?”

“More than you know. What’s on the schedule today?”

Kephic spoke up, “You and I are going to get you re-certified for Earth weapons, then maybe we can do some arbalest practice. I brought a couple with me, thought the first convert would want to learn to use a ranged weapon that works on the other side of the barrier.”

Wrenn winced, “Last time I tried to use a bow, I nearly shot my instructor in the foot.
Granted I was nine, and it was a compound bow strung to an adult shooter's tension...”

Skye snickered into her plate of hay cakes.
Wrenn glared, “*Hey*. I couldn’t help it. The arrow slipped.”

Varan took over, “This evening, I thought I might help you do some obstacle course training.”

Wrenn nodded, “Sounds fantastic,” he looked over to Kephic, “already have some gear checked out?”

The speckled Gryphon nodded, “The stuff we use when we’re in combat over here. I figured we could fit you for the armor too, and if you do well on the obstacle course tonight, you could do a few rounds in the armor. Start breaking it in.”

Wrenn grinned fiercely, “I do love a good new set of armor.” He glanced at Hutch, then at Sildinar, “So... how does this work? I suppose I’m no longer technically an active duty Lieutenant in the military?”

Hutch gulped down a mouthful of coffee and leaned forward, “Actually, I got an orders packet this morning with your name on it. They want to ‘reactivate’ you after your ‘retirement’ as an official military liaison to the Gryphon Kingdoms. I’m not supposed to tell you, so you didn’t hear it from me, but they’re also going to pin another bar on you and promote you to Lieutenant Commander sometime this next week.”

Wrenn practically beamed, “I suppose, until the end of the month, that makes me the only Gryphon in the Earthgov Military.”

He focused on Sildinar, “What about our military? You explained the structure to me during the courses, but how do I fit in?”

Gryphons organized their forces into two divisions; Knights and Paladins.

Knights made up the army at large, and came with four ranks; Squire, which was an entry level position recruits occupied, Knight Errant which all soldiers occupied for a time, and then either Sagittars, who were primarily archers with secondary training in swords, or Alarians who were primarily trained with swords, and carried lighter bows as backup weapons.
Some Alarians were as good with a bow as a sword, and vice versa for talented Sagittars, but the choice of specialization was still technically necessary.

A Knight Errant would choose to advance into one of those two classes on promotion.
Knights who especially distinguished themselves would be tapped out to become Paladins.
Paladins had to take on both intensive leadership training, and train in the opposite class that they had not chosen to initially specialize in.

Paladins provided the leadership for the Knights, and within the order there were four ranks; three for various levels of command positions, and the fourth was a position as Champion Paladin for one’s own Kingdom, and a member of the King’s Paladin Council, a position equivalent to *being* a King in a way. This final position was only by election. A Paladin had to be voted in as a potential candidate by his fellow Paladins, with at least four supporters, then they would run for public election to the station itself.

Gryphons who had once served the forty year term as Champion Paladin were frequently asked to serve on the Council of Elders for a Kingdom, which wielded nearly as much pull and came with the same level of prestige if not more.

Sildinar chewed the piece of bread in his beak, swallowed, and downed a glass of juice before answering Wrenn’s query, “Military service is, as you know, not legally compulsory for us, but is both common and expected to the point of being compulsory from a societal standpoint.”

Wrenn interjected, “I want to serve anyway. Military guy, born and raised.”

Sildinar nodded, “You have previous distinguished service. Therefore I see no reason to start you in a Squire position. Provisionally you will be a Knight Errant, and then I expect that when we arrive home it will be made official, and you may even be promoted to a specialization immediately, providing you can figure out which track you wish to pursue by then.”

Sildinar’s position was a Paladin, first order; they were second only to the Champion in their own Kingdom. Kephic and Varan both held third order positions, which entitled them each to command seventy Knights, if they so desired.

Wrenn smiled, “Well then, let’s get to it. I haven’t shot anything since the Conversion, and my trigger talon is getting itchy.”

The ConSec firing range at the Bureau was well designed, and fully equipped, but it was simply too short for practicing the kind of ranged shooting a Gryphon was capable of.

The Fort Hamilton Military base in Brooklyn, however, had the third largest indoor shooting range in the world, with simulated wind conditions, variable terrain, and automated moving drone targets.

The range had been built into an unneeded section of the storage warehouse system, so the longest downrange line of sight distance was three miles. No human soldier ever shot that distance without a high powered computer aided scope, a rail rifle, and spotter with a dedicated LADAR rangefinder. Even then, the accuracy for a three mile shot, in normal conditions against a moving target, with the best teams, was one kill per fifteen attempts when using standard rail slug munitions.

If Wrenn could have trusted himself to know how to use his wings, he and Kephic could have simply flown to the range, but since he was still a ‘newfledge,’ as the media had taken to calling it, they had to take mass transit.

The two Gryphons stepped out onto the empty front steps of the Bureau.
Kephic let Wrenn have a moment to take it all in again.

It was early in the morning, so the sky was still a dark dusky gray, the clouds tinged with amber from the city lights below. The horizon peeked through between the buildings of the city, a brighter shade of sickly teal that confirmed the sun was still shining, somewhere up there.

Kephic stared at the thin line of lighter sky, “Were you born yet when it happened?”

Wrenn looked over at him, “What, the burning of the sky? No that was a few years before I was born.”

Kephic said something under his breath that sounded like an expletive, “I can’t even begin to imagine being born into this world. Its like perpetually living under the beginnings of a summer storm that just won’t break. But worse, it’s all wrong. Sickly.”

He turned to Wrenn, “Stay outside long enough and you’ll begin to sense it too.”

Wrenn shrugged, “It wouldn’t surprise me. I’m not a scientist, but I read a couple books on what happened. The experiment fundamentally wrecked the molecular composition of the atmosphere. We’re lucky to even still be breathing.”

The two took in the vista in silence for a few moments. An icy breeze ruffled their feathers, giving them a windswept look. The temperatures for most of the planet ranged from lows of thirty eight to highs of fifty three, year round, regardless of location, except for the arctic regions, which were colder than ever.

Wrenn finally broke the silence, “We should go. We can take the ‘lev because its a long haul, but the Brooklyn station gets crowded after nine...”

Kephic nodded and the two set off across the street. Wrenn hadn’t been to the Bureau's maglev station yet, thanks to the attempted train heist that had gotten him into everything in the first place.

The station had been set up around the same time as the Bureau in order to service the increased traffic to the area.

There was no one else on the platform at such an early hour, the area wasn’t home to much in the way of residential zoning, so most of the pedestrians using the station in the morning would be disembarking to work at the Bureau or some nearby business.

As the train approached, Wrenn realized he could hear it coming much earlier than before, and the memories of that fateful day came back in full force. As they waited for the exiting commuters to clear the doors, Wrenn glanced at Kephic, “Thanks again. For saving my hide. You know, the last time we were on one of these death traps.”

Kephic chuckled, “I only did half the saving. Your thick skull did the rest.”

The two Gryphons would have taken up too much seating space on the train, despite the sparse number of passengers, so they opted to stand near the doors on the inbound side, which wouldn’t need to open until the train reached the end of the line and swapped tracks.

Maglevs presented the illusion of silent operation to their passengers, but with his new ears Wrenn could detect a subtle whirr accompanying the operation of various components.
He could also listen in to most of the quiet conversations taking place in the compartment.

Most of the passengers had ceased their usual morning activity, and were instead staring at him and Kephic, discussing them in whispered tones.
A few were simply observing silently, most because they had no travelling companions, but one which stood out to Wrenn, because he was simply slack jawed.

The passenger in question was a young boy, no older than ten or eleven, and he was paying rapt attention to Wrenn’s every move. The boy was obviously on his way to school, as evidenced by a rather trim uniform with the school crest, a backpack, and the distinct absence of a parent or guardian.

Wrenn smiled and waved ever so slightly with his right foreclaw. That seemed to make the kid’s day, even if it did also seem to scare him a bit.

Kephic watched with interest, “Ever think about having a family?”

Wrenn shook his head, “Nohohoooo... absolutely not going there.”

Kephic cocked his head, “The idea of children scares you?”

“No. The idea of a mate scares me. The idea of caring for a child, not nearly so much. I doubt I’m ready for it, but that won’t be the case forever.”

The black and white Gryphon continued to hold his confused expression, “Why does it scare you? Having a mate?”

Wrenn turned to stare out the window at the scenery rushing by. Before, it would have been a shapeless blur of color in the foreground punctuated by blue jaggies in the background. Now the world was clear and sharp, despite the speed with which he was travelling.

“I’ve seen people do things in the name of ‘love’ that changed my conception of it. I’ve watched unhealthy infatuation take over a mind I thought I understood, and twist it into a horrifying, disgusting, parody of itself. I’m not willing to take the same chance with my own sanity.”

Kephic smiled and clapped a claw to Wrenn’s shoulder. The force of it felt normal against his new shoulder blades.
“I’ve been here on your world for a little over a year, and I’ve seen plenty of humans make it through building a relationship successfully. And if that doesn’t convince you, don’t forget, you’re part of our kind now, and we don’t even work the same way mentally. Its not *possible* for you to...” he punctuated the human phrase with air quotes, “ ‘go off the deep end’ like that.”

Wrenn shrugged, “Maybe... but I don’t intend to test that theory.”

The next two minutes passed in relative silence. The train arrived at the station for Fort Hamilton, and Wrenn noticed that the young boy exited the train behind them.
He stopped and turned to see the boy frozen, trying to maintain a safe distance.

Wrenn beckoned, “We don’t bite. Not you anyways.”
The boy hesitantly took up a position between Wrenn and Kephic, and the three walked out of the station.

“What’s your name?”

The boy looked as though he was gaining a bit of traction, “Conner. What’s yours?”

“I’m Isaac.” Wrenn gestured to his friend, “He’s Kephic.”

Conner found his courage, all at once, “I saw you on TV you know. I wanna apply at the end of the semester. Be like you. But I don’t know if my parents... I haven’t said anything...”

Wrenn glanced down in surprise, it took him a moment to collect himself, “Well. Better to ask now than let the question fester. If they say no, then what? All you have to do is be patient.”

Conner slouched, “Eight years? Really? that's FOR-E-VER....”

Kephic chuckled, “To you maybe. You might appreciate the extra time to see your world.
You will be part of the last generation to be raised here. You should see everything you can. Take it in, so you can pass it on one day.”

The boy’s expression made it clear that he had never considered it that way before.

The trio approached a crosswalk. Conner made to go right, Wrenn and Kephic were headed straight ahead to the Fort. The sidewalks were beginning to fill up as New York got its morning momentum up to speed.

Conner smiled, “It was *awesome* to meet you guys. Never in a million years... no one is gonna believe this....”

Wrenn shrugged, “You could always take a picture.”
The boy dug, eagerly, into his pocket and produced a DaTab.
Wrenn passed it to Kephic, and moved to stand next to the nearest building.
Conner bounded up and stood beside him. He splayed out one wing behind him to form a sort of backdrop.

Kephic seemed to know the workings of the DaTab well enough, and, standing on two legs, he raised it high, “Say... well.. whatever that ridiculous human picture taking phrase is.”

The device made a warbling sound, followed by a short sharp chirp.
Kephic lowered his foreclaws, and passed the DaTab back to an elated Conner.
“Thanks!”

He darted off with youthful enthusiasm, clutching the object as if it was his most valued possession.
Kephic snorted in amusement, “Some things are just universal.”

Wrenn nodded, “Yeah. Especially to the young.”

After checking in and the front gate, Wrenn and Kephic descended in a secure elevator to the Fort’s armory. Wrenn had been in many a similar installation before, and was able to find the room they needed once Kephic had yielded, begrudgingly, the number.

Wrenn guessed that his friend didn’t want to admit that his sense of direction wasn’t as good underground. Clearly Kephic hadn’t yet had sufficient cause to learn the standard military numbering system in use for ships and buildings.

The chamber was a small storage room, with a long, low worktable for stripping down weapons, and some wall racks that were mostly empty. On the floor lay two large gray crates. They were thickly ribbed, with electronic locks, and the Earthgov Military emblem stamped on the top in white. The side bore a six digit number, and the symbol for the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

Kephic hoisted one crate to the table, and began to key in his authorization code, while beckoning for Wrenn to do the same.

Wrenn used his usual military access code, not knowing what else to do, and the lock accepted it. He popped off the lid, laid it against the wall, and peered inside.

“Oh ho ho yes. It’s Christmas again and nobody told me.”

Kephic smirked, “Connoisseur of weapons and armor are you?”

Wrenn stared at the contents of the crate and whistled, “Well I sure don’t collect stamps if that’s what you mean. Good grief, this thing is immense...”

He reached in and pulled out a matte toned gunmetal gray rifle. He recognized RAC design elements in it, but it would have taken a tripod for a human to operate it properly.

The kick alone was likely enough to break half the bones in a soldier’s body if the stock as was actually pressed to the shoulder. The gun was, however, properly sized as a carbine for a Gryphon.

Kephic gestured at it, “They call it a RAC-8 DX, The stock has been adapted for us. It has about thirty five percent more force behind the rounds than a RAC-7. More range, more armor piercing, and more round capacity in the clip. I’m going to miss these when we go home.”

Wrenn popped open the stock of the weapon, grabbed the magnetic safety lock from the crate, and rammed it home. With one claw he snapped the weapon shut again, with the other he shoved a clip into place and pulled back the action.

“Seems familiar enough.”

Kephic nodded, “It might take some getting used to in terms of firing it correctly.”

Wrenn leaned over the crate again and began removing large silvery plates, “So this has been sized for me?”

Kephic nodded, “You were holo-imaged a few thousand times for the newscasts, it was easy to pull some measurements from that. It’s not exactly family armor, but it has its advantages.”

Gryphons tended to pass down family armor and weapons. Wrenn wondered what that meant for him, seeing as how he had no living family, certainly not any with Gryphon armor and weapons to bequeath.

Kephic began putting on his own armor, “It’s a Gryphon design, milled up here on Earth.
High quality nano-carbon reinforced titanium with an energy diffusion matrix.
You might as well try it on. If you want to learn to fight in it, you’d best get it broken in.”

Wrenn started to pull out pieces he could recognize, and attach them in the most logical way.
He had never done it before, but it made sense, in the same way as putting on a shirt would for a human. It helped that he knew the general principles of military armor inside and out.

There were a few complex items that needed explanation from Kephic, but in the end Wrenn managed to put all his armor on more or less by himself.

The set was somewhere between light and medium armor. It left some weak points open, but Wrenn was sure that the flexibility that left him made up for the vulnerabilities when combined with his speed and reflexes. The burnished surface contrasted nicely with his red feathers.

Kephic gave him an appraising look, “Good. Keep tightening it down if you feel any loose spots. I probably don’t have to tell you that though, you maintained your own set of armor for years.”

Wrenn shifted and took a few experimental steps. The armor appeared, from the exterior, to be made up entirely of solid metal, but underneath there was some kind of synthetic leather knockoff to keep the bare titanium from chafing against feathers and fur. The material had good traction without pulling or pinching.

Wrenn extended a wing to look at the armor plate protecting the joint. It had a deadly looking reinforced bulge on the leading edge, designed to allow him to hit someone with the full power of his wing muscles without endangering the underlying bones.

“How do I look?”

Kephic smiled, “Intimidating. Like a Knight who’s been at it for a few years. Its in the way you carry your shoulders.”

The final object in the crate was a plain, but serviceable looking sword.
Wrenn knew, from watching, that the other Gryphons’ swords were unique, part of their family inheritance. They apparently took them everywhere with them, on both sides of the barrier.

What he was being given was little more than a shard of metal. He knew that. But it was still a significant step. Swords hadn’t been used in any human military for centuries. He was taking hold of a weapon that was considered obsolete, but that he now had the power to make as deadly as any human gun.

The backplate of the armor came with a scabbard. Wrenn tucked the sword away, finding it easy to reach, and well secured between his wings. The weapon was simply too long to hang at his side.

Wrenn shook himself, slightly, to make sure everything was properly seated, and picked up the RAC-8. “Shall we?”

Wrenn’s first few shots missed by a fair margin. But once he had the feel of the gun, and more importantly the feel of the gun in his new claws, he started making every single shot. Even when the targets started moving, he had a flawless kill streak, and the time it took him to sight targets began to decrease to almost nothing.

If he needed extra time to get a good fix on a target, he simply thought and acted at an accelerated pace, as necessary. Wrenn’s new reflexes surprised even him, and he had seen Varan fight, so he had been preparing himself for the effects of a faster nervous system since he took the serum.

He could also see how his eyes would be useful for more than their acuity and speed. He could pick out the most microscopic of details on even the farthest drones. That wasn’t especially useful on a target range, but on a real battlefield it would let him identify the enemy’s armor and weapons long before the enemy could see him.

The range was an immense space. The ‘sky’ overhead was a concrete vaulted ceiling. The ‘floor’ was an eclectic mixture of fake terrains, made up of a rough short plastic grass like substance, rock, and sand, arranged into hills, gullies, and flat spots.

The left and right walls contained protected galleries from which snipers could shoot at targets that lay further downrange without putting themselves in the line of fire coming from snipers at the main firing end of the chamber.

The drones that comprised the targets were actually created by a sophisticated holographic simulation system. Wrenn could even pick out the millions of evenly spaced projection diodes in the roof.

Once Kephic was reasonably sure Wrenn had the feel for using firearms again, they moved on to a pair of rail-snipes that had been set up for them.

The long, menacing looking black weapons were setup with a view downrange, positioned so that they had the maximum distance possible in their line of fire. To the left and right, Earthgov Military Special Forces sniper teams were practicing with their own similar weapons; aiming for drones, both moving and stationary, that were in the one mile range.

Every so often a loud report would ring out, usually accompanied by a tiny pinging sound as the round struck and shredded a distant target. The holographic ‘deaths’ of the vaguely humanoid robots were fairly realistic, including simulated shrapnel and coolant fluid, that faded after a few moments along with the ‘corpse.’

Kephic lay down on his chest in front of the rifle on the right, “We can start stationary. If you manage to get a feel for the weapon, we can try from a standing position as well. Just shoot at the farthest target you think you can hit, and work out from there.”

Wrenn adopted a similar position on his chest in front of the left rifle. He had worked with the lighter infantry version of a rail-snipe before, and he could recall the weapon’s basic operation.

As a human, lying on his chest for long period had been somewhat uncomfortable, a factor that affected all snipers. As a Gryphon, with a somewhat more felinoid skeleton, the position was much more tenable in the long term.

He glanced over at Kephic, who was mumbling invectives as he fiddled with his rail-snipe.
Wrenn cocked his head, “Problem?”

“I’ve been practicing here for a while now, and I keep telling the requisitions officer; *remove* the blasted scope.”

Wrenn did a double take, “What... you want us to use these with iron sights?”

Kephic raised an eyebrow, turned back to his weapon, and simply smacked the scope with enough force to break the mounting clip. He gingerly picked the shards of fracture plastic out of the sights as he answered, “The maximum magnification on one of these scopes is 44 times normal. Our eyes can do well over ten times that on a bad day, with no detail loss. So which would you rather use?”

Wrenn deftly unsnapped his scope, the proper way, and laid it to rest on the faux grass beside him. The substance reminded him of the green on a golf course, but rougher, like plastic.
Kephic glared, “Showoff.”

Wrenn smirked, and gazed downrange through the iron sights. He concentrated on the back wall of the three mile long space. Now that he was looking at it, it made perfect sense that his eyes would be superior to a rifle scope. He could easily pick out, magnify, and analyze the target drones at maximum distance. Most were set up to be shot at from side galleries that were much closer to them.

Wrenn was about to load his rifle, when he became aware of movement nearby. He wasn’t sure if it was hearing alone, or some other sixth sense, but he could tell that three of the two-man sniper teams were making a beeline for him and Kephic.

He waited until the six Special Forces operatives were close enough to hear him, “Greetings. Target practice getting dull?”

The sergeant in charge, a tall burly man who looked to Wrenn like he was in his fifties, laughed and smacked one of his soldiers on the arm, “You owe me twelve. I bet they had us pegged from five minutes ago.”

Kephic looked up and grinned wolfishly, “Ten.”

The sergeant chuckled, “We just wanted to see if you two were for real. There’s a lot of stuff going around in the media about your combat skills. Some of us are betting its hyperbole.”

Wrenn glanced up from loading a cartridge with long, slender, heavy tungsten-steel-carbide armor piercing rounds, “Hyperbole? It’s probably an underestimation.”

Kephic snapped his safety back to the ‘armed’ position, “I tell you what, our Knights love a good friendly competition, and I’d guess your soldiers are the same. Lay out your score keeping device, and we’ll play a few rounds with these drones. I’m willing to bet you that our combined score...” here he gestured at Wrenn, “...Will beat the combined score for each of you added together. As individuals, not teams.”

It seemed preposterous, even to Wrenn. Their opponents were trained hard to be the best shots in the world. They spent more time target shooting than Wrenn figured he had probably spent eating or sleeping in his entire life. And to top that, usually snipers were scored as teams. If you added their individual scores, instead of averaging them, even when they were working as a team, the final number would go up considerably. It was already a six versus two competition. Three to one odds. And Wrenn hadn’t used a rail-snipe in years.

Before he could object the sergeant nodded, “Loser buys everyone lunch?’

Kephic cycled a cartridge into his rifle, “Deal.”

By the time the three teams finished setting up, most of the soldiers in the range had heard about the impromptu contest, ceased their practice, and taken up spectator positions.

The scorekeeping device, a silver disc that sat on the grass and projected a holographic scorecard based on data from the range’s sophisticated hit/miss sensors, lay between Wrenn and the sniper teams on his left.
Kephic lay to his right.

The rules had been agreed upon beforehand; Each Gryphon, or team, would get seven shots. The number of shots in a medium rail-snipe clip.

They would go in sequence, seven times, starting with the first sniper team, and ending with Kephic. They had as long as they needed to make the shot, but the amount of time taken would factor into the score along with range, and where on the target the round impacted.

The rangemaster had agreed to act as referee. He stood at the end of the line beside the first sniper team, with a whistle in his mouth. His diminutive stature was compensated for with his booming authoritative, classic drill sergeant voice. He reminded Wrenn of his first instructor in basic.

Each team signaled its readiness, ending with nods from both Wrenn and Kephic.
The first duo lost no time in preparing their shot. The spotter quietly called out the range as a series of numbers, while the shooter made quick adjustments to his scope using thumb controls on the side of the weapon. Within twenty seconds, a shot rang out, followed by the telltale faint ping, and a warble from the scorekeeping device as the first team’s kill was recorded.

The sequence repeated itself twice more. Wrenn knew enough about sniping to know that the teams were picking medium difficulty targets, as a way to cement their partnership and get ‘in the zone,’ as they liked to call it.

Finally, after a solid minute, it was Wrenn’s turn.
He inhaled, and did his best to bring time to a standstill, or as close as it would go.

He browsed the selection of targets, and decided on a drone that he judged to be a mile and a half distant. No sense in pushing his luck on the very first shot with a new weapon.

The range was designed to simulate real conditions, so there was a light cross breeze. Some primal part of Wrenn’s Gryphon brain knew how to handle that, as well as the inherent pull on the round from gravity, the kick from the weapon, the slight downshift from exhaling on firing, and the compensating pull-back from the action of working the trigger.

Most of that information crossed Wrenn’s mind as sensation, rather than raw numerically translatable data. But he understood it, as surely as he understood flavor, or smell, or sound. The only concerning factor was the weapon itself. He replayed the earlier shots in his mind, and decided he could handle the kick, despite not having felt it himself.

He sighted the target down the barrel, it was a mover, unlike the team’s targets so far, and thus it was worth more. As time began to snap back, he judged its movement, and began to pivot the weapon ever so slightly on its tripod.

He exhaled, and his perception of time returned to normal. He spent a tenth of a second verifying that everything was lined up, and squeezed the trigger hard.

There was a pause as the round traveled the extraordinary distance. He could actually see most of the rounds as they traversed the space, his mind and eyes were simply fast enough to process that kind of information.

The silver pointed cylinder tore through the chosen drone, right in one of its superfluous glowing eye sockets. The entire head shredded spectacularly.

Kephic moved to take his shot, as if nothing special had just transpired, but Wrenn could feel the eyes of every spectator on him. From the whispers his ears could pick up, he knew they were more than a little impressed.

Kephic’s shot came within two seconds of his own, and struck one of the three mile drones directly in what might have been its jugular. That further compounded the shock the human troops were feeling, and it took the sniper team at the head of the line a few moments to process what had just happened.

The range-master's voice rang out, “Clocks ‘a tickin’ folks!”
The words sent the soldiers into overdrive.

Wrenn realized that Kephic’s bet had not been crazy at all. If anything, the Special Forces sergeant had been a fool to take him up on it. Wrenn’s first shot had been modest compared to Kephic’s and it had been worth more than the score of the first two teams combined.

By the time it was his turn again, Wrenn had selected his next target, and observed its movement patterns thoroughly. He was going to try for a three mile shot, like Kephic’s.

Again, his brain kicked into overdrive, taking less than a second to instinctually analyze the variables and plot the potential outcomes.

He sighted down the barrel, the distance seeming to compress as his eye produced a telescopic effect on command. He squeezed the trigger, and was rewarded a few seconds later with the sight of the chosen drone’s chest exploding into a million pieces.

He had chosen the chest, as a way of testing his accuracy. If he managed to hit the Earthgov Military logo dead center, then he would be confident he had the aim to hit an eye, or a a throat.
If not, he could keep going for chest shots.

He replayed the moment in his mind. His round had punctured the logo clean through its exact center. Wrenn was surprised, so the snipers must have been outright flattened.

The first team did not repeat their earlier mistake, they launched into a much more complex shot, trying for a two mile drone at the max theoretical limit for a rail-snipe team to make a good kill shot. From Wrenn’s calculations, they had been aiming for the drone’s head, but instead the round pierced its shoulder.

After that, the contest was easy, and the conclusion foregone. The teams did their best to hit targets at the maximum range they thought they could handle, hoping their combined scores as individuals would counterbalance the fact that Wrenn and Kephic spent the remaining rounds getting eye-shots on three mile distant moving targets.

As Kephic discharged his last round, Wrenn finally allowed himself to look at the score-card.
He did some quick math, and grinned. His score, combined with Kephic’s was over ten times higher than the combined scores of the teams. As for the individual scores, he was less assured.

The range-master collected the score device, as everyone stood. The sniper teams stretched to ease out small cramps. Wrenn and Kephic had suffered no such discomforts.

A few seconds later, the range-master whistled, and held up the score keeping device for all to see. He shouted, “The Gryphons, individually, beat the combined individual scores of these six snipers individually, by a factor of three. Each on their own. Combined, there’s no question about it.”

The sergeant ambled over and shook Wrenn’s claw, then Kephic’s, he grinned sheepishly, “Well. I guess we know who buys lunch. And I guess I know what I’m doing when it comes time for *my* Conversion.”

Chapter 15

Wrenn and Kephic had returned to the Bureau in the lul just before rush hour, so as to avoid causing a stir. They had spent an enjoyable lunch telling war stories, cracking jokes, and just relaxing with fellow soldiers, regardless of species or allegiance.

Then they had run a few circuits of the outer hallways, bipedally and quadrupedally, to help Wrenn further break in the armor. After that, they had taken a few practice shots with the Arbalests.

The range was close to that of the rail-snipe, by dint of the fact that the ‘strings’ of the weapon were tri-corded steel cabling. It was a decent exertion for even a Gryphon to cock the weapon, making it unusable for humans, and most unicorns.

The crossbow-like device didn’t have the same repeating capacity as a rail-snipe, but then the only ranged weapon in Equestria that could be loaded faster was the compound bow, the preferred weapon of Gryphon Alarians. The compound bow had decidedly less range and piercing power than the arbalest, but it could be loaded and fired much more quickly, folded down smaller, and was lighter.

Kephic hadn’t been able to get any replicas of the weapon made, so practice with that would have to wait.

As they rode the maglev back to the Bureau, Kephic had explained how a Gryphon could extend the range of any bow by firing it from flight, allowing an arcing path downwards to increase the bolt’s speed, accuracy, and range with a gravitational assist.

The more he thought about it, the more the urge to fly began to plague Wrenn.
He felt as if he was chained down, as if an oppressive force was closing in on him, and that force was gravity.

Moving, even running, didn’t help.

Near the end of the train ride, he had experienced a moment he could only compare to a bout of severe claustrophobia, though it had been far worse. A burning frustration under the very real sensation of pressure, from both without and within.

He had explained it to Kephic, who nodded sagely and told him in turn that Gryphons, Dragons, and Pegasi needed to fly the same way Humans and Unicorns needed to move every so often from a sedentary position, and Earth Ponies needed to run.

It was part of their inherent nature. Their soul, even.

Like Dragons, Gryphons were lords of the sky; Its owners, defender, and keepers. There was a special relationship there that even Pegasi sometimes struggled to understand, though aside from Dragons they were best able to empathize.

A Pegasus’s magical connection to the sky and clouds was different than a Gryphon’s, but related in at least some way. While Gryphons couldn’t manipulate weather, and could only partly manipulate clouds, they could still walk on them, proving they shared at least some innate magic with Pegasi.

The rest of the train ride had consisted of Kephic trying to explain that Gryphons could have innate magic, and that it was in fact part of their natural defense against cast magic of the transformative or manipulative nature. In the end, they both agreed to abandon the line of thinking. Neither knew enough about magic, or Thaumatics, to reason it all out, though it did spark no small amount of curiosity in Wrenn.

When they arrived back at the Bureau, Kephic told him to take off and store his armor, then go to the roof. By the time Wrenn arrived, Kephic, Sildinar, and Varan were waiting for him.

Varan offered a smile, “I hear our obstacle course session is canceled.”

Wrenn nodded; he had guessed why he had been asked to the roof, and the urge to jump was already becoming disturbingly loud in the back of his mind, “Yeah... well... sorry. I couldn’t wait any more to get to the good stuff.”

Sildinar glanced over the edge, “Come take a look. Get the feel for the updrafts.”

Wrenn came to stand by the edge. He could sense Sildinar moving, and might have managed to dodge, if he had really wanted to. He had been party to enough pranks and stunts to have suspected what the roan Gryphon was going to do.

Sildinar, in one graceful, forceful motion, shoved him off the top of the forty story building.

The sensation of falling wasn’t new to Wrenn. He had made H.A.L.O jumps before. The particular feel of the wind through his feathers was new, as was the ability to keep his eyes wide open comfortably despite the wind whipping against their bare surfaces.

He wasn’t afraid, not in the strictest sense. He figured that Sildinar, Kephic, and Varan could easily arrest his descent, and lift him between them, with strength to spare. He was, however, nervous. He wanted to fly, not fall on his face like an idiot. This was the ultimate test of belonging, from a biological standpoint. Was he *really* a Gryphon? really and truly?

He cleared his mind, and forced his wings open. The lift effect jolted him sharply, and something that had been vying to breathe since the moment he woke up on the Conversion table, came bursting out in force. A deep seated part of his nature came out of sleep mode, and into new life, with a vengeance. The force was old, as old as the species, and entwined so strongly with his mind and heart that it must have been a part of Gryphons as long as Gryphons had been alive.

And it knew how to fly.

The sensation of flight on his own wings, of air passing over and under the feathers, creating lift, was so freeing, so euphoric, that he pitied fighter pilots for the first time in his life. Gravity was nothing more than an ally he could use to attain speed. Air was no longer a substance that was only good for breathing, it was his native medium, and his native realm, just as water was to a fish.

The wide open spaces of the sky weren’t something to be dreamed of forlornly anymore. They were *his.*

He could feel feedback from every individual feather. It was all compiled and presented as a single instinctive, primal sensation, like his ability to predict the weather, or sense the pattern of the air ahead, but it was a sensation as strong and real as any of the traditional five.

He spent a good few minutes just being brash. He rolled, he spun, he dove and climbed.
Wrenn was intent on testing his limits. Unlike walking, there seemed to be no disconnect. He had never had wings before, so he had no misconceptions about the limbs to interfere with his new instincts.

No matter what he did, he couldn’t disorient himself.
He always seemed to know exactly where he was in relation to the earth and the sky, and even, to his surprise, the points of the compass. Wrenn knew, every second, his precise spatial orientation, speed, and where he would be in the next few seconds.

On a whim, he pushed his wings as hard as he could, doing his best to clock his speed.
According to his guess, based on watching mileposts pass on the road below, he was doing nearly ninety miles an hour, with no assisting tailwind and no diving or loss in altitude.

The level of power he could feel in his wing muscles made him all too aware of how fierce a weapon they would make. At first he had thought the idea of a Gryphon beating an enemy with a wing silly, now it seemed terrifying, in the bone rending skull flattening sense.

He made a game of playing chicken with his reflection in the nearest mega-skyscraper.
Though it took extra work to convert it to a real number, he could judge the distance to the glass and steel surface to within a feather’s breadth, and he had at least some conception of the dynamics of his own motion.

At the last possible microsecond, he dipped one wing, pulled into a hard downward spin, and corrected into a dive.

The windows of the building streaked past mere inches from his chest, the vortex flattening the feathers and fur. Wrenn beat his wings in slow, strong strokes to further assist gravity.

He spent a moment working out his speed based on the height of each floor, and the number of floors he was passing per second. By the time he reached the bottom third of the structure, he was clocking two hundred and sixty seven miles per hour.

He wondered what the tolerances on his wings were, as he splayed them outward and tilted them to adjust his downward momentum into outward speed.
He managed to level off about twenty feet above the traffic in the street below, and only incur minor temporary soreness in the joints of his wings.

A thought occurred to him, and he made the effort to climb back up to several hundred feet.
He dove again, but instead of a sharp turn, he made a more gradual transition back to level flight.
Sure enough; he was able to retain much of his speed, shedding it to friction very very slowly.

For what seemed like hours, he just flew in circles through the city, taking in the feelings, both physical and emotional. Compared to this new experience, the idea of freedom as a word, or legal concept, or inalienable right, seemed tepid and worthless. To Wrenn, it was impossible to think of freedom, in its purest sense, as anything but flight.

The wind played across his feathers, conveying myriad things about the world around him.
From so high up, he could see the city as an entire living breathing entity. Details as small as words on a text being written on a DaTab, or the picture as a whole, and nearly all at once.

Night had fallen, and the thick cloud layers which began several hundred feet above him reflected the amber and silver lights of civilization in their subtle folds and curves.
The light bounced back and played across the buildings, bouncing between reflective surfaces over and over, leaving the sidewalks and streets as illumined as if it were broad daylight.

Those thoroughfares were filled to bursting with people.

Wrenn counted, in vis view range alone, two million seven hundred and thirty thousand, nine hundred and twelve. No wonder it had been known for so long as ‘The City that never Slept.’

He looked left at the sound of a traffic monitoring drone below and to the side, and became fixated with watching his own wing, to the point that he nearly slipped into a bank turn. That got him back into stunt flying, and he pushed his range of motion as far as it would go. He never felt out of control; his body knew precisely how to live in the world of the air, and he and his body were one.

Wrenn was aware of the other three Gryphons’ approach long before they reached him. He could see them coming from quite a distance. When they came within earshot, Kephic shouted, “You nearly lost us back there! I gather you’re enjoying yourself?”

Wrenn laughed, “Dang Straight!”

He dipped into formation with the others, and brought his voice down to a loud speaking tone, which was sufficient to be heard over the rush of air and the din of the megatropolis below, “You shoved me off a building!” He glared at Sildinar, his expression more born of cheerful resentment than actual peevishness.

Sildinar inclined his head, “It’s how we teach fledglings to fly, so I decided the same technique would suffice for you. The three of us fly daily in the morning and evening, schedules permitting, so I take it you’ll be joining us now?”

Wrenn nodded emphatically.

Kephic altered his flight path and jabbed Varan in the ribs with one wing,
“I told you he would take to it.”

Varan rolled his eyes, “And I never disagreed with you.”

The four flew on in silence for nearly an hour, straight out to sea.
Wrenn discovered, by watching the others and by listening to his own instincts, that long duration flight was best accomplished by climbing, starting a dive, then gliding with only a stroke of the wings every ten or fifteen minutes to further diffuse the momentum falloff.

Wrenn counted twelve ships on the journey, most cargo or passenger, but he one spied a military destroyer like the Indianapolis, lurking just below the surface.

Eventually, by unspoken consent, they turned around and headed back to the Bureau.
When they arrived back on the roof, it was well past midnight. Wrenn didn’t feel tired in the slightest, but his gut told him he had easily flown forty or fifty miles total that night, counting maneuvers. Obviously Gryphons had extreme endurance when it came to flight.

He folded his wings and noted, with mild amusement, that he had finally managed to put a few of his primaries in disarray with his more hectic maneuvers. He would have to give those a good solid preening before bed.

The four Gryphons spent a few more hours together, they went downstairs for coffee, and talked mostly of flight; The various mechanics, maneuvers, aerial warfare tactics, flying for show, and long distance flight.

By the time he finished preening and rolled into bed, Wrenn was starting to feel a little tired.
Regardless of the Caffeine high from the coffee, and the remaining glow of euphoria from his first flight, he managed to drift off to sleep in ten minutes flat.

As he stood in Hutch’s office, Wrenn tried to figure out just how the morning had gone from perfect, to abysmal, so quickly. Things had started out with a pre-dawn flight, a nice breakfast, more amusing deadpan humor from Skye, and the promise of some sword training.

Then Stanley Carradan had ‘invited’ himself to the table.

Wrenn wasn’t sure how the reporter had managed to get into the secure part of the building without a pass, but he intended to wring someone's neck for it once the offending person was ejected from the premises.

Carradan, looking like the cat that ate the canary, had announced in the most roundabout and veiled way possible, that he knew about Wrenn’s implants. Wrenn’s first reaction had been amusement. That information couldn’t do him much of any harm now.

But Hutch had reacted with considerably more concern, and insisted on finishing the conversation in his office. On the way up, it had dawned on Wrenn that the information was not so much dangerous to him, as to the new program. Nevermind the fact that implantation and Conversion were apples and oranges to each other, people were going to hit the roof if Carradan talked, and that didn’t bode well for a potentially controversial program still in its infancy.

Wrenn spoke up, once the sliding doors to the Commander’s office had fully sealed, separating him and Sildinar and Hutch with Carradan from the rest of the world.

“I say we drop him off the Freedom Tower and see if he can swim in the monument pools.”

Hutch glared, but Sildinar actually seemed to legitimately consider the option before dismissing it, “That will accomplish less than you’d think. We need to know his source, or the information will make its way to someone else.”

Carradan scoffed, “As if I’d tell you---”

Wrenn interrupted, “Excellent point. I took a survival course in torture techniques once. Let’s play around and see what we can get out of him before he eats his own guts to stop the pain...”

Carradan flinched, his whining voice grating on Wrenn’s nerves as it crossed into a higher note progression than usual, “You can’t! You wouldn’t! What about your honor code...”

Wrenn splayed one wing around Carradan in what would normally be a protective gesture.

Wrenn’s voice was low and measured, the danger only apparent if one listened for the growl bubbling up under the air of control, “Listen weasel. I’ve had it up to my crest with your excremental reporting techniques. Our honor code is perfectly at ease with causing someone like you pain to serve better ends. If you can’t take the talons, you shouldn’t have pissed off the Gryphon.”

He leaned in and whispered, his hot breath filling the man’s ear, “I will not let you put an end to this program with your childish tomfoolery. I will haul you off to an empty construction scaffold somewhere high above the prying eyes of the city, and I will bolt you to the superstructure with a rivet gun, and skin you alive to die of exposure.”

Wrenn allowed Carradan to back away from him to the other side of the room, the Gryphon’s voice became almost jovial, “That, or you can tell me everything you know, right now, and maybe you’ll just get off with disappearing into a secret Earthgov prison for a few months.”

Hutch protested, “I’m not going to be party to that.”

Sildinar shrugged, “Then, Mr. Carradan, your options are clear. Speak now, or we turn you over to Wrenn.”

Carradan looked to Hutch, his pleading eyes conveying, for once, a strong aura of fear, “You guys don’t get it do you? They’ll kill me! They’ll do worse things to me than you’re suggesting that’s for sure...”

Hutch threw up his hands, “I can’t exactly control the Lieutenant. If he wants to put an end to you, I can’t stop him from doing so in whatever way he sees fit. Unless of course you get serious and play ball. Then we can talk about amnesty, and maybe even government protection, all you want.”

Carradan gulped and looked back and forth between Wrenn and Hutch, weighing his options.

Finally he stammered, “I... uh.... I suppose that’s not much of a.... choice.... But look you’re going to have to find out who my source is yourself! They sent me an encoded e-mail.”

He fished in one coat pocket, and yanked out a DaTab which he showed to Hutch, “I’ll give you this, let you do whatever you want to track them down. I won’t breathe a word about Wrenn’s implants either. In exchange you let me get off scott free, you protect me, and you let me become an embedded reporter with them...”

He jerked a thumb at Wrenn and Sildinar.

Hutch raised an eyebrow, “You want to spent quality time with creatures who are capable of skinning you alive, and dislike you so much that they have threatened to do it?”

Carradan threw up his hands, “There’s a logic to it! They can’t hurt me for just mouthing off, so if I cooperate they have to protect me instead, and they are *the* best protection these days.”

A thought occurred to Wrenn, “Fine. But I have three conditions. First, you need to understand that I can and will hurt you for mouthing off, so you will need to keep a civil tongue. Second, you agree and understand that if you ever do or say anything to compromise the Bureaus, or the Gryphonization program, I can and will do to you the sorts of things Earthgov trained and paid me to do to terrorist cells. Third you will follow all orders while on the field, no if's, and's, or but's.”

Carradan glanced at Hutch, and Sildinar in turn. They both nodded their agreement to Wrenn’s stipulations. The man gulped, “I don’t like taking orders, but you’re gonna force this one me anyways, aren’t you?”

Sildinar shook his head, “No. But you are *well* aware of the alternative. And you are the one who asked to travel into active combat zones with us.”

“Riiight. You wouldn't really skin me would you?"

Wrenn shook his head, "Not for refusing to answer our questions. I'm sure I could scare you enough to make you do that without really harming you. On the other hand, if you take the story public..."
He ran one talon against another, making a threat laden rasping sound.

Carradan nodded, "So... er... I guess I’ll take the deal. At least I’ll be famous by the end. Maybe there’s a promotion in it for me...” he brightened at the thought, “...maybe I can use this to finally knock my boss out of her big fat leather chair... you guys are the hot news right now.”

He looked from Sildinar to Wrenn, “So is there some ceremony to this? Are you guys gonna jinx me or something? Or do I have to sign paperwork?”

Sildinar chuckled, “There is no magic involved in the word of honorable individuals, just our very trustworthiness. That should both comfort, and scare you, sufficiently that magic is unnecessary to ensure your compliance.”

Carradan looked up and furrowed his brow, “That's it? No contract? No Papers?”

Wrenn snickered, “That's it. Except that you probably want to go secure your Ponification slot now. I hear they’re expecting a full week.”

Carradan shot to his feet, “My WHAT?!”

Hutch tried not to burst out laughing as Sildinar explained, “We leave for Equestria in one week. If you want to follow and continue reporting on us, you can not do so as a human. And I have absolutely no intention of letting you within a mile of becoming one of our kind. So what does that leave you?”

Carradan blustered, his face turning red, “This wasn’t part of the deal!”
At this point Hutch lost control, and actually started laughing, doubling over and wiping tears from his eyes.

Wrenn smirked, “Yes it was. You just didn’t think it through. I guarantee you its still better than taking me up on the alternative.” He paused, “I hope you like haycakes. That, or you can keep to your end of the bargain, stay behind, and find someone else to pester.”

“But what about my *job*!?! If I stay, I lose out on the scoop of the decade, a scoop I promised my boss! If I go, I'm not a human anymore, and I don't know how she will react to that either!”

Wrenn shrugged, “Again, you should have thought that through before you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong, but I expect that Equestria needs reporters.
You’re no less qualified to make breaking news with hooves than hands.
Besides, I’m sure you’d still be famous here too. Lots of people want to hear about life as a Gryphon on the other side of the barrier, and you would get to spend quality time with even *more* of us. In our native territory. Choice is yours.”

Carradan’s anguished groan was sweet, sweet music to Wrenn’s ears.

Hutch was still trying to suppress fits of laughter as he walked with Wrenn and Sildinar to deliver Carradan’s DaTab to the technical department.

“You guys are devious. You know that?”

Sildinar snorted, “That surprises you? One can be both honorable and cunning at the same time. In truth, staying with us is likely the safest course for Mr. Carradan, if he has the courage to take it. If the people who bequeathed him this information are as dangerous as he claims, then Equestria is a safer place by far than the streets of New York.”

Wrenn snickered, “I am going to savor the memory of the look on his face for a long, long time. Do you think he’ll really help us squash the story on my implants? It’s bound to crop up elsewhere and grow.”

Sildinar nodded, “He will have to. His word will carry enough weight, and I’m sure Earthgov will take extra measures to ensure nobody believes the story. I do not like being party to a lie such as this, but even I must admit that it is necessary for now.”

Hutch grunted, having become more sober, “I wanna know just how somebody got ahold of that information. I thought we plugged our leak.”

His final words made it to Skye’s ears as they rounded the corner into the lab.
She bounded up to the group, “We did. What did ya bring me today?”

Hutch tossed her the DaTab, which she deftly caught in her telekinetic grip. He gestured to it, “Someone sent some very sensitive data to a certain reporter via that device. Think you can trace who sent it, and from where?”

Sky snorted, “Um.. helooooo? My special talent is information. Of course I can figure it out. Just give me a few days. Give or take. Depending on how cooperative this little beast is.”

She glared at the DaTab as if it were alive, and her intimidating gaze would force it to break down and confess in a stream of rapid zeroes and ones.

Wrenn chuckled, “Don’t make it suffer too badly now.”

Skye rolled her eyes, “You wound me. I’m a bit more delicate than that.”

One of the techs working at the back of the room mumbled something. Hutch didn’t catch it, but Wrenn, Sildinar, and Skye did, “She isn’t exactly delicate with us...”

Skye growled and shouted, in a good natured scolding tone, “You! Overpaid underling! Back to soldering!”

Chapter 16

“You! You are a *marvelous* specimen of a Gryphon, d’you know that? Of course you do!”

Wrenn was counting; That made the fifth time the new specialist from Equestria had called him a ‘specimen.’ Obviously it wasn’t meant as an insult, and it didn’t bother Wrenn, but the incessant repetition did.

The specialist was a light shade of taupe, with a short cropped silvery mane, a stethoscope for a cutie mark, and half-moon glasses that made him look stern unless he was smiling, which he always seemed to be doing to some varying degree.

On the surface, he reminded Wrenn of every office doctor he had ever met, but the Pony was far more jovial, to an almost ridiculous degree, even for an Equestrian. Wrenn was standing in the middle of a medical ward, wings splayed, as the physician went over every single primary feather.

He had already suffered through a check of his, apparently, six chambered heart and ‘compound high-low-pressure tolerant lungs,’ along with the standard eye, ear, nose, and throat exam.

“Now, can you hold up your tail?”

Wrenn grudgingly obliged. Gryphons’ tails came in two varieties; those that ended like a lion tuft, and those that ended in a fan of tailfeathers. Wrenn’s was the latter, as were Sildinar’s and Kephic’s, Varan’s was the former.

The doctor hummed appreciatively, “Very nice! Good spread of tailfeathers!”

Wrenn craned his head to look over his shoulder, “Is there any mechanically useful difference in the two types of tails?”

The doctor looked up, “You mean tuft versus fan? Certainly. Fantails like you possess ever so slightly better balance and control of your motion in flight. Tufttails don’t have much advantage nor disadvantage in and of themselves, but their tails are far more suitable for mounting barbs, blades, and other horrid things like that.”

Wrenn spent a few moments imagining Varan with a tail barb. The mental picture was a bit frightening.

Finally the doctor finished his seemingly incessant poking and prodding.
“You’re fit as a fiddle. Healthy young Gryphon. Good life expectancy, sayyyyy three hundred years total!”

Wrenn stiffened, “My life expectancy is three hundred years?”

The Pegasus nodded, “Indeed, if I had to take a guess. Your kind was always a bit longer lived than us, but of course we all pale in comparison to Dragons. There’s another fascinating flying specimen for you!”

The specialist walked out, tossing over his shoulder, “Make sure to be back in here at least once more before you set off for the barrier. And remind your friends that they have appointments too!”

Wrenn spent several minutes trying to conceptualize three hundred years of time. He was going to live to see the Earth disappear, and then some. The thought was deeply sobering.

He had known Gryphons were long lived, but none of the others had ever mentioned an actual time frame.

He did his best to shake off any philosophical considerations before they set in for the long haul. Sildinar was supposed to start his sword training today, and being distracted was probably a good way to get thrashed.

Mercifully, Sildinar spent the better part of the day teaching Wrenn basic things; How to hold the weapon, good starting positions, the advantages and disadvantages of stabbing versus slashing, and how not to behead oneself when spinning the weapon.

Varan joined them for lunch in the training room, which was normally used to teach ConSec recruits martial arts, and thus had suitable unobstructed space for close range swordplay.

Kephic was needed for a weekly security sweep. Sildinar and Varan did the job sometimes, but that week was Kephic’s turn.

Wrenn took a large chunk out of his meat strip, chewed pensively, then decided to get the weight off his chest, “So... Three hundred years?”

Varan looked confused for a long moment, then he realized what Wrenn was referring to, “Yes, of course. Why bring that up now?”

Wrenn nearly choked on his next bite, “Well... Because it was a bit of a shock. None of you ever gave an actual number, in years, for our average lifetime. I assumed it was maybe a hundred and twenty or something.”

Sildinar glanced up, looking surprised and upset with himself, “I’m sorry Wrenn... I don’t think it ever occurred to us that life span was going to be such an emotional thing. That was quite an oversight on our part.”

Wrenn waved a claw, “No no no… there’s no need to be sorry. I imagine you take it in stride, its normal for you. It’s not as though finding out you’ll live so long is bad, most people would kill for a life span like that.... It’s just quite stunning. This is definitely something that needs to be added to the orientation classes. Really a comprehensive unit on our biology, from a twenty thousand foot view, and a closer 'daily practicals' view both would be ideal.”

Sildinar nodded, “I’ll make sure of it.”

Varan stood and glanced at Wrenn, “Training going well?”

Wrenn snorted, “I feel like a recruit again. Adjusting to a bigger gun and better eyes is easy. Adjusting to swinging a bladed weapon at what feels like lightspeed, with accuracy? Not so much.”

Varan shrugged, which turned into an amusingly cat like stretch of the legs, followed by a very bird like stretch of the wings, and a yawn, “Well, save some of your embarrassment for tonight, you’ve put off obstacle course training long enough.”

Wrenn snorted, “Oh joy...”

A thought occurred to him, “By the way, the new specialist asked me to remind you that you all have standing appointments with him.”

Now it was Varan’s turn to look put out, “Oh joy...”

The next few days passed with a comfortable enjoyable routine; Morning flight, breakfast with the usual group, sword training with Sildinar, lunch, arbalest target shooting with Kephic, dinner, obstacle course laden with armor, gear, and Varan’s deadpan good natured taunts, then an evening flight.

Wrenn found that every time he ran the obstacle course, he felt more at home with his new legs. He hadn’t tripped, slipped, or even stumbled in days. He was unlearning all his human instincts for movement, balance, and the five senses. In their place, the fully formed Gryphon instincts that had come with the body were roaring to life.

Arbalest training became more about nailing down a fast reload routine. Aiming was easy once he had the feel of the weapon. Sword training was a different matter. Sildinar told him he was improving, but he still felt like a complete amateur in the presence of a master.

The roan Gryphon kept encouraging him by telling him he had excellent potential, and good warrior’s instincts, which kept Wrenn’s spirits high. The work was certainly enjoyable, the deadly weapon was sometimes little more than a lethal lightshow in Sildinar’s claws, moving so fast it seemed to disappear into a silver blur without the aid of time dialation.

Sildinar and Kephic even put on a practice duel for Wrenn’s benefit. The action was nearly soundless, each combatant was thinking and reacting so quickly, that the blades almost never touched. As soon as Sildinar would make a move, Kephic would adjust to counter it, which Sildinar would adjust to counter in turn, and so on.

Wrenn could barely keep up, they were moving at close to the maximum limit for even a Gryphon. His near-perfect memory was of great use. He often learned more by replaying something in even slower motion which he had once seen than by seeing it for the first time.

It wasn’t that Wrenn couldn’t replicate the same raw speed in his own swordplay, he was simply not accomplished enough in the kinesthetics of the weapon; The ways it could move in experienced claws. He didn’t know how to predict where Sildinar’s sword was going to be, and every time he tried he could only hold the duel for a few seconds before the master swordsgryph gave him a resounding thwack on the head, or wings, or chest.

Their weapons were always locked into rubber training sheaths, and his fur and feathers were very pain tolerant, but it was always a bit humiliating to lose so quickly. Still, it was never wholly unpleasant. Every defeat brought with it a lesson, and a slight increase in his skill, and a lengthening of the time he could successfully keep his guard up.

The only truly unpleasant moments came when Carradan sat in on some of the various training sessions. It was part of the agreement, so he had no room to complain.

After the second time, it got easier to deal with the man. Carradan had made a truly off-color ribald joke, and Kephic had given him a serious scare with his arbalest, leaving a large hole in Carradan’s left pant leg, a rug-burn like mark on his left leg, and a large stain in the crotch.

That put an end, for a while at least, to the recalcitrant reporter’s crass social ineptitudes. Wrenn wondered if it had also put an end to any chance that Carradan would take the abrupt flying leap into Ponification. The reporter talked about it on and off in both interested, and frightened tones; It was clear he had given the idea consideration before, and that he was seriously giving it consideration in the moment. What remained unclear was which way he was leaning. Wrenn guessed the man didn't even know himself.

The emotionally confusing issue of Wrenn's forthcoming three hundred year life had mostly faded.
It didn’t seem real enough to hold any serious emotional sway, and by the time it did, surely he would be much more used to the idea.

It seemed as though life might remain relatively routine until time to depart for Equestria.
And then, on the morning of the day before their scheduled departure, Skye came to breakfast with news that put an end to the status quo.

“You guys, you are gonna flip when you see this!” Skye blurted as she skidded to a stop in front of the table. The tan unicorn was out of breath, and her vibrant blue mane was a tousled mess.
Wrenn wondered if that was because she hadn’t slept in days, or because she had run all the way down to the cafeteria. Whatever she had been up to, it had made her late for breakfast. Everyone else, Wrenn included, was nearly finished with their food.

She plowed ahead, barely taking a breath, “So, I took the ‘tab you gave me, Carradan’s, and I ran everything I could on it. No joy. But on a hunch, I took the one you recovered at the Liberty Bell Tower and I did comparison spells on them, and...”

She inhaled deeply before blurting out, “I found them!”

Hutch looked up sharply from his coffee, “Found who?”

Skye was practically shaking with excitement, “THEM! The people who planted the AI, the people who sent Carradan the super secret data, I guess the people responsible for the attacks... That would make them PER. I found them!”

For a beat, no one spoke. Then everyone tried to speak at once, resulting in a cacophony of overlapping questions and exclamations.

Hutch banged his coffee mug on the table to restore a modicum of order, “I think we’d best move this conversation to a secured area. Now.”

I took a few minutes for everyone to get upstairs. Hutch, Skye, and Sildinar managed to catch the lift; Wrenn, Kephic, and Varan had to wait for a second car.
They found Hutch and Sildinar waiting as Skye cleaned up her office.

The space was similar in configuration to Sildinar’s office, but infinitely messier.
Wrenn couldn’t spot a single flat surface besides the floor that wasn’t covered in DaTabs of various size and description, circuit boards, and small electronics tools.

Skye was frantically trying to clear off enough chair space for at least Hutch to be able to sit down. Wrenn resigned himself to standing. Somehow the little unicorn had managed to accrue more junk in her workspace in one week than most did over the course of one month.

Varan groaned, “It doesn’t have to be perfect, just show us what you found!”
The gold toned Gryphon rarely displayed so much emotion. Wrenn guess that the suspense was getting to Varan just as much as him.

Skye triumphantly shoved a collection of circuit boards off the desk mounted controls for her wall holoscreen, and tapped the surface, bringing up an enormously complex stream of data.
Hutch downed another gulp of his coffee, “What exactly are we looking at?”

She waved a hoof at the screen, “Oh, nothing special, just signal traffic for the entire North American wireless comms grid. Courtesy of Earthgov defense satellites.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “And this 97 gigaquad stream of data is relevant because?”

Skye’s grin was terrifyingly predatory for a Pony, “Because science. That’s why. I’ve perfected a little spell to compare circuitry, and any data it might have stored on it, or may have stored at any previous time. Long story short, there was a similarity in the two DaTabs. They both received some now-erased transmissions on a very specific frequency band. All I had to do was pull monitoring for the times the transmissions were sent, and isolate the frequency.”

Varan nodded appreciatively, “Clever girl.”

Kephic gestured to the screen, “And?”

Skye’s horn flared to life and magically manipulated the control pad, “And, this is where the transmission streams lead; Carrenton Kansas.”

The screen showed a map of North America, with intersecting dotted lines over a dot marked ‘Carrenton.’

Hutch set down his coffee on a precariously perched DaTab and stood up, “I’ll be damned.“

Skye basked in the appreciative murmurs and glances of the assembled Gryphons.
“I did a little research. Carrenton is an abandoned refinery town built in 2026. It’s been off-grid for over sixty years, even squatters don’t go there; The ground was toxified, *majorly* toxified after some kind of accident. Some sorta goop you guys call ‘Cyclohexane’ or something spilled everywhere after a big explosion.”

Wrenn nodded, “Nasty stuff. But if you think about it, it’s a perfect hiding place for the PER. Refinery equipment that can be repurposed to create illicit potion, no connections to the power or comms grid, no significant monitoring...” he glanced at the map, “...no nearby settlements, no aircraft overflight routes, and they could use Earth Pony magic to at least partly help in de-toxifying the ground, modern remediation chemicals could do the rest of the work.”

Hutch turned to leave, snatching his coffee mug as he did so, “I’m going to get on the line with Military Stratcom, get them to do a direct overpass with a surveillance satellite. Even if they’re using jamming tech, we know exactly where to look, we’ll be able to see the signs. Really good work Skye, you’re definitely earning your keep.”

Skye smiled, and blushed slightly, at the compliment, “So what happens now?”

Wrenn turned to follow Hutch out the door, “Now? It's time for a little number called 'Return to sender.’ ”

The rasping voice in his ear was insistent, “We didn’t teach you these secrets in order for you to waste them. If the human military discovers---”

Mr. Utah cut the caller off, shifting his secure DaTab a bit to ensure his voice carried clearly through the microphone, “The military is firmly within our sphere of control. If anything leaks out, we will put a stop to it before it becomes an issue.”

“See to it that you do.”

Mr. Utah closed the connection, and watched, dispassionately, as two armored soldiers unloaded a large slate gray coffin-like object from a CAA-7. The massive craft’s four engines were still on, in standby, creating backwash that precluded even so much as trying to light a cigarette.

The aircraft was a legitimate military transport. The crew likely had no idea they had been used to ferry a piece of HLF tech under the guise of classified munitions. There were definitely benefits to having been founded, as a group, by military higher ups.

Hangar 18 at the Wichita airfield had been commandeered, also under the guise of military work, and was serving as Mr. Utah’s temporary command post. Mr. Stalin had long since departed to oversee other matters. The two soldiers now ferrying the coffin-shaped container into the hangar were also HLF, as was the man in a military uniform waiting for Mr. Utah just inside the cavernous corrugated steel structure.

The man’s uniform read “Private FC Franklin Sanchez.” If one searched for him in the military database, one would find that his file was marked ‘KIA.’ He had ‘died’ as part of an HLF raid the previous year. In reality the supposed death by gunshot was cover for his promotion within the front, to full time agent status. He was more valuable as a soldier working directly for the HLF than as a spy in a low level military position.

Once the offending jet thrust was no longer an issue, Mr. Utah lit up his first cigarette of the day, as he watched the armored soldiers place the coffin shaped crate in the center of a ring of computer equipment mounted on movable trolleys.

Three technicians began opening ports and panels on the crate, colloquially known as a Sepulcher, and started plugging the control equipment in. The screens flickered to life, displaying double helix patterns, chemical formulae, temperature graphs, and a series of command inputs.

Mr. Utah stood beside Sanchez, and let a puff of smoke go in the young man’s direction.
To his satisfaction, a small cough escaped the private before he managed to lock down the reflex.

“You understand the consequences of what we’re asking you to do?”

The young man nodded, “Yes sir. And the rewards. I’m ready sir.”

Mr. Utah stepped over to the Sepulcher, pressed a control stud, and watched as the lid irised open, revealing a shaped composite bath-tub like interior three quarters full with a viscous, opaque, reflective silvery liquid.

He shot a glance at Private Sanchez, “Bath time.”

He brushed his fingers against the plexiglass vat, ruminations about the watery fluid within filling his mind. “All we need now, is a small sample...” he murmured to himself.

He turned to look at the violet unicorn beside him, “Has the story on his implants broken yet?”

Veritas hung her head, “No, and the first reporter we seeded information to disappeared. They’re on top of it now, I doubt it would make much difference even if we could convince anyone else to try and air it.”

The man shook his head, “We’ll find another way. It was worth a try. If nothing else, now we know something else about them. They understand the media and how to manipulate it.”

Veritas was relieved to hear his answer. His depressive streak was over. As always, working on a project had restored his usual optimistic tones and buoyant spirit.

She turned to look at the rows of vats, thousands of them, stretching off into the distance.

The facility was a low-ceiling concrete rectangle, with a myriad of twisting pipes and catwalks surrounding the rows of chemical containers.

The only other living beings in the room were two tall, armored figures wreathed in shadow.
Their white combat armor stood out, but their faces were hard to see in the low light conditions.
One of them touched a partially gloved digit to his left ear, then spoke, “They are ready... Yes-yes, ready for you.”

Veritas shot a glance at the man, his hand still held against the side of the tank, “It’s time.”
He nodded and followed her down the catwalk to a stairwell.

The world above was filled with blinding light, compared to the dim confines of the concrete spaces below. The exit to the facility let out into what first appeared to be an abandoned patch of scorched earth, like any other plot of flat land on the planet. Dirt, petrified gray dead trees, and little else.

The only structures were abandoned houses and the seemingly decaying ruins of an industrial complex, into which the entrance tunnel opened.

Only by squinting, at close range, could one see the invisible city.
All around, interspersed in the empty spaces between decaying buildings, new constructions, some reaching ten stories, filled the skyline, each cloaked with a sophisticated jamming unit on the roof.

The shallow dish-like protrusions acted as satellite and LADAR jammers, as well as control circuits for the chameleon panels that covered every exterior inch of each structure.
At close range, the illusion of the panels was prone to glitches, a hazy pixelated shadow of the buildings becoming visible in the right light. At long range, the illusion could fool all but a direct scan from a surveillance satellite.

The man looked out appreciatively upon the shimmering vista. It was one of the largest PER settlements in North America;
Home to ten thousand human soldiers, their Ponified families, and even a few sympathetic native Equestrians.

Flanked by their tall, intimidating bodyguards, the leaders of the PER set off towards the largest structure; A short, but wide geodesic dome.

The inside of the structure was refreshingly warm after the chilling flatland breezes from outside.
The dome’s roof was transparent, its interior filled with stadium seating, which was in turn filled with humans and ponies. The dull roar of thousands of conversations pulsed through the air.

A dais resides at the center of the dome, with a podium and microphones.
The man stepped up to the podium, resisting the urge to shade his eyes against the brightness of the floor lights, which cast their illumination up onto the stage.

He shot a glance at Veritas, then raised his hands for silence.
Instantly, all noise ceased. The interior of the dome was abruptly home to absolute quiet.

“You are all to be commended. Were it not for the tireless work you do here, we would be weaponless against a threat unlike any we have ever faced.”

He paused to scan the audience. The first row of seats was too far away for him to actually make eye contact with anyone, but to them it seemed as if he was staring right at each of them, and that was what counted.

“Ten years ago, one of the founding members of this organization looked out and beheld a ruined world. A spinning ball of rock, home to eight billion lost souls. A spinning rock on a countdown timer. Humanity, is running out of time.”

He punctuated each of the last words with a thump of the podium, pausing to take a deep breath before continuing, “The world doesn’t understand it yet, but there is only one true way to salvation for our race. Salvation does not lie in escape, nor in repair of our dying world. Even if we could accomplish either of these ends, what good would it do? Should we be given more chances to spread our *taint*? to ruin once again this world? or worse, to ruin other pristine glittering orbs of life?”

He shot Veritas a glance, she in turn gave him a small smile, which brought new vigor to his words, “The answer was clear from the moment Celestia herself deigned to speak to us; There is only one way. We must Convert now, or forever fall. Our race is fundamentally diseased, and Ponification is our cure. But now, a false hope threatens to turn away potential converts...”

He gestured, and a massive holodisplay behind him flared to life, showing a silent loop of a news broadcast, “Gryphonization. A perversion of a beautiful gift; A temptation unto darkness. Your work here, at this facility, will enable us to put a swift and final end to this menace. Your work, will enable us to prevent more humans from being lead astray. Your work, will result in the salvation of many, so that they may be reborn in light.”

The man turned to leave the stage, flanked once more by his guards, and followed by the sound of thunderous applause from hands and hooves alike.

Outside, a VTOL was waiting, perched on a flat patch of dirt beside the fractured and disappearing road that had once served as the main entryway to the dead town.
The rotor wash from the engines rattled a decrepit signpost, as the man and Veritas clambered into the vehicle.

Veritas raised her voice to be heard above the engines, “Beautiful as always! It is no wonder they accomplish such incredible work. You inspire them!”

The man laughed and shook his head, “No... Celestia inspires them. I’m just the messenger.”

As the VTOL ascended, the air from its engines whipped around the rusting sign suspended by its two tenuous looking chains, shifting it so that the vanishing words inscribed on it in reflective paint caught the sunlight; ‘Welcome to Carrenton.’

Chapter 17

“Satellite Intel confirms the use of major jamming equipment in the area. They’re hiding something out there, and it aint small.”

The speaker, Major General Miles Lantry of Earthgov Military Command, jammed his forefinger at the holotable filling the center of the room, “Congratulations Hutch, your gal just put a pushpin down on the biggest PER operation we’ve ever managed to lay our scopes on.”

The room was silent, an air of reverent awe accompanying the words. The holotable was displaying data indicating that the PER were hiding multiple large buildings and installations, right in the middle of the American heartland, right out in broad daylight.

Lantry thumped a finger against the table’s surface, “The Council has unanimously voted to authorize military action. As of this morning, we are preparing strike teams, aircraft, mechs, and munitions; We are about to roll out the biggest military initiative on this continent in forty years.”

Murmurs swept the room. Hutch, Wrenn, Sildinar, Kephic, Varan, and Skye were standing in a group across the table from General Lantry. The rest of the Fort Hamilton situation room was filled with military commanders and a few ConSec higher ups.

The General thumbed a control on the holotable, and the display divided, one half showing Kansas and the surrounding area, the other showing a visual representation of the strike packages allocated for the mission.

Lantry took a sip from something that looked suspiciously like a synth-whiskey flask before speaking, “Fort Hamilton is operational command, the destroyer UES Raleigh was moved up the Mississippi under cover of night, and is submerged within firing range of the combat zone. Raleigh, her Scythes, and her medivac are the primary field support platform.”

He tapped the icon representing the harsh angles of the ship, then her location on the map, “If this was anything but PER, we would just waste the surrounding 40 square hectares with her railguns, drop a tac-nuke out of generosity, and call it a day.”

The man sighed and ran a hand across his balding head, “Unfortunately, logic says they got a lot of civilians, and in particular Ponies in there, and we are under strict orders, as per the terms of the Accords, to bring them back alive and unharmed to the best of our ability. So this is essentially an invasion against a fortified enemy stronghold.”

He jerked a thumb at the rest of the strike package icons, “Military Command has authorized full deployment, two light tank battalions, two hundred special forces troops, one CAA-7 for drops, twenty five VTOL gunships, and the Raleigh’s two Scythes.”

Lantry gestured around the room, “A thousand additional Military Police, and fourteen light vehicle packages are being airlifted in to secure a wider perimeter, make sure nobody escapes during the scrap. Command has re-vectored as many satellites as possible to give us full coverage of the area during the fight; Thermal, LADAR, tomographic, you name it we have it.”

He slammed his fist down on the small circle marked ‘Carrenton.’

“Primary objective is to secure the facility with as few Equestrian casualties as possible. Secondary is to tag and bag high level targets, any leadership on the premises, before they goop out.”

Low groans and murmured invectives could be heard from all corners; ‘gooping out’ was a military slang term for the PER leadership’s strategy of swallowing potion if they were about to be captured, rendering it impossible for them to be tried as humans and punished to the full extent of military justice, let alone interrogated.

Some soldiers, particularly ones whose families had been Converted against their will, had been known to execute the offending persons, regardless of species or circumstance, out of sheer frustration, and then report it as necessary self defense.

The practice had finally gotten so bad, that new rules specified if a soldier’s family was caught in a PER attack, it was immediate grounds for honorable discharge and revocation of security clearance, as well as weapon permits.

Lantry stared at the four Gryphons, “Because of the... Unique situation, we are going to run this op in two stages. Stage one; Our fine feathered friends do H.A.L.O. into the facility from the CAA-7. If the PER have jamming that good, we can assume they’re always watching for hostile intrusion. The Gryphons have a minimal LADAR cross section, less than any of our drones or missiles, and if they take hand-held jammers of their own they’d be completely invisible to any long range detection system.”

Lantry stared down at the ‘Carrenton’ dot, “Their job is to capture leadership targets, and stick C4 to anything and everything they can lay hands... Lay claws on that’s related to the jamming systems or defensive emplacements. If they get lucky, we can cut these sucker’s uglies off before they even know we’re there, and that means a lot less casualties going in.”

He looked up at the assembled ConSec and Special Forces commanders, “Once they give the go sign, you boys come marching in and put down any resistance. No quarter for any humans, that includes ‘civilians’. Every single thing in that killbox that isn’t a Pony, a Gryphon, or a uniformed Marine, you kill it if it doesn’t surrender on first warning.”

He paused to take another pull on his flask, “We take Ponies alive, but only if they don’t endanger our troops, and that includes being threatened with potion. But let me make this clear; If any of you jarheads get trigger happy and kill an innocent I’ll personally execute you without trial post-mission.”

Lantry looked down at the chronometer display inset into the corner of the table, “It is o’ two hundred now, darkness only lasts till o’ seven hundred. What are you all standing around here for?! Staging is in Topeka, that’s a two hour flight, MOVE! GO!”

The room began to empty of officers in a hurry. Sildinar started a hushed conversation with Hutch, Skye made her way over to Wrenn, Varan, and Kephic, “You guys stay safe, ok? I gotta have somebody to keep bringing me goodies from the field to break.”

Kephic smiled, “If we were always safe, we wouldn’t be living particularly good lives.”

Wrenn chuckled, “What he means to say is, we’ll come back just fine. I’m sure of it, especially with you here helping to run support.”

As they left to join the troops boarding VTOLs for the flight to Topeka, Wrenn stopped to talk to Hutch, “Staying here?”

He nodded, “I’ve been asked to run command and control for ConSec forces assisting on this. You get out there, and you bust down their front door, marine; But more importantly you come home with all your feathers still attached.”

Wrenn snapped off a salute, “You got it. Hutch.”

The tarmac at Topeka airbase was the busiest Wrenn had ever seen a military installation.
VTOLs were arriving and departing constantly, and a stream of CAA-7s touched down every few minutes, delivering tanks.

Soldiers jogged to and fro in battalions, staging with their assigned VTOLs, as technicians and ground staff rushed to arm the gunships and the tanks, which appeared to be nothing so much as sleeping predators, daring any to wake them, their menacing shapes barely visible in the pre-dawn fog.

One CAA-7 stood out from the rest; It had an unusual ugly ‘bump’ behind the cockpit area, oddly canted wings, large fins coming out of the engines, and it was painted a solid shade of gray so dark it might as well have been black. It was a stealthed variant of the transport, used for High Altitude Low Observability insertion, or H.A.L.O. jumps. It sported jamming equipment, heat absorption fins, and LADAR diffusive paint.

Standing just off the loading ramp, two troopers were helping a complaining struggling figure into standard black special forces armor and a helmet.

Wrenn chuckled, “Hello Stanley. Ready for some ‘embedded reporting’ ?”

Carradan fiddled with his helmet strap nervously, “This is crazy! I’m not qualified to be a warzone reporter! What if I get shot?”

Sildinar glowered, “We would have to be dead first, and that’s not going to happen.”

Kephic gave him a resounding clap on the back, ”Think about it this way; if combat doesn’t suit you, then life as a Pony could theoretically be that much more enjoyable.”

The two troopers finished tightening the straps on Carradan’s armor. One turned to the Gryphons, “Wheels up, all aboard that’s going aboard.”

The CAA-7s engines flared to life, and the craft began to taxi even before the rear hatch was completely closed. Wrenn turned to glance at the two troopers, “We won’t be needing chutes or rebreathers, we can process low pressure low oxygen air, the cold isn’t a problem, and well...”

He shifted one wing by way of explanation for the lack of parachute, “Our embedded reporter will need a rebreather though. And we all need belt jammers.” He turned to Sildinar, “Who gets to carry Stan?”

As one, Sildinar, Varan, and Kephic turned to look back at Wrenn. Sildinar said what they were all thinking, “He was more or less your idea, so he’s your problem.”

Carradan and Wrenn’s voices rang out simultaneously.

“Oh. Fun. “

“Oh. hell no! I’m not letting *him* carry me! he’ll drop me!”

Wrenn jerked his head around and glared, “Shut up and pay attention to the SpecOps guys who are about to teach you how to use a rebreather. You screw it up? You suffocate, and there will be exactly jack all I can do to help you. So button your lip and straighten your pants. You stay frosty, stay behind me, and do as we say, and you’ll be fine.”

Wrenn turned to a crewmember, who had come aft from the cockpit area, “What’s the infiltration vector look like?”

The woman popped open a large DaTab and gestured for the Gryphons to gather around, “Boys, you’ll be ever so sorry you asked.”

Sildinar stood by the open rear hatch, the wind whipping at his feathers.
Everyone had throat mics and in-ear headphones, but only Carradan was wearing a full helmet and rebreather. He stood just in front of Wrenn, while in a line behind them stood Kephic and Varan.

As Sildinar summarized the drop plan one more time, they put the final pieces of their equipment on, double checked their weapons, and then did a pass over each other's armor just to be safe.

“We are jumping from 44,000 feet. Jammers on the whole way down, total radio silence. We are going in as hard and fast as possible, full on stoop, do not slow until you absolutely have to.
Wrenn, you will have to start your braking earlier than the rest of us, you have extra weight.”

Wrenn rolled his eyes as he straightened Carradan’s rebreather and gave his helmet an experimental thwack, “Gosh, how could I forget?”

He reached down and cycled his RAC-8. He also insisted on carrying a pair of extendable SMGs, in lieu of his usual pistols. He wanted to make good use of his extra strength and size, and mid-size SMGs were the closest things analogous to a pistol for his claws.

All the Gryphons carried their swords, several grenades, and blocks of C4 in satchels cinched firmly beside their scabbards. Sildinar carried his customary rail-snipe instead of a RAC-8, and Varan was nursing a terrifyingly large anti-personnel grenade launcher.

Wrenn smiled, “Hey Varan... Don’t you think you’re *blowing* the whole issue out of proportion?
It was only one grenade to the face, no need to get *explosive* about it.”

Kephic groaned, “Oh for the love of... Knock it off.”

Varan grinned darkly, “I’m just being a smart predator. When you see a superior weapon, the best course of action is to learn to use it against your enemy.” Wrenn couldn’t really argue with that. In truth, he just wanted to put a lighter mood on things so that Carradan wouldn’t be tense and struggling all the way down.

Kephic came over and started doing a check on Wrenn’s cinches, their armor clacking softly as the plates bounced off each other in the turbulence, “Varan and Sildinar tend to pair up and keep each other's backs in missions, so that makes you and I... ‘Buddies’ that’s the Marine word right?”

Wrenn nodded, and fell to checking Kephic’s armor as soon as he was finished, “Yeah. Got your back, I know you’ve got mine.”

The two shared a quick embrace, a backslap, and full arm claw-shake.
Carradan groaned, “Oh God... This can’t be happening... It's like I’m in ‘The Longest Day.’ I’m gonna die...”

Kephic gave the man’s helmet a sharp rap, “Breathe Carradan. Pay attention and you might learn something. You remember to roll that camera of yours, you might even make the headlines.”

Sildinar drew his sword, Wrenn, Kephic, and Varan followed suit.
Carradan and the two troopers watched, bemused, as the Gryphons held out the weapons so that the blades overlapped each other in a fan formation.

Sildinar spoke, raising his voice to be heard above the wind, “In peace, and in strife,”
The others chorused in unison, “we share the bond of brothers.”

“We lay down our lives for our cause. For freedom”
Sildinar pitched the blade of his sword down.

Wrenn did likewise, “For courage.”

Kephic followed suit, “For honor.”

Finally, Varan did the same, “For justice.”

They simultaneously raised the swords high, and again shouted, in tandem, “And when the battle is over, we take up our lives again. To Victory!”

As they replaced their swords in the scabbards, Wrenn overheard one of the troopers nudging his partner, “Holy hell... they’re serious business....”

Carradan just whimpered.

Wrenn smirked, “Don’t clench. It will hurt a lot more on impact. Loosen your shoulders and ankles.”

Sildinar turned to face the blackness rushing by outside, his eyes fixed on the red strip of LED light above the door. There were no stars visible. Even though the clouds were far below, the atmosphere itself was nearly opaque, making the night all the darker since the moon didn’t have the luminosity to provide a penetrating light source like the sun.

The pilot’s voice came over a wired intercom speaker, “Entering combat zone, radios off.”
Wrenn clicked off first his own radio, then he removed the power cell from Carradan’s and secreted it in his satchel. No sense in courting disaster.

The pilot’s voice came through again, “Drop zone in twenty. Hit the ramp.”

Sildinar stepped out to the edge of the ramp, Wrenn grabbed Carradan in a grim parody of a bear hug, and stepped up to the beginning of the metal strip. The red indicator light glinted off Sildinar’s helmet, giving him a terrifying aspect. In that moment, Wrenn had no doubt that given enough time and ammunition, that the four Gryphons alone could probably kill everyone in the installation below.

The PER had sown the wind.
And for all the world, Sildinar looked like the embodiment of the whirlwind.

The jump light abruptly changed to green with a loud accompanying tone, and the roan Gryphon pushed off the ramp, rocketing down into the void.

Wrenn bounded to the edge, and repeated the action, beak pointing down towards the clouds.
Muffled by the rebreather, Carradan tried to scream, but all that came out was a feeble squeak.

The CAA-7 disappeared into the night, leaving behind four sleek, winged shapes, rocketing towards the ground at top speed, weapons in their claws, and death on their minds.

General Piety’s Light decided it was going to be a good morning. The PER higher-up wasn’t a Pony yet, but she had selected a Pony name and was absolutely insistent that she be recognized by it. Behind her back, most of her subordinates called her ‘Withers’ as both an Equine related pun, and because of her notorious withering glares that could speak volumes without a single word.

She sipped at her synthetic tea and surveyed her domain. The control room for Carrenton’s defenses and jamming. Around her, Ponies and humans alike moved back and forth, murmuring technical specifications and operating procedures to each other, keeping her little chunk of the world, and all its inhabitants, safe.

The only figures in the room besides Piety who were motionless, were the two heavy troopers by the door. They, and twelve of their ‘close friends,’ had been assigned as defensive leads for the facility when the leaders had visited the day before.

Piety didn’t exactly like them; They were large, even to her, intimidating, and vulgar. And they stank. But they could certainly tear an armored Earthgov trooper a new breathing hole in record time, and that's why there were on permanent retainer, with a promise of more to come. Protection for all the PER’s assets and citizens.

Fortunately, neither had said a word since Piety started her shift in the control room, so perhaps it *was* going to be a good morning after all.

The air was somehow frigid, yet not uncomfortable. Wrenn could sense the low oxygen levels with every breath he took, but his body didn’t care. His lungs, and every other organ in his body, were somehow capable of adjusting to the change in pressure and oxygenation, shifting to burn different compounds in different proportions seamlessly.

Though he didn’t understand how, his alveoli were able to augment the low levels of oxygen by processing other inert gases in the atmosphere, as well as nitrogen.

Gryphons were simply built for flight, at nearly any altitude shy of the Karman Line.

Wrenn glanced at the dim holographic display integrated into his gauntlet, to check his speed and ensure his jammer was still active. The anachronistic clash of new tech and older tried and true interface design was nearly lost on him as he saw his airspeed. Two hundred and thirty one knots.

He realized that the drag created by the squirming whimpering Carradan was slowing him down, so he began beating his wings to keep up with the others. He kept the strokes shallow, to avoid causing extra drag.

Slowly, they closed with the group, falling into the rear-most position.
Carradan practically jumped out of his forelegs when they hit the cloud layer, and Wrenn had to tighten down on the man until his talons dug into the nanofiber flak vest strapped over Carradan’s armor.

Once they were below the clouds, Wrenn could see the complex far below, a spiderweb of broken burned out buildings connected by decaying roads, interspersed with the new cloaked structures.

To Wrenn’s surprise, he found he could clearly see the outlines, and even some details, of the structures despite the distance and the sophistication of their optical panels. He reasoned it had to be because his eyes were receiving information faster than the refresh rate of the panels themselves.

As the Earth rushed up to meet him at over two hundred and seventy miles per hour, Wrenn spared a brief moment to feel exhilaration at the sheer speed, audacity, and risk of a no-chute dive from 44,000 feet.

The PER compound began to loom large in his telescopic vision, and he decided it was time to risk slowing down. He canted the angle of his wings, and opened them ever so slightly, adjusted his tailfeathers, and changed his grip on Carradan to present more of the man to the stream of air passing over them.

Gradually, his speed decreased. A few moments later, he saw the other three Gryphons beginning their braking maneuvers. One again he was impressed with the value of his instincts. Wrenn had always been a big believer in trusting his gut, but as a Gryphon it was far less fallible, and far more capable than it had ever been before.

At the last safe second, Wrenn fully splayed his wings, causing an enormous jolt, like slamming on the brakes in a supercar, as his speed went from close to eighty miles an hour to less than twelve in a single instant. Carradan grunted at the shock, and tried to double over, but couldn’t because of the safety harness.

Wrenn beat his wings several times, increasing the duration between strokes every beat, and finally dropped to the ground. The others were already waiting for him, weapons raised.

Carradan took a few drunken steps forward, then collapsed in a heap.
Wren yanked him to his feet, peeled off his rebreather, and clapped him on the shoulders.
He hissed in a low voice, “Get ahold of yourself, you did fine! Now get that camera out, and prove you can take the heat. Come on! Snap out of it!”

He gave the side of Carradan’s helmet a sharp smack, and that seemed to do the trick.
The stagger disappeared, and the man fumbled for his camera, waving his hand that he was alright. Wrenn nodded, allowed him a small short smile, then turned to Sildinar.

A series of quick gestures were exchanged, the gist of them being that they needed to split up; Wrenn, Kephic, and Carradan would try to sabotage the jamming and defensive control systems, Sildinar and Varan would go for the higher-ups.

Since neither group had any concept of where their objectives lay in the compound, they started off in random directions, guided by instinct alone, hoping to spot evidence leading them to their targets; A sign, or an electrical trunk line, or a guard they could follow.

Wrenn and Kephic ducked into one of the structural husks that had once been a house.
Carradan was so focused on filming, that he nearly missed the hiding spot, and Wrenn had to reach out and pull him to safety.

Kephic’s voice was low, almost inaudible, “Got any ideas?”

Wrenn nodded, “Yeah... Good news or bad news first?”

Kephic’s expression said ‘bad’ so Wrenn opted for the bad news, “I got a good glimpse of one of the rooftops on the way down, their jamming equipment isn’t centralized. Its a big system of nodes, one per building. So we can forget sabotaging a central jamming or defensive system.”

Kephic glanced out a broken window, “The good news?”

“The good news is, equipment that sophisticated can’t have a very big backup power supply, the electrical signature would counteract the jammer. So it has to be tied to a central electrical system, which we *can* sabotage. We just need to find the reactor. Given the kind of signature something that size would throw off, it has to be buried way down.”

Carradan finally spoke up, “Buried? Then they’ll have put it under the old chemical plant. Save 'em years of diggin' ”

Wrenn and Kephic stared, Carradan shrugged, “What? I did a four piece segment on chemical refineries once. They all had huge underground areas for chemical storage, why should this one be any different?“

Wrenn grinned, “Now you see... If you used that kind of common sense all the time, you’d come off as much smarter than you look.” With that, Wrenn pivoted around the door and swept the immediate area with his weapon, before setting off at a slow lope towards the next piece of cover.

Carradan looked at Kephic, a mixture equal parts confusion and frustration on his face, “Was that a compliment... or...”

Kephic chuckled, “Yes. Keep up. You get lost, you get killed.”

Skye sniffed at General Lantry’s flask. He had left it on the holotable as he stepped out to take a call. To her surprise, the substance inside was not synthehol, but tea. She grinned. Humans could be full of surprises.

The tension in the Fort Hamilton situation room was so thick, Skye half expected to look up and see it hanging in the air. The Gryphons had jumped, according to their transport pilot, two hours previous. Everyone, including Skye, was on edge, desperately hoping, and waiting, for the call to action.

Lantry finally returned, snagging his flask and taking a deep draw on it, “Any word?”

Hutch shook his head, “Not a peep.”

Lantry murmured darkly, “If I have to endure another one of these stealth insertions I’m going to tender my resignation, and nail it to the head of whoever decided sneaking around was better than a frontal deep-standoff assault.”

Skye had to resist the urge to chuckle.
The stealth insertion had, of course, been Lantry’s idea.

Sildinar and Varan had opted to follow the first guard they saw. The man was encased in the generic white unmarked combat armor that seemed to be the PER standard, and he was completely oblivious to the two silent, shadowy forms tailing him.

The guard wasted a great deal of time. Sildinar noted, with disgust, that his patrol route was poorly planned, and the fact that he was walking it without a partner only served to make his incompetence more obvious.

Finally, the man made his way to the end of his route, and entered one of the cloaked buildings.
Varan and Sildinar both caught a glimpse of the interior as the door opened, and they spied their objective.

The entryway to the building was unlit, to prevent a passing satellite from picking up an anomalous light emission, but the two Gryphons had near-perfect night vision, so the small sign inside the door that read ‘Central Command’ was clearly visible.

As soon as the door closed, Varan leapt from the rooftop where he had been hiding, and glided down to the control panel. Sildinar quickly joined him as he typed in the guard’s code from memory. The keypad had no shielding, and the man hadn’t thought to use his hand to block line of sight.

The first two sets of doors presented no obstacles, but there were two guards at the third.
Sildinar dispatched one by twisting his head one hundred and eighty degrees around, Varan dealt with the other by folding him in half, snapping part of his armor, and all of his spine, in the process.

The remaining door was a thick set of sliding steel plates, with reinforcement buttressing, clearly marked with a large stylized inverted delta, inscribed with the silhouette of a pony.
The PER emblem.

Sildinar cast a glance down at Varan’s weapon, “Would you do the honors?”

A vicious smile played across Varan’s beak, “Absolutely.”

Piety spilled her tea. She was normally a woman of steady hands, and firm mind, but like everyone in the control room, she came out of her seat in shock when the entry doors left their mounting frames and entered the room at full speed, accompanied by the ear piercing roar of explosives detonating.

The deformed metal slabs came to rest embedded in the far wall of the room just as two large, menacing figures materialized through the smoke filling the, now empty, doorway.

Sildinar’s triumphant half-grin quickly faded into a more serious scowl, as his eyes swept over the occupants of the room. Ponies and humans he had expected.

But the two figures in adapted white combat plating that were picking themselves up off the floor, and readying nasty looking polearms, were most definitely unexpected.

The Gryphons drew their swords.
Now the fight would be on their level.

Carradan had been right. There was an enormous underground chamber, cleverly hidden beneath the abandoned chemical plant. Wrenn decided they couldn’t really continue to think of it as 'abandoned,' especially since a great deal of the chamber seemed to be filled with working pipes, valves, and filters all leading down to row upon row of vats.

Carradan leaned over one of the open vats and sniffed, “Eugh. That’s nasty. Smells sickly sweet. Like poison.”

Wrenn reached out a claw and planted it firmly on Carradan’s chest, pulling him back to a safer position, “What would the PER want with this much poison? That’s more an HLF tactic, and this looks to be close to eighty thousand liters. If it's high density that's enough to poison half the Ponification serum in the world...”

He trailed off, as a mortifying thought occurred to him.

Kephic voiced it, “Or *all* of the Gryphonization serum.”

Carradan wretched, “Those diseased motherf---” Wrenn slapped him on the back, “Save it for the article. Kephic? I think we’re going to have to split our C4.”

Kephic was already breaking off his own block into small pieces and attaching them to the vats, “Way ahead of you.”

As Kephic attached small pieces of the explosive substance, Wrenn went behind him and added wireless detonator stubs. C4 was so stable, there was no other way to get an explosion out of it, not even by lighting it directly on fire.

Once enough of the vats had been tagged to destroy most of the room, the group continued through an access hatch into a stairwell. The stairs in turn led down into another large concrete space. The lower chamber was filled not with chemical vats and pipes, but with a plethora of thick electrical trunk lines leading into a central thrumming black orb.

Wrenn stopped short and whistled, “No wonder they put it so far down... That’s a pretty big fusion reactor. That thing could power a battleship.”

Kephic shrugged, “Good. The bigger a fireball this part of the facility goes up in, the better. Block?”

Wrenn detached his own block of C4 and tossed it to Kephic, “Split it into three pieces, equidistant around the shell. The inward force should put enough pressure on the reactor to tear the Earth a new breathing hole.”

Carradan gulped, “You better set a long timer on that...” he aimed the camera at the reactor, and Wrenn realized he had probably been running it non-stop since they landed.

Kephic shook his head, “It’s a remote detonator, not a timer.”

He finished plunging the last explosive pin into the deadly off-white blocks, “”We’re good to go.”

The group sprinted up the stairs, down the row of vats, and back up the second stairway.
Wrenn was the first to exit the hatch, and so came face to face with the enemy.

The vicious looking gray jowls, sharp protruding teeth, and beady searching eyes threw him for a moment, then he reflexively lashed out, surprising the intruder as much as it had surprised him.

Carradan was out next, and upon seeing the white armored figure, and the two others which were slowly joining it in a defensive position, he skittered backwards mumbling expletives.

Kephic leapt from the hatch, and drew his sword, “I hope Sildinar’s lessons have been sinking in.”

The three enemies drew polearms, and starting a slow march forward.

Wrenn appraised their armor and weapons as he drew his own sword, “Why?”

Kephic raised his weapon, “Because Diamond Dogs are no pushovers.”

Chapter 18

Sildinar didn’t give his adversary time to finish recovering. He sprang forward and brought his sword down, twisting it to the side at the last moment to avoid directly impacting the polearm that was raised to deflect his strike. He pivoted to avoid a retaliatory stab, and saw that Varan was similarly engaged with the other Diamond Dog.

He managed to land a kick to his opponent’s chest with a back paw, and that earned him enough of a reprieve to cross draw his RAC from its position at his back. He leveled the weapon, single-clawed, and fired.

The round tore through the leg of his target, a woman with general’s bars affixed to her white camouflage pattern uniform, and the nameplate “Piety’s Light” attached to the left shirt pocket.

She was obviously a high value leader, and that meant she couldn’t be allowed to leave.

The distraction cost him a few inches of ground, and he had to duck to avoid being beheaded as his snarling opponent swung the polearm in a wide arc aimed at his neck. The weapon missed, and because of the weight the Diamond Dog had put behind it, he ended up overcompensation giving Sildinar an opportunity to get in a strike. He stabbed, going for the heart, but the enemy realized what he was doing, and stepped back, causing his blow to take an appreciable chunk out of the canine’s shoulder instead.

The Diamond Dog retaliated by bringing the hooked part of his weapon up, catching Sildinar’s left claw. It didn’t do a lot of damage, but it threw him off balance for a half second, causing a short break in the engagement. He used the time to sling his RAC back over his shoulder, and re-establish a two-clawed grip on his sword.

The Diamond Dog was clearly an aged veteran, and that meant it was going to be a long battle.

Wrenn’s enemy was clearly his superior in skill with a bladed weapon. He had already taken several strikes which had put deep gouges in his armor, and probably bruised him fairly badly.

Though his reflexes and mind were unquestionably faster, the Diamond Dog always managed to avoid his blows. While it was somewhat slower, the creature was stronger and more durable to make up for it. And clearly much more experienced.

Wrenn spared a glance for Kephic, who was making good use of his wings, leaping, spiraling, pivoting, and in general never touching the ground for more than a moment at a time.

He was doing decently well juggling his two opponents, but that couldn’t last forever.

Wrenn cursed his lack of experience. If he were better with a sword, he could have finished his enemy, then joined Kephic, and the battle would be over. But now it was a three versus two battle, with Wrenn barely having the bladed weapon experience necessary to stay alive.

A thought crossed his mind, and he nearly dismissed it, but it was a decent chance.
He allowed the Diamond Dog to lash out, then sidestepped and did his best to emulate one of Kephic’s flips, landing beside Carradan.

He drew one of his SMGs and pressed it into the man’s hand, “Right hand on the trigger, left hand over the barrel, it’s going to kick up *hard*. Look down the sights, squeeze.”

Wrenn flicked off the safety as he pulled his claw away.
Carradan looked aghast, “I’ve never used a GUN before, you can’t be serious!”

The Diamond Dog had recovered from the misplaced momentum of its earlier charge and was no turning to re-engage. Wrenn glared, “First time for everything! Shoot, or he comes after *you* next!”

Wrenn flipped over his opponent, giving Carradan a clear line of fire. To his credit, the reporter had the courage to squeeze the trigger. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the aim to hit anything critical. Rounds sprayed everywhere, a few embedding themselves in the Diamond Dog’s shoulders and legs, the rest hitting the ceiling as Carradan failed to compensate for the barrel pull.

The rounds seemed to do very little damage, mostly expending themselves on the enemy’s armor and thick skin. Wrenn spent a few moments of decelerated time re-evaluating the polearm, ferreting out its signature moves, and blind spots.

He switched strategies. It wasn’t like training, he realized, on the field everything he knew and was capable of had to flow, at full speed, one thing into the next, so that his enemy wouldn’t have time to figure out what was happening, or develop a counter strategy.

He pushed himself to move, and think, as quickly as he could. His movements began to resemble Kephic’s, all at once he was below his enemy’s weapon, taking a sweep at his legs, then he was above him, kept aloft by two beats of his wings, stabbing down and knocking off his helmet.

Wrenn took a sharp rap to his right wing, and reflexively beat back with it. The impact made a sickening crunch as the hard metal edge of his wing plate connected firmly with the Diamond Dog’s unprotected head, and put a visible bleeding depression in his skull casing.

The creature roared in pain and clawed at its head, giving Carradan a target once more.
The second time, he was ready for the kick of the weapon, and he landed several rounds in critical areas, emptying the clip as he yowled in fear and held the trigger down.

The distraction was all Wrenn needed, from his position in the air, he brought his sword down in a tight arc, separating the Diamond Dog’s head from its beefy shoulders in one neat swift motion while the creature's polearm was out of position.

He dropped to two legs, and shook some of the blood off his sword, “Good shot Stan. I warned you about that barrel pull.”

Wrenn readied his sword, and vaulted forward, entering the fray with Kephic.

“What *took* you so long?!”

Wrenn glowered as he coordinated his next slash with Kephic’s next stab, “He was more capable with that weapon than I expected. Who *are* these guys?”

Kephic narrowly missed cleanly stabbing one of the remaining hostiles through the heart, and cursed, “Diamond Dogs. These particular ones are bulldogs. Some of the subspecies and clans are honorable, others, like these...”

He paused to duck under a polearm and put a two foot gash in the arm that was wielding it, “...Are mongrel mercenaries and will fight for anyone who pays. They may not have our eyes or reflexes...” he finally scored a killing blow, and went to work battering at Wrenn’s new opponent from behind, “...But they have stronger bones, thicker skins, more muscles, incredible noses, and deadly pack instinct and hunting capabilities.”

Kephic’s battering opened up a hole in his enemy’s defense, and Wrenn stabbed him to the heart, taking a harsh blow to the side of his helmet in the process.

“Sonofabitch! Those things have some reach...”
He clutched the side of his aching head with one claw, and kicked the dead dog’s weapon vindictively, sending it spinning off into a corner.

Kephic looked down at the three corpses, working one wing to ease the bruising where one of the enemy’s vicious looking claws had nearly torn him a large gash, “I don’t understand why they would work for the PER. It makes sense that they would have connections in Equestria, and the transports on this side to ferry them here... But Diamond Dog Trolls only accept payment in precious stones. Diamonds, Rubies, Emeralds, Amethyst...”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “We mastered cheap synthetic crafting of gems a long time ago.”

Kephic stared in shock, “You can make synthetic precious stones?”

Wrenn chuckled, “Where have you been for the last year? We’ve been able to do that since last century.”

Kephic shook his head, “But... Your synthetic materials can’t pass through the barrier... Surely even the Diamond Dogs know that?”

Wrenn shrugged, “Unless they are bringing raw non-valuable materials with them from Equestria, getting them made into precious stones here with processes that don't add anything to the mix, then shipping them home as payment. That would work right?”

Kephic looked shell shocked, “I... I suppose... We’ll have to ask someone better qualified... Now isn’t the time. We have to get clear and send the reactor up, then we can break radio silence, call in the strike.”

Wrenn nodded, “The sooner that poison is gone, the better I’ll feel.”

Kephic looked over at Carradan, who was shakily getting to his feet, “Don’t forget your camera. You won't want to miss filming this.”

Sildinar finished removing his enemy’s throat with a clenched claw just as the room rocked violently and the sound of a gigantic explosion reached his ears.

He stood, wiping his gory talons on the Diamond Dog’s corpse, and moved to the control panel. He didn’t know what all the system displays meant, but most of them had turned vibrant shades of red, meaning Wrenn and Kephic had been successful in their mission.

Varan stood with a back paw over general Piety’s throat, claws extended, ensuring that she didn’t so much as flinch, “That sounded like something large and important.”

Before Sildinar could answer, Wrenn’s voice came over the radio, “Goalie, this is offense one, jamming, defenses, and central power are *down,* you are clear in. Repeat, defensive systems offline. Strike. Strike. Strike.”

Sildinar took a moment to smile at the general, “Sorry. Lights out.”
He batted her into unconsciousness with the butt of his RAC.

Lantry nearly spewed his tea everywhere when the call came in, “Goalie, this is offense one, jamming, defenses, and central power are *down,* you’re clear in. Repeat, defensive systems offline. Strike. Strike. Strike.”

Skye grinned and did an imitation fist pump, “Yes! They made it!”
Hutch clapped her on the back and smiled.

Lantry leaned over the holotable, and tapped a control to open a wide-band commline, “Strike force offense two, this is Goalie; commence attack operations.”

Chatter, both from the strike force, and from various operators in the control room, began to fill up the comm lines; “Roger, commencing strike.”

“This is Goalie, VTOL wings one and two snap to two five seven and proceed west.”

“ETA is four minutes on combat zone, weapons free.”

“Goalie, Fullback, proceeding with insertion.”

“Raleigh, this is Goalie, clear for surface operations, deploy strike package Reaper to standby for close support.”

“Goalie, Raleigh, switching surface configuration. Rolling out strike package Reaper.”

Somewhere east of Kansas, the surface of the Mississippi exploded, giving birth to the UES Raleigh. The ship powered forward, its steering fins forcing it onto an even plane as its bow doors opened and its weapons issued forth from every available aperture.

“Sat vision twelve, full uplink established, Goalie; we are locked in and ready.”

“Deploy medivac on station, rear landing pad.”

“All railguns loaded, awaiting support fire orders”

“Missile pods armed.”

“Cat one! Cat two! Reaper away.”

The second the ship was stable, two Scythes rocketed off their magnetic catapults, turning west and disappearing into the teal of the breaking dawn accompanied by the eerie thuds and moisture cones of supersonic flight.

Two miles east of Carrenton, the air filled with the angry buzz of VTOLs in forward flight configuration. Below, two tank battalions kicked up an enormous cloud of dust as they revved their engines and sprang forward, the twin tactical railguns sprouting from each turret ready to dispense death and fury.

“Fullback, this is Goalie, commence lineup; split battalions for a pincer attack. Offense two, accelerate intrusion, put troops on the ground in five.”

Half of the tanks peeled off, turning slightly north to come at the enemy from a different direction.
Overhead the VTOLs canted forward and increased throttle.

“Goalie, this is offense one, we haven’t seen any air support on station, and taking out main power eliminated anti-air emplacements. Weak points are at grids C-12, B-18, and D-9.”

“Offense two, Goalie; Be advised Weak points are at grids C-12, B-18, and D-9. Enemy air support not expected, initiate fast-strike maneuvers.”

Security was definitely aware of their presence. After the second call on the radio, Wrenn, Kephic, and Carradan were swarmed by human PER soldiers.

There were just enough enemy contacts that Kephic didn’t want to risk trying to take them all, so they dug in behind an old burned-out storefront, and resolved to hold back the tide until support arrived.
They did not have to wait long.

“Offense one, this is offense two; the party is here!”

The air erupted into gouts of flame, as tracer shells and small dumb-fire short range rockets streaked out from the first VTOLs and tore into the PER security troopers.

While the initial line of craft hovered and ripped apart the enemy with automatic anti-personnel railgun fire, the second, third, and fourth lines landed throughout the compound and disgorged Special Forces Marines.

The PER’s potion rifles were no match for the inanimate gunship hulls, and none of the security forces Wrenn had spotted carried any conventional weapons, making their resistance ineffective.

Somewhere in the distance, Wrenn’s ears picked out the sound of a mortar. Apparently the PER had managed get some of its defensive emplacements working again.

A moment later, the distinctive and much louder thunder of an attacking tank battalion answered in kind.

The combined waves of soldiers, and steady stream of gunship fire, quickly eviscerated the defenses for most of the area. A black armor clad soldier with the Earthgov emblem on one shoulder piece marched up.

Kephic smiled, “So glad you could get in on the fun.”

The soldier pointed at the enormous smoking crater that had been the poison chamber and power core, “That your work?”

Wrenn shook his head, “Work?” he jerked his head towards the ruined patch of ground, “That's what I do for leisure.”

Lantry, Skye, and Hutch stared down at the holotable, as a combination of satellite imaging, and AI processing of gun-cams and LADAR, painted a perfect and complete picture of the unfolding battle.

Red enemy icons were winking out at an accelerating rate, replaced by a tide of green shapes representing the attacking force.

ConSec troops had joined the fray, mainly to take Ponies prisoner and escort them out of the combat zone. They were represented by blue icons, which were systematically entering buildings, rounding up the relatively passive Equines and any humans that would immediately surrender, and carting them off to row upon row of APCs converted into secure prisoner transports for the mission.

Skye nosed up against the hologram inquisitively, “This doesn’t seem *so* bad...”

Lantry took a gulp from his, now thrice refilled, flask, “It’s never over, until its *over*.”

Sildinar and Varan had dispensed with General Piety, leaving her in the care of a Special Forces squad, and were now going room to room in the central command building, obliterating anything that moved.

Varan skidded to a halt and poked his head down a side corridor.
Sildinar stopped and cocked his head, “What?”

“This area is marked ‘brig.’ ”

Wordlessly, the two Gryphons agreed it would be worth exploring.
At the end of the corridor they found entrances to several well appointed rooms.
Two were empty, but two were playing host to ponies.

The PER did not look kindly on members who wanted to leave their ‘herd’, and had been known to lock up recalcitrant ponies, under good but stiflingly confining conditions, until they ‘saw the light.’

Varan took the first cell, which was occupied by an orange Pegasus pony with bright green eyes, filled to the brim with tears, and an unkempt frizzy black mane. The Gryphon didn’t know the first thing about comforting a frightened, upset Pony, so he simply slung the poor Equine gently over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Sildinar had better luck with his charge, a cyan unicorn with silvery mane, and soul piercing sad blue eyes. She had opted to follow the Gryphon under her own power, once he explained why they were there.

Sildinar glanced disapprovingly at Varan’s ‘cargo’, “You could have asked.”

Varan shook his head, “I’ll be gentle but we don’t have time to be diplomatic.”

Sildinar decided not to argue, Varan did have a good point, and they set off at an easy lope to deliver the rescued Ponies to an evacuation transport.

Wrenn was finally beginning to get the hang of true swordplay. The unit he, Carradan, and Kephic had taken up with, had run across another small pack of Diamond Dogs.

Wrenn and Kephic had ordered the humans to stay back and guard Carradan.
Even an armored trooper was a poor match for a metric ton of angry canine vitriol.

The best tactic, Kephic said, was to separate them as far from each other as possible.
As a pack unit, they were nearly invincible, so blitz style distractions and separating maneuvers were the only viable initial attack.

Once they were out of range of their subtle system of communication and signals, the cooperation would break down, and taking out each individual became much easier, since Trolls' strength was most definitely not intelligence.

Wrenn fell into a rhythm of movement, he began to see how Kephic was able to match two nearly physically equal opponents and stave both off with his superior intelligence and flexibility.
In the outdoor environment, their wings became a major advantage, letting them effectively dance to and fro just out of reach of their enemies, and constantly move to stay behind them or flank them.

Both Gryphons were bruised and battered, fighting Diamond Dogs wasn’t like fighting humans; They were deadly adversaries without the need for heavy anti-vehicle weapons and mechanized armor to try and level the playing field.

Despite the danger, the last canine enemy finally fell to a joint sword slash; Wrenn came down from above, Kephic in from the side.

One of the soldiers snorted, “I’ve never seen anything like that before. How do you do that?! You like... Disappeared you were going so fast!”

Carradan smiled, “They have a more complex nervous system. Son, let me tell ya, you should feel privileged to have been here today.”

Wrenn rolled his eyes, “Knock it off Stan. Just focus on recording.”

Lantry bent over the holotable and glowered. Something was definitely wrong.
Satellite imaging was showing anomalous heat signatures, slowly coming to life, in a perimeter around Carrenton.

Hutch stared at the pattern of reds and yellows as the blobs began to form into more angular, technological shapes, “Mother of God... It’s an ambush!”

Lantry slammed his fist into the comm-plate; “All strike forces! Prepare for inbound unknown attackers! Disengage and wrap things up! Switch to condition five. Playtime is *over,* torch the facility and dig in.”

Sildinar watched, in grim amazement, as a VTOL suddenly burst into flames and spiraled down towards the ground. Almost instantly, the other craft still in the air deployed flares, but it did no good. Missiles streaked down from above, blasting the gunships to slivers.

With the roar of old-style turbine engines, two sleek gray shapes dropped from the sky, fins opening on their backs to reveal hover fans. The two F-35-IV Enhanced Joint Strike Fighters opened up with their forward guns, forcing everyone in the area to dive for cover, as they slowly strafed back and forth, seeking out targets of opportunity.

Out beyond the boundaries of Carrenton, just beyond the perimeter of the PER’s sensors, tan metal beasts began to dig their way out of the dirt. AHWN-44 ‘Mole Rat’ APCs were designed for desert warfare; The idea was to dig the tank down into the sand where it would be hidden, both from sight and heat sensors.

When the time was right, the vehicle would use pneumatic fins to force itself back to the surface, and hopefully catch some enemy unawares. The Mole Rats were painted with the crimson circle and fist of the HLF, and were full to the brim with troopers in beige armor.

Human troopers. Human troopers who would do anything, and everything, to stay that way.

The war for Carrenton was officially on.

Varan belly-crawled to a concrete slab, behind which Kephic, Wrenn, and Carradan had taken cover, “What are those?!”

Wrenn popped his head up for a brief look, “Old Joint Strike Fighters! HLF colors! They must have known we were coming...”

Kephic nodded, “Decided to ambush everyone once we were busy with each other. Clever.”

Carradan looked confused, “I thought F-35s hadn’t been in service for *decades*?!”

Wrenn shook his head, shouting to make himself heard over the saw-toothed roar of the guns, “They *haven’t!* But the HLF got their hands on a few... My guess is they upgraded them with modern jammers and missiles!”

Varan glanced up at the gray menacing shapes, a red human fist painted on the left wing of each, “How are we gonna deal with them?”

Wrenn smiled, “Fire with fire.”

He tapped his headset, “Goalie! This is offense one, do you copy?”

“Offense one! What is your status?! we have multiple ground and air contacts inbound to your position!”

“Its the HLF sir! They’ve been lying in ambush! We’re pinned down by enemy airborne Hostiles! Light attack craft, hover config, attack vector south by southwest, Angels two, tack west. Be advised they took out VTOLs despite countermeasures, don’t play nice with these turkeys.”

“Understood. Roll in strike package Reaper, I authenticate; echo echo one niner eight, at time zero seven hundred zulu. Warning danger close two hundred.”

Another voice rang out on the channel, “Roger, dispatch the Scythes to killbox three beta, danger close fire mission, friendlies within two hundred meters, weapons free and hot, kill order authenticated.”

“Reaper, proceed to waypoint charlie two and engage two hostiles in killbox three beta. Angels two, tacking west.”

“Goalie, Reaper One, acknowledged. Danger close two hundred, tracking bogeys at Angels two tack west, arming Shivas.”

High above, two Earthgov Northrop/Boeing Dynamics FA-26 Scythes changed course, and pointed their state of the art targeting computers down at the enemy F-35s.

“No lock! Target is jamming, activating ECCM suite.”

Wrenn cursed under his breath, then checked his RAC-8. Sure enough, the tactical attachment at the bottom was still intact. He flicked a switch, and a tiny shaft of green laser light issued forth from the module.

He tapped his headset again, “Lasing the target! Beamrider on frequency two two eight!”
Wrenn held the weapon up over the concrete slab, aimed the beam at the first enemy target, and frantically motioned for Kephic to do the same for the second.

The black and white Gryphon complied, muttering, “Let’s hope they didn’t upgrade them too much...”

The beamriders transmitted location data back to Fort Hamilton via a satellite. The AI in the facility processed the information, combining it with windspeed, target profile, and a million other variables, before re-transmitting the data to the two Scythes’ targeting computers.

A mile above the battle, and three miles out, the fighter’s own onboard AIs received the data and accounted for Coriolis effect, aircraft speed, gravity, and altitude.

The voice of Reaper one’s pilot filled the comm channels, “Lock acquired on beamrider, Fox three. Shiva away.”

A hidden panel on the fighter’s port side flicked open just long enough for a sleek black shape to break free of a mounting clamp and rocket off under its own considerable power.

The black deadly cylinder shot through the Kansas sky at four times the speed of sound, it’s sophisticated internal ‘brain’ reading continued instructions from the beamrider far below by way of the satellite uplink.

The missile imaged the two F-35-IVs through its nine forward cameras in less than three seconds of closing to visual range, acquired its own lock, and effectively put an end to any chance of error.
Or escape.

When it got within a mile, the nosecone shattered, revealing six smaller missiles which pushed off under their own power, each with their own locking computer, which inherited data from the parent device, and their own propulsion, capable of Mach two.

Four went for the jet on the right, two opted for the one on the left.
Only one was really necessary for a kill.

It was over before the stunned HLF pilots even received the ‘MISSILE LOCK’ warning in their helmets.

The miniature sidewinder devices tore through the two offending aircraft as though they were so much obstructing tissue paper. The warheads waited to detonate until the delivery computers indicated that the weapons were buried up to their fins in critical system components.

The compression waves from the four instruments of death reached the fuel tank on the first aircraft, ending its life in an expanding conflagration that reduced the metal of the airframe to something best described as a box of confetti.

The second craft fared slightly better, losing one wing and both tail fins, it spiraled out of control towards the ground, fire spewing from the engine. Midway down, the cockpit broke off and shredded itself from the torque. No ejection, no chute.

The rest of the jet slammed into the dirt and plowed up enough ground to plant a whole row of corn and then some, its momentum finally arrested by a building, which the twisted airframe then became a part of by way of embedding itself in the first floor.

Varan stared, “Do you suppose your superiors might put us in contact with the designer of that weapon?”

Wrenn chuckled, “Getting envious are we?”

Varan leapt from behind the concrete block and swept the area with his weapon, squeezing off a shot at one of the few straggling PER troopers, “Just investing in the potential future of weapons technology.”

“Uuhuhhh. So I should add it to your Christmas list then?”

Kephic glanced inquisitively at Wrenn, firing blindly and catching another straggling enemy in the head with the round, “Christmas?”

“Uuuummmm..... Hearth’s Warming eve.”

Varan shrugged, “Oh. Well, if you can afford it...”

“Ah no.”

The golden Gryphon smirked, “I thought not.”

Overhead, the thunder of jet engines drew everyone’s attention as the two Scythes became entangled in a dogfight with five reinforcement F-35s.

The aerial threat was not going to be dispatched quite so easily.

Thanks to General Lantry’s warning, the HLF tanks did not roll into Carrenton unopposed.
Earthgov forces had setup a quick defensive perimeter with their own tank battalions, and the few PER defensive mortars that hadn’t been destroyed in the initial onslaught.

The line wasn’t complete, however, and many of the Mole Rat APCs were able to break through and drive straight into the town. The rest became mired in an artillery battle with the Earthgov tanks. To anyone listening, it might have sounded like a thunderstorm; Loud booming muzzle reports followed by cacophonous explosions. The air was alive with shells.

The APCs that did make it through opened their rear doors and disgorged soldier after soldier.
The beige clad troopers were not interested in prisoners. They slew any who crossed their path without mercy, or remorse.

From a nearby side-street, a cry rang out and a small contingent of Earthgov marines cut loose with rocket launchers.

From then on, it was all going to be urban warfare.

Chapter 19

If war was chaos, Wrenn reflected, then being a Gryphon was the ultimate in bringing order to chaos. Fighting a roughly equal foe, like a trained Diamond Dog mercenary, was all about one opponent, or a small group, and the skill involved in anticipating your enemies tendencies, weak spots, and rhythm over the long term. Alot like blitz chess, with sharp edges and high octane kinesthetics.

Fighting in the chaos of a projectile based firefight was the antithesis; It was about the forest, not the trees. It was easier for Wrenn because it was already his native element, but he had a faster brain, sharper eyes, and very *very* sharp claws.
The secret to excelling against overwhelming numbers of enemies who were themselves individually weak, but posessing of deadly weapons, was quick planning and precise targeting.

The best way to accrue kills and accomplish an objective, was to think ahead. Plot out a route across the battlefield, mentally marking targets. Because those targets were slow compared to his own reflexes, Wrenn could plan all the kills well in advance, crafting them into a flow; A well connected sequence of high speed events.

Wrenn was ‘in command’ of a battalion of Earthgov Special Forces marines.
To his mind it was more like he was escorting them and advising their commander, but the overall result was the same.

The Gryphons had split up, Carradan travelling with Wrenn’s unit, deciding mutually that they were best used as force multipliers for existing squads rather than a single incredibly destructive unit.

An HLF hand-held mortar shell burst overhead, and a new group of the tan armored soldiers came marching through a side alley. Their steps seemed to cease, and the whole world paused as Wrenn inhaled, and his mind took the task head on.

Five hostiles.
Standard energy diffusion plating, kevlar nanopolymer vest overlay.
Heavy armor.
Advantage; resilient versus long range projectiles and knives.
Disadvantage; bulky and slow. Inflexible.
Weapons; KA-Bar survival combat knives, frag grenades, NSK-9 projectile based sidearms, RAC-5 rail rifles, and one enemy with a handheld mortar, single shell expended out of three in a standard clip.

Wrenn quickly plotted out the lines of fire, weaving his own maneuvers to take advantage of the positions and sight pictures of the enemy soldiers’ to force the maximum amount of movement and risk to each other in order to put him in their sights.

Then he fell to planning the kills.

Five hostiles, making avoidance of incoming fire easy.
Human compatriots; unable to avoid incoming fire quite as well, therefore kills must be accomplished quickly, and with flare in order to draw fire and attention.

First Kill; Close with mortar wielding soldier, seize weapon, twist one hundred and eighty degrees and relieve him of it.
Two broken arms, broken collar bone, dislocated shoulder, dazed.
Finish with back paw swipe as he falls; Slit jugular, fatal.

Second and third Kill; Fire mortar point-blank at vanguard position.
Deaths instantaneous by shrapnel and shockwave concussion.

Fourth kill; Backflip into rearmost enemy, whose sight picture will be disrupted by nature of being forced to shield herself from incoming shrapnel. Disoriented, easy kill. Snap neck two hundred and twelve degrees to line up sights with last enemy.

Final kill; Soldier may have regained some modicum of perception, distance will be too great to prevent him from dispatching a round, which could be easily avoided, but he may target a friendly, so kill must be swift.

Throw sword, tight arc, aim for small weakness in neck plating, follow up with final mortar shot if necessary, exhausting clip.

Total reckoning; Five kills, three point four seconds, forty six total rounds fired counting initial fire, no friendly casualties.

Wrenn exhaled.

Execute.

Wrenn flipped into the air, splaying his wings for a brief second to draw attention, then snapping them closed to protect them. He corkscrewed down his predetermined path as bullets whizzed around him, many coming close, but none a major risk. All the firing lines fell out exactly as he had known they would.

His corkscrew brought him down and right, allowing him to use his momentum to impact the mortar soldier. Before the trooper could even process what had happened, he twisted the weapon end over end, breaking every bone between the man’s fingers and neck on both sides instantly as he, quite literally, twisted his arms into a pretzel.

As the soldier fell, Wrenn swiped at his helmet with one back paw, dislodging it, and used the other to impale the enemy’s throat on his claws using gravity.

Simultaneously, he raised the mortar, sighted the two vanguard units, and pulled the trigger.
The two soldiers were only one quarter of the way through turning around to reestablish line of sight on him, and they didn’t even have time to process what hit them before they went up in a fireball.

Before the round was even halfway to target, Wrenn had pushed into a backflip, simultaneously shielding himself from any left over shrapnel with his backplate, and bringing him down towards his fourth kill. He landed directly behind the disoriented soldier, cupping his forelegs around her head in a grim parody of a hug, and snapping hard as soon as he hit the ground.

The human spine could be severed with sixty six force pounds of torque.

Inside the particular type of armor the HLF were wearing, this was elevated to one hundred and ninety eight force pounds.

A Gryphon could produce, with his or her forelegs, according to the measuring devices in the Bureau gym, roughly six hundred and seventy force pounds of instantaneous torque.

Under the pressure, the titanium neck plates of the enemy’s armor simply snapped loose as though they were over-cooked ceramic, and flew in all directions like frisbees. The maneuver placed Wrenn’s own sight picture firmly over the last soldier.

Or it should have.

During his backflip, Wrenn became aware that something was very wrong. The final soldier’s armor configuration had caught his eye as looking odd, at first, but there didn’t seem to be any appreciable external advantage to it, so he dismissed it. But the strange soldier didn’t seem phased by the mortar fire, and he had in fact begun to move towards Wrenn once he had a visual lock.

Now he was too close to use the mortar, which meant he was moving with a shocking, essentially impossible, level of speed for a human.

Wrenn dropped the mortar, and engaged hand-to-claw, grabbing the man’s weapon as he squeezed the trigger, and avoiding the rounds by combination of twisting the weapon, and his own body, to stay out of the line of fire.

To his abject amazement, the man pushed back with nearly equal force, preventing Wrenn from doing much more than throwing off his aim. Wrenn had applied what *should* have been enough force to break every bone above the soldier’s belt line, through to the C3 vertebra.

Wrenn thought quickly, not questioning the ‘why,’ or even the ‘how;’ he focused on simply winning. He adapted his strategy, hanging onto the weapon and using his forelegs to vault upwards into another backflip. The soldier followed him, much more quickly than he expected, but it provided enough of an opening to land a punch.

Despite the man’s seeming increased strength speed and durability, Wrenn hit quite hard, and he was rewarded with a sickening crunch as armor plates impacted into bones, fracturing them badly, if not breaking them as spectacularly as Wrenn would have liked.

He used the half-second of time that bought him to draw his sword.
The enemy soldier was fast, but like a Diamond Dog, not fast on a Gryphon’s level. And he had nothing substantial to fend off Wrenn’s sword with.

The blade was monomolecular; Even dropping it accidentally produced enough force to cleave through any armor less than three inches thick. Wrenn was putting six hundred odd force pounds into his swing.

The blade passed through the soldier’s RAC-5 as though it was a hologram, and buried itself a foot into his neck, ending his life instantaneously via severance of the spinal column at the second vertebra.

The entire exchange, from the time Wrenn had first moved, had taken five seconds.

For the next five, not a single sound was heard beyond the distant rat-a-tat-tat and occasional thunderous boom of the battles raging around them.

Carradan finally spoke, “You know... I’m really glad I brought the high speed camera.”
The platoon commander followed up with a simple expletive expounding the consecration of excrement.

Wrenn yanked his sword free of the dead soldier, noting that his blood was discolored a sickly shade of burnt orange.
An orangish tint he recognized, but had never seen in such intensity.

Suddenly, everything made sense.

Horrifying, clear, disgusting, mortifying sense.

Once, after receiving his implants, Wrenn had taken minor head wounds from an exploding claymore. The cuts had bled more or less normally, but the blood was tinted slightly orange.

When he asked the field medic why, the man had informed him that it was a byproduct of implantation.

As Carradan and some of the marines came over to examine his handiwork, Wrenn slowly knelt and removed the soldier’s helmet. A second later, he deeply wished he hadn’t.

For the first time as a Gryphon, he felt the gag reflex.

The man, if he could still be called a man, barely had a recognizable face.

Wrenn refused, afterwards, to even try to describe the mutilation the cybernetic implantation had caused. The sight was haunting, and horrifying to the point of eliciting screams.

He didn’t even want to know, but from a tactical standpoint, the information was necessary; So Wrenn plunged a talon into the corpse’s arm. It came back covered in sickly orange, tinged with gray/green mechanical lubricant.

Wrenn peeled off one gauntlet, and his suspicions were confirmed; A layer of skin came with it, and the piece of armor remained attached by a series of small nanotubes.

Carradan stammered, “They.... they melded them with the armor. Grew it right in... I’m going to be sick...”

Wrenn glowered, “Unethical, crude, and unfortunately quite effective. He was equivalent to a Diamond Dog, if not slightly better off because of his intelligence.”

The platoon commander glowered, “Are you telling me he’s augmented? Cybernetics?”

Wrenn nodded, “Very much so. I’d guess, from what I’m seeing, that they replaced almost half his body with biomechanical substitutes, jacked in a whole new positronic nervous system, coated the bones in liquid metal, then grew his armor straight in for added protection.
They probably had to irradiate the pain and pleasure centers of his brain to keep him from living in agony twenty four seven.”

The marines began to mumble epithets, most of them decrying the legitimacy of the parentage of HLF soldiers and leaders.

Wrenn motioned to Carradan, “You want to do a story on implants? Show the world *this.* This is where their pro-humanist crusade has taken them.”

He spat the last words, his rage boiling up inside. He may have disliked his implants, but they had been a help to him, making him able to live and fight with a semblance of normality when he would have been otherwise permanently marred. Organs could not be stem-cell regrown after suffering bioplasmic taint.

Because of acts like the augmentation of the HLF soldier, humanity was afraid to use the technology for good, and was depriving itself of a great benefit.

Because of the fear instilled by a few, many suffered.

Wrenn grabbed the man’s neck and snapped it hard repeatedly until it separated, just for good measure. No telling what sort of potential regenerative properties his augmentation gave him.

Carradan groaned, “How do you *deal* with days like this?”

Wrenn’s ears twitched. He could make out the sounds of two PER troopers trying to ambush them. He growled, “I take out my frustration.”

The PER soldiers’ skulls then became intimately acquainted with the stocks of their own particle rifles.

Two hours later, Wrenn finally met up with the other Gryphons. The four warriors were, it seemed, the only commanders in the combat zone whose squads hadn’t lost men in the battle.

Some squadrons were carrying wounded, others were protecting ponies.
Some were soldiers who had been hit by PER weapons, some of whom were HLF; made obvious by their constant pleas for death.

Peoples fanaticism could be so great, that even the mind of a Pony couldn’t immediately begin to erode it.

General Lantry had informed them that the prisoner transports had escaped safely, and were already turning over custody of the captured Ponies and Humans at the nearest military installation.

Medivac still couldn’t enter the area. The Raleigh’s Scythes had managed to take down the HLF’s fighters in a messy close quarters battle, but both had sustained heavy damage because of the overwhelming odds, forcing them back to the ship.

The sky was clear, but the HLF had set-up a perimeter, boxing the destroyed remnants of the PER forces, and the dazed but combat worthy Earthgov troops, inside Carrenton.

Some of their APCs were packing anti-air flak guns, others jammers, and supporting strike packages were still thirty minutes away.

In short; it would be up to the forces inside the town to get themselves out.

Wrenn, Carradan, Kephic, Varan, Sildinar, and the commanders of the remaining platoons, were gathered around a large backpack DaTab set up as an impromptu holotable.
The Earthgov forces had retreated to the PER command building, and setup makeshift trauma centers, prison cells, a command center, and defensive emplacements inside.

Squads were making periodic hit and run attacks to keep the HLF guessing, in hopes that a workable battle plan could be formed before their location was nailed down and pounded with artillery fire.

Wrenn had just finished briefing everyone on the new threat of HLF augmented troopers.

Lantry’s voice came over the holo-table’s speaker, “Gentlemen, you have three primary tangos. First, one prisoner didn’t quite make it to the APCs. The PER general you bagged has fallen into HLF hands. According to decrypted radio chatter, they’re bugging out with her in twenty minutes. Intercept that APC, take her back. At all costs.”

A circular flare pinged on the holotable’s surface, indicating satellite intel’s best guess at where the APC was currently stationed. Lantry continued, “Second problem; one of the F-35s that went down wasn’t completely destroyed. It was carrying a piece of heavy area-denial munitions, we don’t know exactly what, that they have now recovered and setup in the blast crater of the chemical plant. We have no idea what type of device this is, but according to their action plan, it’s going to put an end to the battle in short order. Defuse it, destroy it.”

Another icon popped up over the tear in the Earth that Wrenn and Kephic’s C4 had created.

“Finally, you need to eliminate anti-air and jamming APCs at these locations;”

More indicators came to life in a half-moon shape, “Once you do, we’ll dispatch a Spooky, bring the Raleigh’s railguns into this, and pound these suckers into the dirt until they have to be scraped out with a spatula.”

‘Spooky’ was the colloquial name for the gunship conversion of a large support airship.

The spiritual successor to the old AC-130 Specter, it could level six city blocks in as many seconds with its massive 160 millimeter Bofors-made gauss mortars, and high rate of fire precision 15 millimeter LADAR guided railguns. That wasn’t even taking into account the six ATGMs with multi-missile warheads, and the forty five pounds of AI driven vacuum bombs that came standard on every flight.

Sildinar nodded curtly to the holotable, despite the lack of visual connection, “We’ll make them regret the day they were born.”

Sildinar had become de-facto commander in chief on the ground, given that his military rank would equate to a combination of five star general, and Earthgov councilor, and he had the most combat experience and prowess of any person in the room by far.

Wrenn stared at the table, “I’ll take Kephic and Carradan and go for the bomb. We’ve already scoped out the area, and I’m the one of us with the most experience pertaining to human tech.”

Sildinar inclined his head, “Take a marine qualified in bomb diffusion.”

One of the commanders spoke up, “No one left alive is qualified in heavy munitions disposal.”

Sildinar sighed and glanced at Wrenn, “Well then. You’re it.”

He turned to Varan, “You and I will split. I will pursue the prisoner, you take a squad and provide... What were they called?”

“Beamriders” Wrenn supplied.

“Provide beamrider support to the Raleigh. Her guns can demolish those APC positions in short order, then she will have freedom of fire, which will prevent us from being decimated long enough for the gunship and medivac to arrive. If we all succeed, then victory is ours. If any of us fail...”

He cast meaningful glances around the room, “...then we suffer a major loss at best, and complete failure at worst. Good hunting.”

Carradan’s whispered voice grated in Wrenn’s ear, “Did it ever occur to you that dragging me into this could be classified as torture?”

Wrenn hissed, “Shut up. You’re doing fine.”

“Was that a compliment?”

Wrenn sighed, “Yes.”

Carradan snickered, “I made sure to get *that* on record.”

Wrenn rolled his eyes and tapped his earpiece, “Kephic. You ready?”
From their position hiding under a collapsed rotting porch, Wrenn’s telescopic eyes could easily make out Kephic in his hiding place atop a building opposite the crater.

Between them, two APCs and a whole battalion of HLF troops were gathered around a medium sized cylindrical object.

Wrenn grunted, “Dammit. It’s a MEADE bioweapon.”

Kephic’s voice came back over the speaker almost in synchronization with Carradan’s whispered query, “A what?”

“Microwave Emitting Area Denial. Its a radiation bomb. It puts out microwaves so strong they fry any electronics, and boil any liquid, within a two mile radius, including and especially water and blood. Its a slow, painful, gory way to die, and it's a big favorite of the HLF when they want to kill everyone rather than administer Pony-only biotoxins.”

Carradan turned green, “They do that?!”

Wrenn nodded, “Psyops. The toxins kill Ponies, slowly and with as much pain as could be engineered, but don’t even slightly affect humans. They leave the humans alive to, literally, go insane from what they’ve seen and spread fear and demoralization. It’s unthinkable”

Kephic’s voice crackled due to jammer interference, “But effective. Sadly.”

Carradan began furiously scribbling on a notepad, but Wrenn laid a claw on his arm, stopping him, “Hey... I can give you an interview and explain all this... *After* we get out of the soup. Ok?”

Carradan raised an eyebrow, “You? You’d do that?”

Wrenn shrugged, “You’re not as bad as I thought. You’ve held it together. You even bagged an assist today. That's worth a lot of respect in my book.”

Carradan grinned, Wrenn frowned, “Don’t let it go to your head Stan. I can still make a piñata out of you if you cross us.”

“Right.”

Wrenn passed him an SMG, “Stay here, film, and if anyone gets too close... You’re already acquainted with your little friend. Bag some kills.”

Carradan gulped, and accepted the weapon tentatively, “You just... Come out in one piece ok?”

Wrenn smirked, “Developing a soft spot for your combat buddy?”

“Oh shuddup.”

Sildinar swooped low over the flatlands. The APC carrying General Piety had left five minutes previous, according to Lantry, and the Gryphon’s dead reckoning based on his understanding of the terrain, warrior’s instincts, and the average speed of a Mole Rat APC, which Wrenn had mentioned was sixty eight miles per hour; Led him to the spot.

Sure enough, his acute golden eyes spied a column of dust swiftly approaching from the south.
A moment later, he could see the APC in all its ugly detail, including the eyes of the pilot through the tiny slit that served as a reinforced front windshield.

Sildinar beat his wings in strong, steady, paced fashion, rising high above the ground, and out of sight range of the oncoming APC.

He was going to do what predatory avians did best; stoop, swoop, and smash.

“ATTENTION ASSHOLES!”

Wrenn shouted at the top of his lungs.
He stood at the rim of the crater, framed by the setting sun, cutting an imposing figure with his sword in one claw, and an SMG in the other.

Within half a second, every weapon in the crater, including the APC turrets, were trained on him.

He grinned, “SURRENDER NOW, IF YOU PLEASE. OTHERWISE, I WILL COME DOWN THERE, AND STUFF EVERY ONE OF YOUR WEAPONS THROUGH RANDOM ORIFICES IN YOUR BODIES, UNTIL YOU BEG TO DIE. THEN I WILL TOSS YOU INTO THE RUINS OF YOUR FANCY TRUCKS, AND SET YOUR PANTS ON FIRE.”

A single soldier, one of the three augmented ones in the group, fired one shot at Wrenn, which he easily dodged. “NO? OK THEN.” From deep in Wrenn’s chest, a battle cry, somewhere between the screech of an eagle and the roar of a lion, burst forth and echoed across the town.

Twin explosions rocked the crater, instantly immolating both APCs, killing nearly half the soldiers, and throwing the MEADE up against the crater wall. While Wrenn had drawn attention, Kephic had swooped in from directly above, and attached six C4 blocks, each meant for demolishing a small building on their own, to both APCs.

By the time the remaining soldiers picked themselves up, Wrenn and Kephic were already among them, and it was far too late for niceties, or escape.

Wrenn grabbed the first soldier he came across, “Sorry about this... Well no not really.” He picked up the wriggling soldier’s rifle, causing the man’s eyes to go wide with horror. At this range, Wrenn could see right through his reflective faceplate.

There was a loud squishing noise, followed by a scream.
Scratch one soldier.
Scratch one rifle.

Next.

Varan swooped low, did a barrel roll to avoid tracer fire, and skidded to an unceremonious halt behind cover, popping up to squeeze off three grenades from his launcher before turning to the soldiers cowering behind the overturned VTOL.

“Ready?”

The marines chorused, “Yes sir!”

Varan glanced over the wreck, “I’ll provide cover fire, you tag the targets.
Do not flinch. I have no desire to return home with a steel rod in my head. Clear?”

Without waiting for a response, the Gryphon simply stood up and began firing, screeching a blood chilling battle cry.

The marines, in unison, pivoted over the VTOL and aimed their beamrider attachments at various pre-chosen APCs.

The platoon commander tapped his headset, “Raleigh, Raleigh, do you copy? We have targets in the crosshairs, beamriders in two hundred frequency range. Bring the heavy thunder.”

“Understood, Tactical ship to shore railguns armed, targets designated bogey sierra one through sierra thirty. Authenticate for broadside.”

“Authentication Lambda seven five three seven. Let loose, no prisoners.”

“Authenticated, bringing the heavy thunder. Advise you stand *well* back.”

A railgun on an Earthgov Carolina class destroyer was capable of launching, from each gun, four projectiles a second. Each projectile was a 1.2 metric ton tungsten-steel-carbide spike, with a nickel jacket. The muzzle velocity for the shells was over 45,000 meters per second.

That meant that each round impacted with the kinetic force of a tactical nuclear device, concentrated precisely onto a point the size of a shoebox.

Known as ‘heavy thunder,’ a single broadside from a ship could lay waste to an entire defended facility in seconds if it chose to do so.

In this case, the strike was more precise, and slightly ‘reserved.’ But no less effective.

Miles away on the Mississippi, five massive weapons turned west, and elevated their firing angle with the whirr of hydraulic machinery. The weapons looked like traditional battleship guns, but with tine-like fins on either side that played host to the accelerator coils.

With no action, no spent casing, and no launch gasses to worry about, the guns could fire often without cleaning. With no expensive components in the shells, they were relatively cheap to fire, excepting the fact that more than five successive broadsides in a row could drain an entire fusion reactor.

The Raleigh’s guns produced a roar so loud, that windows as far as five miles away shattered.
For each of the thirty targets, five shells flew straight and true.
One hundred and fifty ‘ballistic missiles from God.’

The impact shockwave picked up nearby untargeted APCs and hurled them hundreds of yards in every direction, as if some manic beast the size of the sky itself had reached down and swatted them away.

The sound shattered the eardrums of half the beings in Carrenton, and left the other half deaf for ten full seconds. Every single window in the town atomized, and blew away as dust.

The light flashes temporarily blinded everyone looking directly at the impact points, save for Varan, whose eyes could stand direct contact with the sun if he desired.

To his high speed, high tolerance optic nerves, the bombardment was a beautiful symphony of destruction. He could actually see the APCs breaking apart, their surfaces phase changing from solid to gas, as the kinetic energy of the rounds instantly dissolved their atomic bonds in order to dissipate.

The attack registered as a level two seismic event for the state of Kansas.
The HLF took more casualties, in men and tech, in two seconds than it had for the entire year combined.

When the marines with Varan finally opened their eyes, they beheld nothing but a twenty foot deep, seven hundred yard long crescent shaped smoking tear in the Earth’s surface.

Husks of vehicles, and the shredded corpses of enemies littered the edge of the depression, which had pushed up into a sort of embankment as the ground had liquefied for several microseconds.

Varan smiled, his expression almost as terrifying as the weapons he was saluting,

When Sildinar hit the top of the HLF APC, the driver instantly swerved, trying to dislodge him.
It did little good.

His talons had already dug directly into the metal.

He screeched, and ripped the gunner’s hatch completely off, tossing a flash-bang grenade into the aperture. The sound and light did very little to disorient him, but it knock the driver clear into unconsciousness.

His feet slammed, reflexively, into two of the vehicle’s poorly designed six pedals, causing it to enter an untenable turn, and begin to roll.

Sildinar disengaged, hovering, and watched, impassively, as the vehicle rolled a total of twelve times before coming to a stop upside down.

When the APC was finally stable, he ambled over to the rear hatch, readied his sword, and dug in his talons.

In the distance, a thunderous explosion attested to the destruction of the HLF blockade.
Sildinar allowed himself a single instant of triumph, then turned to the task at claw.

The railgun bombardment left most of the remaining HLF soldiers in the reactor crater so dazed they couldn’t even stand. Their condition got them no mercy from Wrenn and Kephic, who fell to efficiently and quickly sniping them with their RACs.

As the last enemies fell, Wrenn turned to the MEADE.
Kephic scratched his head, “Is it armed?”

Wrenn knelt down and examined the weapon’s controls.

It was designed to be dropped as a bomb from an F-35, but it had an auxiliary control panel under the release clamps for improvisational situations.

The display was counting down from one minute.

“Ahhhh. Yeah. It's armed. High yield. Everyone within two or three miles.”
He didn’t have to say anything more. Kephic lapsed into silence, allowing him to concentrate.

The control panel had a simple five digit code, but even five digits, from a ten digit keypad, with repetitions, could yield over ten thousand possible codes. And the device would likely auto-detonate after even one incorrect entry.

It took Wrenn a good twenty seconds to remove the entire mounting assembly, thus accessing the detonation controls proper. He scowled, “Oooooh... Hell no,” and launched into a stream of expletives, mostly admonishing some nameless person to do biologically untenable things to themselves.

Kephic cocked his head, “What’s the trouble?”

Wrenn jerked a talon at the tangle of wires and circuits, “Red wire, green wire, and purple wire. Heck if I know which to snip.”

The timer beeped a thirty second warning.

Wrenn inhaled, accelerated his brain, and tried to think critically.
He could visually trace all the wires, and even the circuit paths.
That was easy.

The problem was, he had no experience with WMD munitions like a MEADE, and the device was exclusive to the HLF, meaning even an experienced H-EoD tech wouldn’t fully understand it.

Wrenn was just an amateur at best, his primary explosives training revolved around creating or disarming improvised munitions of the type special forces, or terrorist operatives might use.

He tried every line of reasoning he could imagine, but in the end, there was nothing for it.
He would have to take a chance.

Wrenn said a quick prayer, steeled himself, and made an instant purely gut decision; trusting to God, destiny, and Gryphon instinct.

Snip.

Sildinar tore the entire back door off of the APC.

Inside, the pilot was dead, having busted his head open when the vehicle rolled.
He hadn’t been wearing a safety harness.

General Piety was bound and gagged between four HLF soldiers, three of whom were conscious and just beginning to collect themselves. Sildinar didn’t wait for them to finish.

With three quick connected strokes, he beheaded them all, stabbing the unconscious one non-lethally to sever his spinal nerve at the base of the neck for good measure. He didn't need anything below his mouth to be useful anymore.

The more prisoners the better.

He was about to administer another blow to General Piety in order to transport her back to the landing zone, when he heard a loud click.

Piety slowly raised both hands, revealing she had managed to work them free sometime during her incarceration. One hand was empty, but the other held a small silver cylinder with blinking purple lights.
She smiled, and threw the device to the floor between herself and Sildinar.

“Be reborn in light, filthy monster.”

Sildinar rolled his eyes, as the device began to whine, building up to Potion dispersion.
“You know, perhaps the Ponies are right. Perhaps problems can be solved with a little love. Would you like a hug?”

Without waiting for an answer, Sildinar smothered General piety in his wings, administering a knockout blow by headbutting her with his beak in the same smooth motion.

When the Spooky and medivacs arrived, they found Earthgov forces triumphantly preparing to pull out of the battered, burning, shattered husk of Carrenton.

Wrenn, Kephic, and Varan were all lying draped over various parts of an idling tank, soaking up heat from the engine and radiator, nursing a plethora of bruises, cuts, and sprains.

Carradan lounged in the gunner’s turret, examining footage on his camera.

Sildinar alighted in front of the vehicle, his back and wings still caked in potion, which had also accrued a great deal of dust and dirt, and tossed two limp human forms to the ground, one of which was recognizable as General Piety.

Wrenn smirked, “What took you so long?”

Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “I take it you were successful?”

Kephic guffawed, “Only by providence. He had to guess.”

Sildinar and Varan both perked up, “Guess?”

Wrenn nodded, “Three wires, twenty seconds, no H-EoD experience. I went with my gut.”

Carradan shook his head, “I swear, you guys are gonna be the death of me yet.”

Sildinar chuckled, “I just spoke with Lantry and Skye, transports will be here within the hour.”

Wrenn smiled, “Good! I need a shower. Carrenton dirt is nasty.”
Kephic snorted, “Agreed. Shower and coffee.”

Varan chipped in, “Shower, coffee, and something freshly killed with fat on the bones.”

Wrenn laughed, “Amen to that.”

He laid his head on his foreclaws and allowed the heat from the tank’s idling engine to soak into his sore muscles.
It was over.

Battle was satisfying, and Victory tasted ever so sweet.

Chapter 20

The muted newscast on the back wall holoscreen was filled with emotionally affecting images. Some touching, like the much replayed footage of a Pony and a Human soldier, both wounded, scrambling to help each other across a fire zone to safety.

Some footage was inspiring, like Wrenn and Kephic’s assault on the MEADE.

Other footage was the stuff of nightmares. Dead bodies in heaps, HLF soldiers executing a Pony before marines could intervene, Wrenn removing the helmet from the augmented HLF soldier...

“Escalation. We introduced a way to make ourselves something infinitely more deadly, so they both responded in kind in the best ways they could think of.”

Wrenn pulled his eyes off the holoscreen to look at General Lantry.

The Bureau conference room was full of military command officials, surviving platoon leaders from the Carrenton Battle, most of the ConSec command staff, and ten Gryphons, counting Wrenn.

The six Wrenn hadn’t yet gotten to know had arrived early that morning. Some were there to take positions in the Bureau, others to act as military liaisons. It was the first time Wrenn had seen females of his species, by way of two of the newcomers

It was obvious looking at them; Their faces possessed subtle but distinctly female characteristics, and their bodies were slightly thinner and more lithe. It fascinated Wrenn that the entire visible gender dimorphism of the species boiled down to subtle, yet strongly visible structural characteristics.

No one could mistake a male for a female, or vice versa, even without the added cue of voice.

Wrenn was relieved to find that he didn’t perceive the two females as especially attractive in any way beyond the antiseptic. He had never been particularly affected by aesthetically pleasing members of his species when he was a human, and he had no desire to lose the strong sense of control and security that gave him.

Hutch’s voice snapped him out of his reverie, “You mean they did this because of... Them?”
He gestured widely, to encompass all ten Gryphons.

Lantry nodded, and Commander Aston added her own thoughts, “Sure. Why not. We declared war, and proved to them that we have a weapon ordinary humans stand no chance against. So they changed tactics.”

One of the Earthgov officials, a brigadier general, looked to Wrenn and Sildinar, “I want your analysis of this. Do either of these new enemies present a credible threat to you?”

Wrenn nodded, “Yes. I was lucky to survive my encounter with the augmented trooper.
Taking them by surprise seems to work well, they aren’t quite as fast as we are. But they are strong, stronger than us, and certainly far more durable. If they get more creative with the implants, they’re going to get very hard to fight. Built in LADAR, infrared eyes, implanted jammers... Nanocellular active camouflage panels. The possibilities are endless. I’d wager what we faced was just a first prototype.”

Sildinar inclined his head in agreement, “As for the Diamond Dogs, they are deadly in their own right. Fortunately, some of the most capable subspecies, like the Lupines, are honorable and share alliances with us. But the Bulldog Trolls are not to be underestimated. They have the same pack instincts and abilities as all members of their kind, the thickest bones, and greater digging capabilities than their fellow subspecies. Most are bound by one code and one code only; Profit.”

Sildinar seemed loath to admit it, but he finally spat it out, “Admittedly, they can take a great deal more punishment than we can, and they are appreciably stronger, even if they are slower by the same token. We’ve had border wars with this clan before, and they were difficult struggles.”

The Brigadier General sighed, “So in short, we’ve lost our advantage?”

Hutch shook his head, “It’s been diminished, but not eliminated. We still have more in the way of ships, aircraft, and artillery. If the Carrenton battle proved anything, it proved that Gryphons are excellent force multipliers.”

Lantry chimed in, “We didn’t observe the Diamond Dogs working with the PER soldiers at all. The biggest threat in terms of military power are the new augmented soldiers. They seemed to work with regular troopers just fine...”

One of the female Gryphons interrupted, her voice seemed at once both quiet, and commanding; it had undertones of a lilting accent Wrenn couldn’t place, “We have to play to our strengths, and their weaknesses simultaneously. The PER are more advanced technically, but they have the fewest resources. Our job is to cut those off, squeeze their treasuries, make it harder for them to pay off the Trolls. On the other hand your ‘HLF’ has more resources, but technology that seems roughly equal to your own. The key with them, as with any claw-to-claw war, is to always have the element of surprise, and strike without mercy whenever the opportunity presents itself.”

The Brigadier General nodded, and rubbed his temple, “How is the interrogation of General Piety progressing?”

Varan shook his head, “She is strong of will, but not well trained. She won’t say anything directly, but she rants all the time. We’ve garnered several important tidbits from her ramblings through use of psychological nudges.”

General Lantry gestured for Varan to continue.

“She let slip several statements that confirm our basic assumptions. The PER have strong connections in Equestria who are mediating their new alliance with the Diamond Dogs---”

One of the ConSec commanders interrupted, “We’ve confirmed with the science department that if Equestrian materials were brought here and synthesized into very basic elemental things like gemstones, that they could probably survive barrier transit again.”

Varan nodded and forged ahead, “From further statements Piety has made, and from our own logical deduction, we’ve determined that the leader or leaders of the PER have had direct contact with their Equestrian counterparts. This is a major breakthrough. Heretofore you haven’t been able to begin to identify the leaders of either faction because of the cellular nature of their operations. Now we can track the prey.”

Lantry picked up the chain of thought, “We have to send Wrenn over with them anyhow to get acclimated, so I’d like to propose a joint initiative.”

He took a deep breath, and Wrenn realized he had probably been planning this for some time.

“I want to propose we start forming joint strike teams. Ponies, Gryphons, and Humans.
We need the diversity, and the cooperation. We’re the only player on this board with three unique species in our troop pool. We’d be fools not to make use of that.”

No one spoke, which Lantry took to mean they were amenable to the idea, so he continued,
“I suggest we form a joint military command made up of Gryphon Paladins, Human Generals, and Pony advisors. We can then create strike teams made up of all three species with the best training and equipment who would be above the traditional military bureaucracy and report only to the oversight command.”

Sildinar nodded his agreement, “It's unprecedented, but I agree.”

The few Ponies in the room murmured their agreement, and all eyes turned to the Brigadier General. After a long moment, he nodded, “I’m tired of the politicians crawling up my ass and breathing down my neck. I’m also tired of being handed a report every month on how many good people we lost, or how many of the innocents on this world were Ponified against their will. The end starts right here, right now.”

He turned to Wrenn and his three companions, “Choose Ponies for your team. Anyone you need who’s willing to help you, anyone you want. We’ll get them vetted and cleared. You’re going to Equestria, and you’re going to run down those ‘Diamond Dogs’ and find out who they take orders from. Once you find out who’s in charge, wring their necks until they give you the PER leaders, then you come back here and we’ll smash these pond scum once and for all.”

The female Gryphon spoke up again, “We are setting up twenty four hour guard on your Potion Vaults. If both the PER and HLF are using poison tactics, extra precautions are needed.

I suggest you set technicians to work analyzing everything recovered from the HLF. You traced Carrenton by analyzing discarded equipment, perhaps you can do it again.”

The Brigadier General nodded once sharply, “Make it happen. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go explain to the Council that we just decided to form a military leadership board that operates equal to their authority.”

Wrenn winced. That wasn’t a conversation he wanted to be in on.

Wrenn came down to the cafeteria to find Sildinar deep in conversation with Carradan.
The reporter was furiously taking notes, so Wrenn assumed it was an interview.
It was a testament to the respect the man had earned, that Sildinar would take time to voice his thoughts to him.

Wrenn poured himself a large mug of coffee, and collapsed into a chair beside Carradan.
His right wing was still sore from breaking a Diamond Dog skull.
“Hey Stan. How goes the interview?”

“This guy has *a lot* of war stories... Are you here to take me for Conversion?”

With a sudden jolt, Wrenn realized that Carradan had scheduled his ponification.

When he had tricked the reporter into their agreement, he had tossed out the idea as the best way to both protect Stanley, and keep him quiet. But the Gryphon had thought it a course he was incredibly unlikely to choose.

Wrenn realized he had misjudged the man. His actions in Carrenton had been honorable, and competent. His decision to move forward with Conversion was surprising, and insightful. Inspired even.

Wrenn glanced back and forth between Sildinar and Carradan, “If you want to stay here... Stay human... Well... I’ve seen you in battle. That’s the strongest test of character any being can pass through. I’m willing to vouch for you, and the Bureau can provide protection.”

Carradan, for a change, looked sincerely emotionally touched, “You know... On the one hand, I’ve seen a lot of things that have restored my faith in humanity. On the other, I don’t have any friends here. I ain’t the nicest guy to get along with, incase ya hadn’t noticed. If I had friends here, I might take you up on that. But you featherbrains are the closest thing I have to friends now, and I can’t follow you with thumbs. If you’ll have me along, I think I’ll take the purple goo now anyways. It’s gotta happen sometime. I've known that for a long time, and made peace with it. It’ll be a good fresh start for me.”

Wrenn smiled, “In that case, your final orientation class is in fifteen minutes. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Carradan grinned, “You know, before I met you clowns, I used to do my job from behind a desk. Thanks for showing me a little adventure.”

Sildinar mumbled around his food, “You may not be thanking us by the end of this. It is far from over.”

Wrenn had discussed his proposal, first with Sildinar, then with Kephic and Varan. They had all agreed wholeheartedly; Skye and Carradan were the best choices in traveling companions they could ever hope for. Skye was magically and technically gifted, and Carradan had an eye for political machinations, paired with a startling breadth of knowledge as an investigative reporter. There were perfect compliments to the Gryphons’ more blunt warrior natures.

Carradan had already asked to come along, thus there was no need to inform him, so Wrenn went in search of Skye. Hutch had informed him that she had agreed to see to caring for one of the two Ponies Varan and Sildinar had sprung from the Carrenton brig.

Wrenn found the two Ponies ambling through one of the sixth floor corridors, talking in low friendly tones. Wrenn smiled. It made him happy to see the traumatized orange Pegasus colt acclimating to freedom so well.

“Skye! Can I talk to you for a second?”

Both Ponies turned at the sound of Wrenn’s voice.
As Skye started towards him, a nagging instinct grabbed hold of Wrenn.
Something wasn’t right. Something he was seeing.

He stared into the Pegasus colt’s green eyes, confused and very disturbed.

It hit him in a flash, his memory making the visual correlation.

Green eyes.

Glittering, hard, shiny... Unearthly. An image formed in his mind; A gray pony with exactly the same eyes. A gray Pony that had been on the ill fated maglev. A gray Pony whose body had never been found.

The orange Pegasus registered Wrenn’s expression, and went from friendly to hostile as though a switch had been flipped.

His muzzle contorted into an expression of pure malice that seemed totally out of place on an Equine head. Before Wrenn could cross the hallway, the orange colt thrashed his wings, and bucked hard.

An accelerated brain could be a gift, and now Wrenn could see it as a curse.

The colt’s back legs connected with Skye’s chest, and he watched as she flew backwards from the force, impacting a window, and punching straight through.

Wrenn dove to catch her, but the Pegasus slammed into him at full speed.

The colt wasn’t heavy, but he was moving at a preternatural speed enhanced by innate magic.
The sheer momentum pushed Wrenn back, and for a moment he was pinned to the floor.
He batted at the Pony, but the Pegasus quickly danced out of the way, and took off down the hall at top speed.

Wrenn’s ears just managed to pick out the muffled crunch.
Skye’s body hitting the pavement far below.
The sound of a death she didn’t deserve.

Inside Wrenn’s mind, something snapped.

A primal rage bubbled to the surface like a seismic cataclysm. Reason didn’t matter. Tactics didn’t matter. Life, and the world, politics, Celestia’s countermand against harming Ponies... None of it mattered.

There was only the image of an orange Pegasus choking on his own blood with Wrenn’s talons embedded firmly in his throat. That was all that mattered.

Wrenn barreled down the corridor like an out of control freight train, a roar one part grief, two parts fury tearing from his considerable diaphragm.

He caught a glimpse of the Pegasus colt’s black tail disappearing into a stairwell, and he redoubled his pace.

The others had warned him time and again about the strength of a Gryphon’s emotions.
He had experienced euphoria, now he was learning the true meaning of rage and grief.
The feelings became a coursing throbbing mantra of imagined violence, pulsing through his head as a hazy red mist.

The colt lead him on a long chance, down to the lowest level of the Bureau. Wrenn didn’t even spare a moment of accelerated time to ask himself why. All he could think was that the intruder couldn’t escape. Vengeance would be served.

He finally caught up to the Pegasus at the door to the Potion vault.

The Pony turned and tried to snap at him with his strong blunt teeth, but Wrenn slammed into him with too much force. It wasn’t even a contest. Once he had a hold on the colt, he squeezed until blood ran like waterfalls, drenching his forelegs.

He slammed his head and wings into the creature’s body over and over and over, his rage lending him strength. Long after the colt stopped breathing and screaming for mercy, he kept belaboring the body, until he realized it was melting.

His mind cleared, partially, and he realized the colt’s blood, which was all over his forearms, wings, and chest, was tainted with some kind of silvery viscous substance.

He dropped the corpse, and watched in horror and fascination as the rest of the body dissolved into a red stained pool of mercury like silver liquid.

Wrenn’s brain finally cleared completely, and a dozen questions came barreling in to take the place of his rage. Why had the intruder come here? What was he? Where had he come from?

A soft click demanded Wrenn’s attention.

He turned to see two tan armored soldiers leveling RAC-5s at his chest, the tips of the weapons adorned with sharp shining bayonets.

That answered the question of ‘where’ the colt came from, and in a sense ‘why.’

For whatever reason, the HLF, like the PER, wanted a sample of the new potion.
The strategy was ingenious. Their ambush at Carrenton had come with a built in failsafe.

If the PER won, there would be a prisoner on the inside who could relay information about them back to the HLF.

If Earthgov won, they would take in the ‘hapless poor colt’ and he would have an opportunity to sabotage the Bureau, doubtless the same mission the original infiltrator had been under.

That explained how the two augmented troopers had gotten into the facility.

Wren growled. He didn’t need words. Perhaps the odds weren’t in his favor, and perhaps that was his own fault, but that was no longer the main concern.

The main concern was living long enough to make sure Skye didn’t perish in vain.

That looked to be easier said than done. Wrenn had no armor, and no firearm, only his sword. The troopers before him looked to be heavily armed and armored. That in itself wasn’t a crushing advantage, but there were two of them, and one of him.

He inhaled and concentrated.

There was no way to avoid incoming fire in a space that small, not immediately.
The ceiling in the antechamber was too low for flights or flips.
The walls too close for him to find a space out of the line of fire.

He was going to get shot. That was the grim fact of the matter.

The only thing he could do was keep the impacts in non-critical areas, and close with his enemies as quickly as possible, rendering their firearms useless.

It would have to be a beak and claw close-in fight.

The first augmented trooper Wrenn had faced hadn’t been prepared for the ferocity of his onslaught. Presumably these two were more well prepared. Their bayonets were evidence that the HLF had already begun to learn lessons from Carrenton.

The instant he moved, the two intruders squeezed their triggers. Wrenn twisted and gyrated as best he could to avoid taking wounds in critical areas, but he felt the telltale searing heat of bullets entering his body in at least three places before he slammed into the two soldiers, sending himself into a tangle with them on the floor.

Wrenn grit his beak against the pain, and lashed out with his sword.

The first soldier rolled to avoid his strike, taking a glancing blow to his shoulderguard.
The second raised his rifle, countering with the bayonet. Wrenn adjusted his arc, slipped in underneath, and dealt the man a deep cut in his right glove.

He pulled back as far as he could without giving the two soldiers room to discharge their weapons, and swung again, changing the course of his blade mid-arc to put the tip into the space that soldier number one would be occupying if he dodged.

Wrenn was rewarded with the scrape of metal on metal as his sword put a deep gash in the man’s side. The wound spurted orange blood, but the soldier didn’t seem to care. Wrenn’s hypothesis was correct; The augments felt no pain.

Wrenn ducked to avoid fire from soldier number two, but paid for it when soldier number one clipped his left wing with his bayonet. Wrenn didn’t have the protection of his wing guards, so the strike drew blood and fractured bone. It also hurt far more than the bullet wounds, his wings were more sensitive.

Wrenn did his best to ignore the pain, and held his left wing tight against his body, canting the angles of his attacks to shield the injured extremity.

He was moving and thinking at the maximum speed he could force his body and brain to maintain. Neither soldier could hope to move or think at a similar speed, but they were still fast enough that it was getting increasingly difficult to defend against both of them simultaneously.

Incoming downward stab attack from the right, projectile attack from the left.
Duck, roll, push sword up and out to force back bayonet, lash out with back paw to force enemy projectile weapon off course.

Come up, spin, apply body slam to dislodge weapon from first soldier.

Wrenn’s unexpected tactic finally managed to relieve the man of his rifle.

He adapted quickly, taking a swipe at Wrenn with his fist just as his compatriot made another stab attack. The move was extremely well planned; Wrenn was boxed in and had to take the punch in order to avoid the knife.

The impact definitely cracked something in his head, he could hear the bone fracturing.
The sensation of pain was overwhelming, well beyond a migraine headache or any such miniscule inconvenience.

The shock also produced a new spurt of rage, which seemed to dull the pain immediately, giving Wrenn the impetus to swing his weapon in an instinctive series of twists, ending with it buried in the chest of the man who had been foolish enough to punch him.

Incredibly, the blow didn’t kill the cybernetically defended soldier, but it severed something critical in his nervous system; his right arm went limp. Wrenn pressed his advantage, but the other soldier kept up his bayonet attack, making it impossible to get the killing spinal slash he needed to even the odds.

Wrenn decided he would have to take a risk. If the battle kept up at such a pace, he would be worn down, and thus dead, long before anyone knew of his plight. If he could just separate the two soldiers, deal with one and then the other, he knew he had a good chance of winning.

The two troopers were smart, they knew their best chance lay in working in tandem, something they seemed to have been trained exceptionally well in. Wrenn had an idea how he could stop the joint attacks, but it would require enduring considerable pain, and even more risk.

He thought of Skye. Her broken body lying on a Manhattan street, because of *these* people and their damnable fanaticism. Their inability to cope with change. Their merciless immoral bent for needless violence against innocents.

Isaac Wrenn had one reason, deep down, for going through so much of his life friendless.
After the grenade that robbed him of his vision, and his closest friend, he had reached a conclusion; Relationships ultimately carried risks.

Risk of betrayal, which he had experienced so painfully first hand, risk of death, which he was now experiencing with Skye, risk of separation...

To protect himself, he had closed himself off.

Was it worth it either way?
Were relationships worth the risk?
Was security worth the loneliness?

A friend, one of the few he had so recently made, was dead because of her association with him.
Just like his first and closest friend was dead because he had chosen to squeeze the trigger so long ago.

Perhaps death would end the chain of suffering. If he died, then his actions and inactions would be redeemed by his sacrifice. If he lived, then perhaps the risks were ultimately worth it.
Perhaps he could learn to cope.

There was only one way to know.

Slowly, in order to make it believable, Wrenn began to lose momentum.
He nursed his injuries more than necessary, but not enough to be unbelievable.
He needed credibility.

As he slowed, ever so slightly, he began to open himself to attacks.
A gash here, a stab wound there, a broken bone in one foreleg....
The wounds hurt, but not nearly as much as the pain of loss.

In a way, the pain was cathartic.
It served a sacrificial purpose.
That made it bearable, until his work was finished.

Not long now.

Finally, he collapsed to the floor in a heap as the soldier with two working arms delivered a brutal kick that he dimly knew had to have shattered several ribs.

The man with the non-functional arm held back, nursing the huge gash in his chest to prevent nanotubes from leaking out and causing more damage.

Perhaps it was going to work.
Whether Wrenn lived or died now didn’t matter as much, as long as the two enemies he was fighting went with him.

The functional soldier knelt down, and placed his bayonet on Wrenn’s throat.
Wrenn could see all the damage he had caused to both men, and had they been normal humans, they would be writhing in agony, if not dead. But they weren’t normal humans, and he was the one in agony.

Now or never.

Wrenn reach up and grabbed the weapon, a shooting pain coursing through his broken foreleg in the process. For a moment, he struggled, his final burst of strength equally matched to the cybernetically augmented enemy standing over him.

He leaned into the motion, and rolled, pressing the weapon over and into the skull of his would-be assassin. The blade pierced the helmet and went directly between the man’s eyes and into his cortical node as Wrenn forced himself into a second wind. He let go of the rifle, leaving it embedded in the soldier’s head, and reacquired a grip on his sword.

He raised the weapon and slashed at the man, once, twice, thrice, severing his head entirely.
Wrenn staggered to his back paws, wobbling from the pain. His body needed to shutdown, needed to rest and regenerate, but he couldn’t afford to let it. His mind was still strong, and he poured that strength into his limbs, piling on all his emotions as they cascaded out of control again, dulling the pain and sharpening his reflexes.

The second soldier had recovered his weapon and was firing it again, pumping a steady stream of bullets in Wrenn’s direction, some of them hitting, some of them missing. He didn’t care.

He bounded across the space separating them, taking a stream of fire to one shoulder without pause, and began hacking desperately with his sword.

Whether by sheer dumb luck, or divine providence, none of the incoming rounds pierced his skull or heart.

Had the second soldier had the full use of both arms, Wrenn’s gambit would have failed.
Even with one arm, the man was capable of deflecting nearly half his blows.
But the ones that did land carried the last of Wrenn’s energy, a strength born of anger, sadness, and desperation.

It wasn’t until his strength waned and he was forced to drop the sword, that Wrenn realized the soldier had been dead for almost thirty seconds.

His fifth blow had been a lucky strike, it had bisected the man’s skull diagonally.

With the battle was over, Wrenn became acutely aware of his injuries.
He took stock;

Cracked ribs, fractured skull plate on the left side, broken foreleg, seven bullet wounds, all thankfully in non-critical areas, and a serious gash on his left wing.

Thousands of other small cuts and bruises, some bleeding fairly badly.
Nothing lethal, but any number of them could have been, and very nearly were.

Wrenn scrambled to the stairwell, staggering every few steps as his broken foreleg tried to give out. He switched to two legs again. Even though his sense of balance was still recovering from the blow to his head, his back legs were unharmed, making it easier overall to walk in spite of the dizziness.

He ascended the flights of stairs to the ground floor, his aches and pains gradually numbing once more as grief took the place of all else.

He walked into the lobby to find it in chaos.

The flashing lights of ambulances and police cars emanated from the street outside the front windows. Medical techs were dashing back and forth, as a broken figure was wheeled in on a stretcher.

Skye.

When he saw her, lying there, twisted at an unnatural angle, Wrenn finally broke down and wept.

A gaggle of medical personnel took note of him and sprinted over, one fumbling for an anesthetic.

Wrenn welcomed artificial unconsciousness.
Blissful escape.

Chapter 21

“DEEETAIL ATEN-HUT!”
The command was accompanied by the distinctive clack of five pairs of boots, and two sets of back paws, against the marble paving stones.

“PREEESENT... ARMS!”
Wrenn raised his old-style ceremonial chemical projectile rifle, in tandem with Kephic and the five Earthgov Special Forces marines who also made up the three volley salute rifle party.

“FIRE!”
The crack of seven World War II era Enfield rifle replicas discharging blank cartridges split the foggy morning air. Outwardly, Wrenn maintained the rigid firing stance. Inwardly he winced.

The honor detail cycled their weapons in practice tandem.

“FIRE!”

Again the shock of seven cartridges of propellant, minus bullets, discharging into the foggy gray sky.

As Wrenn cycled his weapon again, he had to force himself to keep his eyes ‘on the boat.’
Straight ahead, level, staring off into nothing, and away from the lines of human shaped caskets draped with Earthgov flags.
And the one Pony sized casket draped with the Equestrian royal crest.

Skye was most definitely not a part of any military, but she had aided the cause of freedom.

Wrenn hadn’t brokered any argument from politicians, diplomats, or generals.
As soon as he was well enough to force his way out of the Bureau medical ward, he had marched into Hutch’s office and demanded the spunky little Pony receive full military honors.

Hutch had been all for it, as had General Lantry. A few objections had been raised.
All had been silenced when Wrenn wordlessly put a six inch crack in a Lieutenant General’s granite topped desk with nothing but his fisted claw and a low growl.

No one had any desire to cross an angry, grieving Gryphon, not even a military general, especially not when word circulated of what exactly Wrenn had done to Skye’s killer, and his escorts.

Everyone but the military personnel, a few ConSec troopers, Hutch, and the other Gryphons was avoiding him like the grim reaper.

“FIRE”

The final volley echoed out across Arlington memorial cemetery with a finality that brought tears to Wrenn’s eyes.

Arlington still served as a military graveyard, a testament and memorial to soldiers who had fought for freedom in many wars and conflicts. It would not be Skye’s resting place, she would be carried back to Equestria by members of Celestia’s own royal guard for a quiet burial there.

Wrenn didn’t have it in him to attend the second ceremony.
So this was goodbye.

The thunder of five overpassing Scythes followed the echoes of the rounds.
As the craft whizzed overhead, five corresponding Gryphons glided over the ceremony, synchronized so that their silhouettes would follow those of the fighters.

The wingman between the lead fighter and the rightmost position peeled out vertically and away into the sky, as did the Gryphon gliding between the leader and the rightmost position.
The ‘missing man’ formation.

Wrenn had never seen it done that way before, and it only made it harder to keep the tears from coming.

It had been over a week, and Skye’s death was still eating away at him like a parasite.
The trip to Equestria had been postponed.
A lot had changed.

For one thing, every single person in any position at all in the Conversion Bureau Network was forced to take a mandatory blood test to check for HLF shapeshifters.

No one had quite been able to unravel how, or precisely what, the creatures that looked like Ponies, but had the minds of humans, were. One of the other captured shapeshifters had made a slip up and admitted to having ‘once been human.’

The two others that had been caught had liquefied within hours into the same mercury like substance.

The gray goo baffled Earthgov’s top scientists. It was a biological substance, but on a level so complex it defied description. It wasn’t even related to Ponification serum.

That had been all the higher ups needed to hear.
Now everyone’s quarterly drug testing also included a battery to check for the shapeshifter chemical. Ponies, but with the unaltered minds of HLF humans.

The current prevailing hypothesis was that the creatures were unstable, by dint of the fact that the Conversion was biological only. Their nature hadn’t changed to fit their body, so the body eventually rebelled and refused to exist without the right nature underneath, dissolving back into whatever macabre substance had formed it from the raw material of a living breathing healthy human.

Wrenn didn’t really care about the how's or why's, he just wanted them all dead.
And for the moment they were.

Wrenn had spent several hours that morning trying to convince General Lantry and Sildinar that they needed to abandon the trip to Equestria entirely and launch a full military campaign against the HLF, Nuclear deployment and all.

After all, the PER hadn’t so much as made a peep in the last week, the devastating loss at Carrenton had most likely put them into panicked recovery mode.

Hutch and Lantry had argued that this was precisely why they needed to pursue the PER.
The HLF was not vulnerable, if anything their position was more secure than ever, and there was no way to strike back at them without a decent lead.

The PER, on the other claw, had just suffered a massive defeat, and there were appreciable leads. On top of that, Sildinar argued, the best way for Wrenn to cope with the loss of a friend was to immerse himself in his new culture and identity.

It had been settled.

Kephic, Varan, Wrenn, and Carradan would be traveling to Equestria in two days.
Sildinar would not be joining them.

When asked why, he had simply stated that Wrenn was right; The HLF needed to be punished for their incursion. He had refused to say anything more, but Wrenn’s sharp eyes had noticed a well hidden, but massive buildup in both the military, and public security forces.

Outright war was brewing. Everyone in ConSec and the Marines could feel it, including the humans.
Wrenn just hoped he’d be back in time to put a slow painful end to whoever was ultimately responsible for Skye’s death.

As the bugler blew the lonesome notes of taps, Wrenn cast a quick glance at Kephic.

The position of his ears, the tightness in his face, and the slight droop to his beak told him that his friend was going through the same turmoil.

None of them had known Skye as well as they wished they had, but all had known her well enough to be her friends. She had brought a snarky upbeat humor to their long days.

Finally, the ceremony was over.

Wrenn wondered, morbidly, how long it would be before he was the figure in the casket.
Sildinar told him often enough that he nearly had been.

The roan Gryphon had been very rough on Wrenn; Belaboring him for his foolish charge that nearly got him killed, constantly trying to drill into him that Skye’s death was in no way his fault, and repeatedly warning him that he needed to learn to control his emotions.

Both rage, and pain.

Either one could be the death of him if he didn’t put them in their place.

Deep down, Wrenn appreciated the rough treatment. He was a soldier, and he needed a soldier’s comforts. Kephic and Varan were there to reminisce with, Sildinar was there to beat him out of his self-recriminations, and Hutch was there to congratulate him for making Skye’s passing worth something.

After the military dismissal, Wrenn took to the air.

He didn’t want to attend the reception, or shake any more officer’s hands, or be reminded of his promotion to Lieutenant Commander and Medal of Honor ceremony coming the next day.

He just wanted space, and to cry one last time, without being seen.

“Isaac Wrenn, I hereby promote you to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities therein.”

General Lantry leaned forward, and pinned the Lieutenant Commander’s bars to Wrenn’s sash.
Gryphons weren't cut out for traditional clothes, so the quartermaster had ordered a special dress white sash with gold edging, his service ribbons, and the Earthgov Special Forces emblem be made up in Wrenn’s size.

The strip of fabric also held his new Medal of Honor, and now his new rank bars.

Wrenn smiled. Skye would have probably smacked him upside the head and cut him to the quick with a well placed humorous barb, if he let his grief get in the way of a special moment like that. She would have wanted him to be happy, that much he knew.

So he forced his grief to wait its turn. He had to learn control, this was a good way to start.

The General saluted, and Wrenn returned the gesture in kind with the same decorum and precision. “Thank you sir.”

Lantry’s face softened, he spoke, his voice too low for the audience to hear, “No. Thank you. Right now we need heroes. You may not feel like one, but standing up here and publicly, visibly receiving the awards you deserve, with a smile, helps everyone stay on top of the fear.”

Ever since the shapeshifters had been discovered, the atmosphere within military platoons had turned sour and morbid. Business went on as usual at the Bureaus, there was even a world wide up-spike in applications for Conversions, of both types, thanks in no small part to Carradan getting the media to put a positive spin on Carrenton, and everything that had happened.

Perhaps the battle had been a major victory, but it had cost them all more than the general public would ever know.

But today was for celebrating the victory, and for bragging about past and future victories.
Today was about bravado and courage.

As Varan had once told him during orientation, “Gryphons feel fear. We feel it keenly. Not in terms of losing our lives, or in terms of monsters in the dark. We fear loss of the people and the ideals we love. But we have courage too. Neither Courage, nor Caution, can exist without fear. The greatest warriors are the ones who have both in proper balance.”

Wrenn waited anxiously outside the Conversion room.
He knew the technology was sound, but there was a certain anticipation in seeing what Carradan would become. Kephic and Varan were with him, arguing in low tones about what color he might emerge as.

The three had a bet for species.

Wrenn had put his wager on Earth Pony, Varan Unicorn, and Kephic Pegasus.
Losers were buying everyone a celebratory ‘goodbye Earth’ dinner out on the town.

In the interest of cutting down on further delays to their trip, Hutch had signed papers fast tracking Carradan’s Conversion. Normally he’d need to remain at the Bureau for one to two weeks’ acclimatization, but there was no time for that.

The door finally hissed open, and the new Stanley Carradan stumbled out, complete with cutie mark. The image on his flank was an open newspaper, with a quill poised above it, which made a great deal of sense given that he was a diehard reporter.

The nature of his cutie mark, however, was lost on the three Gryphons in light of two stunning facts;

Firstly, Stanley Carradan was now a Pegasus.

Secondly, he was a vivid shade of dark salmon, as though he were wearing a 1990s golf shirt.

Over his entire body.

Wrenn snickered, “Way to go Stan! The new you is....”

“Hehe. Pink.” Kephic blurted.

Wrenn shrugged, “I was gonna say ‘chic’ but yeah... Pink.”

Carradan grunted, “It is not pink! It’s lightish red!”

Wrenn guffawed, laughing for the first time in days, “No no Stan, you see these?”
He puffed up his neck feathers for emphasis, “*These* are red.”

Varan snorted, “Don’t antagonize him. Its really a shade of ‘salmon.’ “

Kephic raised an eyebrow, “Since when are you an expert on color?”

“We are *all* experts in color.” Varan pointed at one of his golden eyes, to lend emphasis to his statement.

Wrenn clapped Carradan on the back, “Hey, you got wings! Makes my life much easier.”

Carradan spread the feathered limbs and flexed them experimentally, “Oh yeah! These babies are gonna make getting scoops a heckuva lot simpler. Oh man... I gotta learn to FLY!”

Wrenn laughed again, “Easier than you think. Easier than learning to walk anyways.”
As if to underscore his words, Carradan stumbled, barely correcting himself.

“Hey, Whaddya say we grab some dinner? I need something to wash that trippy dream out of my head!”

Wrenn ended up buying dinner, since it turned out that Varan had no valid Earthgov currency to speak of. It made him happy, to finally have a decent use for one of his paychecks.

Carradan, to his credit, only balked slightly when the Gryphons ordered virtually every synthetic meat item on the menu, with every kind of soda imaginable to wash it down.

The now four-legged reporter opted for a special four course Equestrian meal, complete with fresh imported apples, haycakes, and whole grain muffins.

When another off duty reporter, several MPs, and a platoon of ConSec troopers joined in, the event became an impromptu party. Wrenn could tell everyone, himself included, needed the boost. The soldiers were in rare form, trading war stories, punctuated by raucous laughter and improvised toasts.

Near the end of the night, Wrenn smacked his fisted claw against the table, drawing everyone’s attention. He didn’t really want to make a speech for the sake of a speech, but he felt he had words welling up in him that would do both him, and those around him, some good.

He raised his mug, now filled with his fourteenth coffee, “We’ve lost a lot of friends recently. And the worst is yet to come. We’re facing long odds and the worst of the worst across the table. But we’ve got more than they’ll ever understand. Hell, that’s probably part of why they hate us so much. Who would have dreamed that a group like this could sit in a bar in uptown Manhattan?”

He glanced around the room, “Ponies, Humans, Gryphons... All with our unique cultures, beliefs, and bodies... And yet really we all want the same thing. A better future for ourselves, and each other. Our friends died for that better future. So they died happy, honorably, and they made an impact doing it.
They died well, and that’s not something to only to mourn. That’s something to celebrate.”

Wrenn inclined his head, “And too, there’s the victory their sacrifice gave us, and the myriad ways life goes on. Birthdays, anniversaries, and a few who just jumped the species line.”

This statement was accompanied by chuckled and cries of ‘hear hear!’

Wrenn paused, “So. A toast. Here comes the only Latin I know; Prosit nobis similibusque...damnabiliter paucibus reliquis!”

Everyone looked on confused, Carradan piped up, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Wrenn clanked his glass against Kephic’s and Varan’s, “Here’s to us, and those like us... To the damnably few remaining.”

Wrenn left the only three possessions that mattered to him in the care of Hutch.
His new lieutenant commander’s bars, the folded up Equestrian flag that had lain on Skye’s casket, and his Medal of Honor.

The man saluted him, “Good luck Lieutenant. I had darn well better see you back here within the year to help us wipe out the HLF.”

Wrenn nodded, “I’ll make sure of it. Hey... If you ever start thinking about Gryphonization, I’ll vouch for you. Not that you need it, I’m sure we’d have you anyways.”

Hutch nodded, “I may just hold you to that when my next service tour ends in couple years.”

“See you around, Hutch.”

“See ya around, Isaac.”

Sildinar came down to the Bureau's lobby to say his farewells.

Carradan was off in a corner with his former boss, laying down details for how he would be relaying back news articles, when he could manage access to the Equestrian postal service.

Wrenn exchanged a swift crushing hug with the Gryphon.
“Thanks. For keeping me on a straight course.”

Sildinar nodded, “See to it you *stay* on it. You’re going to be a great warrior Wrenn. A credit to our kind. If the future converts are even half the man you are, our species is set for a new golden age.”

Wrenn shook his head, “Nah. We need more Gryphons like you. I’m just an average soldier who was in the right place at the right time.”

Sildinar snorted, “Modesty is good, but so is bragging, when the time is right. Do not sell yourself short.”

He exchanged similar hugs and claw-shakes with Kephic and Varan, “You two, keep his training going. I expect him to be a full fledged warrior when you bring him back.”

Kephic nodded, “You fly with the wind at your tail, and the sun in your enemy’s eyes.”

Varan added his own goodbye, “Keep them on the run, but save some for us.”

Finally, it was time.

Kephic and Wrenn had spent most of the morning, and half the afternoon doing accelerated flying lessons with Carradan. Like Wrenn, he took to it quickly since there was no conflicting human instinct to get in the way of the Pegasus instincts his body came with.

He wasn’t flying very fast yet, but Wrenn imagined he would learn all too quickly, and then spend a lot of time running circles around him, lording it over him.

Sildinar stared at each member of the group in turn, “Two final words. First, when you come back I expect you to come back with good solid leads we can use to nail the PER to the wall. Second, I have selected two new companions for your team. One will meet you at the Equestrian port of Foals’ Haven, the other will be waiting when you reach the capital of the Kingdoms...
I expect you all to put aside remorse, and treat them like you treat each other. As family.
That is the only way you will all come back in once piece. Clear?”

Everyone nodded their assent.

Sildinar tossed off an impromptu salute, “Good hunting.”

As the group winged its way east towards the barrier, Wrenn cast a glance over his shoulder at the city of New York. The teal ‘sunset’ provided a dim backdrop for the high powered lights of the city as they sprang to life, illuminating the comings and goings of so many.

Kephic dropped back to fly alongside Wrenn, allowing Carradan and Varan to pull ahead, “It’s a shame to think that will all be gone in three years.”

Wrenn nodded, “When the bubble hits, I expect there’s going to be a big new round of Conversions. And controversy. They’ve already planned out evacuations. Big advantage of a one world government; No problems with immigration laws. They’re splitting the populace amongst San Diego, New Roanoke, Singapore, and Tokyo.”

Kephic winced, “It’ll be quite a mess. No one likes to watch their accomplishments... Their home... Vanish.”

Wrenn sighed, “It’s not as if they have a choice. Humanity is resilient though, I expect their accomplishments in future will dwarf even New York. But before things get better, they’re probably gonna get worse, especially when space starts running out on this side of the barrier. The only choices will be en masse Conversion, packing in tighter, or hitching a ride on a Genesist ship. I hope they get those figured out...”

Kephic chuckled, “If anyone can, it’s Humans. They have such a propensity for technology. I look forward to seeing what they... What you can bring to our race.”

Wrenn smiled, “So do I.”

He stared back at the city a final time, “So do I.”

Chapter 23

Mr. Utah considered himself a hardened man. He had faced many unpleasant colleagues in his life, some of whom had wielded considerable power, and borne nasty grudges.

The ones that weren’t dead were serving time in prison, or mental institutions.

So naturally, it was unusual for him to feel nervous around someone.
Mr. Utah always felt very nervous around the HLF’s benefactor.

Mrs. Juno merely annoyed him. The woman who had given their organization the shape shifting technology, however, truly worried him. He had only spent extended time in her presence once before, and that had been enough to firmly convince him that she was more trouble than she would end up being worth. But he had been out of favor with the Cabinet at the time, and the woman, the newcomer, had offered him something to bargain with.

Mr. Utah fully understood that she was manipulating him. He firmly believed the secret to true manipulation, however, was allowing one’s self to be manipulated, and in turn using that to manipulate the manipulator.

It had become a sort of game. A deadly, wordy, high strung chess game.
The winner would be in a position of nearly direct control over the HLF.
The loser would most likely be dead.

The Benefactor was tall, imposingly so. Her dark skin, and the dark nature of her garment, lent her a shadowy aspect. It didn’t help that the only thing more disquieting than her cold, hard, blue-green eyes, was her cold, lilting, enchanting voice.

“So what you’re saying is, you failed?” The words were all the more dangerous because they were delivered as casually as if she had been asking for one of his cigarettes.

The Benefactor was the only person alive Mr. Utah would refrain from smoking around, and the itch to indulge his habit was swiftly becoming another contributing factor to his discomfort.
“This is a war. Sometimes defeat is necessary to pave the way for true victory.”

She laughed, a quick sharp sound that carried more derision than a conversation’s worth of epithets, “Don’t make excuses for yourself. The fact that your infiltrator managed to kill a high level asset in the Bureau does not negate the fact that your arguments were unable to defeat the Gryphon. If I understand correctly, the death of that Pony wasn’t even intentional. You had no idea who she was or what she represented to them.”

Mr. Utah grunted, “Sanchez, and the two soldiers, paid for their mistakes with their lives. And we did not come out of the encounter without accomplishing something. That should be enough for you, it’s enough for the rest of the Cabinet.”

She leaned across the table and hissed, “Your ‘Cabinet’ has plans, schemes, and hair-brained ideas... *I* have standards. *I* have cunning. And *I* have exclusive control over supply of the shape shifting substance.”

Mr. Utah leaned forward to meet her gaze, forcing a smirk to grace his lips, “And I have exclusive control over the thing you need most. So lets not get hasty with our accusations, shall we?”

The two kept up the staring contest for a few moments. There were no distractions, the secure meeting room was nothing but an underground concrete cube with dim directed fluorescent lighting, a solid granite table, and steel chairs.

Finally, the Benefactor leaned back, ”You will be trying again?”

Mr. Utah straightened his suit, “Naturally.”

“Hello. You must be the Gryphons I was told to meet?”

Wrenn nodded, “Sildinar sent you?”

The Pegasus shrugged, her wing movements amusingly similar the ones the Gryphons employed when they made the gesture, “I was given orders by the Captain of the guard to travel to Foals’ Haven and meet three Gryphons, accompanied by another Pegasus.”

She glanced around Varan, “I assume they’re downstairs?”

The golden Gryphon nodded, “Eating. It was a long trip”

She snorted, mumbling, “That’s what you get for eating meat...”
It was said in such a low undertone, that Wrenn wondered if she had really said it all.
Aloud, she said, “I’m Inside Joke. Nopony likes to say the whole name, and I really don’t like ‘Inside’ or ‘Joke.’ I much prefer IJ, if that’s alright.”

Wrenn offered a half smiled, “Works for me.”

Varan inclined his head, acknowledging his agreement, “We should leave. According to Wrenn this establishment is about to become crowded. We do not do well in crowds.”

IJ grasped her helmet in both hooves and slid it on expertly, “Well he’s not wrong. Whenever a shipload of newfoals arrives, this place gets crowded.”

As they made their way downstairs, Wrenn indulged his curiosity, “You’ve been here before?”

IJ snorted, “Yes. Unfortunately. I was rotated here for guard duty last year.”

Varan’s expression of surprise elicited a further clarifying statement, “Sea air doesn’t really agree with me. Makes it hard for me to eat. Salt and I don’t get along.”

The explanation made some sense to Wrenn. He vaguely remembered being told salt sometimes had some sort of unexpected effect on Ponies, he just couldn’t remember exactly what.

They found Carradan horking down, what Wrenn guessed, was his fifth haycake.

Kephic had gotten an orange, and seemed to be enjoying carving intricate designs into the outer skin before slicing into it with his beak, and sucking out the juices.

IJ raised an eyebrow, “They didn’t tell me the other Pegasus would be a newfoal.”
Something in the way she said it told Wrenn that there was a modicum of derision behind the words that she had meant to disguise. That surprised him.

Carradan glanced up from stuffing his face, “Well heloooo there! I’m Stanley! And you’re giving me heart palpitations.”

IJ looked up at Wrenn, “Is he always this.... I’m sorry I have to say it; Insufferable?”

Wrenn chuckled, “Not *always.*”

Carradan leaned over and whispered to Kephic, in an overly loud manner, “I could get *really* used to travelling with her. I love a woman in uniform!”

Varan cleared his throat, “If you’re quite finished,” and the way he said it made it clear it was an imperative, not a query, “We should leave before it becomes crowded.”

Kephic gulped down his orange nearly in a single go, “Agreed. Come along Stan.”

Carradan glared, “Hey! Only Wrenn gets to call me that.”

Kephic sighed, “As you wish. Stan.”

Once outside, Varan fully introduced IJ to Kephic and a still somewhat smarmy Carradan.
The group slowly moved to a quiet spot across the central square.
True to Wrenn’s prediction, the Lotus and Lilac had filled up to bursting with celebratory newfoals and native Equestrians alike.

“So,” Wrenn again decided to get some answers to his questions, “Do all Celestia’s royal guards get appointed because of their colors? Or is it a spell or something?”

IJ snorted, “No no nothing so ridiculous. It’s good old fashioned dye.”

Wrenn nodded, “Aaah. So what color are you really?”

IJ shook her head, “It’s bad form to ask. Some say it’s also bad luck, but I’m not into superstition. Load of malarkey if you ask me.”

Wrenn inclined his head, “Well, then at least tell me how you hang on to your cutie mark through the paint.”

“It... How to explain...” she paused and thought for a moment, “it ‘shines through’ very shortly after being covered. That *is* magic.”

Carradan butted in, “Oh yeah! That’s right, we all got these marks on our butts... So what’s your special talent?” The way he said special talent put an expression on IJ’s face that made Wrenn fear for Carradan’s life.

She answered anyways, through gritted teeth, “It’s sensing emotions. Whether they’re showing or not. And I usually like to be nice when I meet a new Pony, but if you keep this up, there will be a hole the size of my back hoof guard in your jaw.”

Kephic whistled, “I see you have the Blessing of Luna.”

IJ nodded, “And I’m not afraid to use it either, I’d just much rather not have to.”

Wrenn pinched the bridge of his beak, “Would someone care to fill me in? Blessing of Luna?”

IJ snorted, “What are you? a newfoal too....”

Kephic chuckled, “In a manner of speaking. I suppose it’d be better to call him newfledge, though he’s taking to it all quite fast.”

IJ looked at Wrenn with an expression he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. He felt as if she was sizing him up all over again, “Well that’s... Surprising. The Blessing of Luna, for the two of you who don’t know, is a spell the Night Princess can cast that lets those under it deviate from our usual peaceful nature more easily for a time.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “So... It makes you more capable of violence?”

IJ nodded, “But not more prone.”

Carradan paled, “So you could actually....”

“Yes.”

“And you would?”

“Only if you make me. I don’t like to, but if I have to, I will.”

Carradan shrank back, “Alright alright! point taken. Why me? Why do I always end up with people who wanna thrash me?”

Varan snorted, “Answer precedes the question.”

Kephic chuckled, “So you *did* find some time for the human internet.”

“A few moments. Yes.”

The group set off north. They didn’t need to carry supplies, they would be stopping for food and lodgings along the way as necessary. As they took to the air, Wrenn spied a tower-like protrusion near the edge of the town, standing at the edge of a cleared field.

“What’s with the spire? Planning to try Thaumatic radio?”

IJ snorted, “Nothing so frivolous. It’s an airship mooring mast.”

As they passed overhead, Wrenn examined the structure closely.
He did some mental figuring and came to the conclusion that Equestrian airships couldn’t be especially large, but had to be efficient enough to be in widespread use.

Wrenn decided to put his deductions to the test, “So airships are a fairly common mode of transit?”

“For those without wings, yes.”

“Average size is... What? eighteen or nineteen meters?”

IJ sighed, “Firstly, I don’t know what a meter is. Second, why don’t you just read a history book? I’m probably not the best source of information on everything you haven’t learned yet.”

After that, silence descended.

As the group moved inland, Wrenn became fascinated with the trees.
Earth still had a fair number of them, but they were all long dead and petrified.
Equestria's plants were green. Every possible shade of verdant living green, adjacent blues, and a good many other colors besides if one looked beyond the trees to the rest of the landscape.

Somewhere, deep down, the sight appealed to both a primal part of his Gryphon mind, and to some left over lingering aspect of his instinctive human species memory.

Trees belonged. They were a part of reality that should be there by-definition.
Integral, beautiful, ubiquitous.

For upwards of an hour, Wrenn didn’t speak to anyone in the group, he simply followed Kephic and Varan’s lead, immersing himself in the sensations of a living world. When he wasn’t busy soaking up the sights, he would sometimes close his eyes and listen to the trilling of crickets, punctuated by the occasional hoot of an owl, or song of a disturbed small bird.

When he opened his eyes again, he would make a game out of counting all the living creatures he could see. The sight of insects crawling up leaves, of songbirds tucked into their nests, of owls and bats zipping from branch to branch on the hunt, was intensely exciting, comforting, and peaceful all at once.

The first time he saw fireflies, the image elicited more than a few tears.

Earth lacked even basic insect life. To be surrounded by so much that had life, and breath, was akin to himself being alive for the very first time in a meaningful way.

As they passed over a small brook, Varan pulled back and shot him a look.

The tilt of his ears, the focus of his eyes, the downturn at the corners of his beak, and a half million other small tells told Wrenn that the golden Gryphon wanted to talk, and whatever it was, it was serious business not meant for the ears of someone in the group.

Wrenn already had an idea what it might be, so he flared his wings slightly to lose speed and drop even further back, Varan imitating him to stay beside him.

Wrenn waited for Varan to broach the topic. He didn’t have to wait long.
“So. What is your evaluation, as a soldier?”

They both knew they were discussing IJ. Wrenn thought for a moment before answering, “She’s not what I expected from a Pony, but that’s probably the Blessing of Luna.
I’m not sure she’s going to fit in well. She takes Carradan's words very seriously, though I don't begrudge her that. No one should have to put up with his ancient and decidedly stale macho mannerisms. She’s uptight about more than that though, and I think I make her mildly nervous for some reason.”

Wrenn glanced over at his friend, “But then again, I’m heavily biased. It feels wrong to fill Skye’s place in...”

Varan finished the sentence, “In our family.”

Varan chuckled at Wrenn’s look of surprise, “Don’t look so stunned. You are right, that’s absolutely what our group became. Family.”

Wrenn sighed, “I just didn’t want to say it if that’s not how you and Kephic saw me.”

Varan shook his head, “No. We’ve been through too much together for you to be anything but family. As for Kephic and myself? We’re already officially brothers.”

Wrenn once again had to force his beak closed, lest it hang open and he catch bugs, “You’re... Biological brothers?”

Varan laughed, “Not biologically. Adoptive.”

“Oh. Whose parents?”

Varan gazed down for a moment, “Neither. We both lost ours. Mine at two, his at three. We first met at age six. We watched out for each other. When we got old enough to take legal ownership of our family names and assets, we decided to combine them into one single clan and become brothers. We were already inseparable in spirit, so it seemed right to make it official.”

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, Varan started up again, “Well. I agree with your analysis. And the Blessing of Luna has been known to make some Ponies irritable.
I also agree that she is not a good fit for the family dynamic, even excepting the issues Carradan brings to it.
Although, I may also be biased as well, I would advise we trust our instincts and impressions. If IJ becomes a serious strain on us...”

Wrenn nodded, “She'd have to go. Even if that’s partly our fault for not being able to let go.”

After several more hours of flight, the moon was starting to dip below the horizon.
To the east, a city began to creep into view. The group banked right, and made for the soft glow of the lights.

IJ spoke up for the first time in hours, “Neighvada. Nice city in the springtime. A bit dusty for my taste.”

Kephic pointed, “We’ll find an inn, get some more food and some sleep, then resume travelling before noon tomorrow. If we keep a good pace, we’ll reach Tacksworn by tomorrow night.”

Wrenn observed a difference in the terrain as they approached the city. The grass was shorter and browner, the trees spindlier, and the dirt redder. They had moved from forest to plains, and the wind told him in a thousand tiny ways that there was a desert not too far away to the northwest.

Neighvada itself was an eclectic mix of, what Wrenn assumed to be traditional Equestrian architecture, and a more adobe style of building that made good use of nearby sand and clay deposits.

Wrenn’s internal clock told him it was close to three in the morning, so it didn’t surprise him to see that the streets were mostly empty. What did surprise him was the presence of gas based streetlamps. Magic had made a visible impact on Equestria, he realized, in the way that some technology had advanced at accelerated rates, while other fields had stagnated, or been entirely replaced by spells and potions.

His sharp eyes spied an inn in the distance, as he scanned the various signs hung out in-front of the many stores, markets, smithies, and taverns. There seemed to be a great many smelters, iron works, and mining related trades going on, so it seemed as though that might be the town’s major source of income.

Wrenn pointed the lodging place out to Kephic, and the group came to rest on the sidewalk just beyond its front porch. The building was a three story adobe construction with a wooden portico out front, and a sign that read “Crowbarr Inn and Suites.” Two r’s.

Inside, the lobby’s lights were dimmed down, and a single stallion manned the reception desk.

As the group crossed the teak floor, Wrenn was surprised to discover that the lights were somehow magically driven. That seemed the only explanation, given that some of them were mounted and suspended in such a way that neither gas tubes nor electrical wires could reach them.

“Hey there. I’m Silas Crowbarr. Most folks just call me Silas...”
He glanced at the Gryphons, each in turn, “We don’t get many of you here... ‘course we get more than a lot of places... we’ve got a few suites made up specifically for you. How long will ya be stayin'?”

Kephic smiled, “Just for the night. But we probably won’t be out by checkout time. We’ve been flying all night. So we’ll take two days.”

Silas laughed, “No, no, no, there’s no need for ya ta do that, we can adjust the schedule, ‘s no big deal.”

Wrenn inclined his head, “Thank you, that’s most generous.”

“Bah, ‘s just courteous. Besides, mebe you’ll tell some of your friends. You guys put away a whole lotta food, and thas good for business.”

Varan raised an eyebrow, “You stock meat?”

Silas nodded, “I don’t much like it, but I figure firstly; I didn’t have te kill it, second you and them Diamond Dogs, and the really occasional Dragon, are all meat eaters. So all in all, ‘s worth a few uncomfortable looks and conversations if ya know what I mean.”

IJ sniffed, “You’re courageous, I wouldn’t be able to handle the societal outlook on the practice.”
Silas didn’t fail to catch the subtle hint of demeaning superiority that filtered into the words.
Wrenn stiffened and shot IJ a quick glare, causing her to shrink back slightly.

Carradan finally broke the awkward silence, “I don’t mean to break up the party, but I’m beat.”

Silas chuckled, “Newfoal?”

Carradan nodded, “New as it gets.”

“I remember my first day as a newfoal. I don’t think it was quite as excitin’ as travelling with Gryphons, but it was a doozie.”

Wrenn looked up, “You’re a convert?”

Silas nodded, “Yep. I was in on it in the first year. The first name’s a hint, ‘s something some of us do; we keep our first name, and take a Pony last name.”

Carradan grinned, “I like the sound of that! I’m kinda attached to Stanley... It has a distinguished air dontcha think?”

Kephic laughed, “I don’t know about distinguished, but it's a good strong name, and it does suit you well, somehow.”

Silas bit down on several sets of keys, transferring them to a hook on his saddle.
As he stepped out from behind the counter, Wrenn noticed he was an Earth pony. The absence of a horn had meant he was either a Pegasus or an Earth Pony, and Wrenn had correctly guessed Earth Pony judging by his thick strong draft horsebuild.

“Right this way. I’ve gotcha all on the third floor. Pegasi and Gryphons, ya both like to live high up, and this is as high as ye ol building goes.”

As he ascended the stairs, with the group in tow, he continued rambling, “We got hot water, courtesy of tha newfangled gas heating, tha lights are magelights; blow on em to make em brighter, squeeze em to dim em. Breakfast ‘s from sunup, to eight, lunch is at noon, we serve snacks and heather beer tha rest ‘o tha time. You feel a bit peckish at nigh...”

He stopped to laugh at his own pun, “Hehe... Gryphons... peckish... hehehehe... anyways, ya get to feelin hungry after hours, you ken help yerself to anythin in the kitchen. Honor system. Yall are just as trustworthy as any ‘o us, if not moreso. Right then, here ye are...”

The five rooms were well appointed. Wrenn only caught a glance of IJ and Carradan’s rooms, but they seemed perfectly designed for Ponies.

His room, on the other claw, seemed well thought out for a Gryphon; A nest-like round mattress with bordering cushions, a sunning rock that seemed to be heated by a built-in gas burner, and the shower was sized up by several orders of magnitude.

Wrenn was especially grateful for that last feature. The showers at the Bureau had been an insufferably tight squeeze.

He took a quick ‘navy shower’ in freezing water, then dried himself by sunning on the heated rock. The effect worked wonders on his tired muscles, sapping out the minor aches of travel and replacing it with pure warmth.

He flopped down on the nest bed, and tried to sleep.

As his mind spun down, running through the day’s events and contemplating what he’d seen and heard, he began to drift towards unconsciousness.

He thought about IJ, the Blessing of Luna, and how that might affect her.
If only it were Skye instead. Maybe she didn’t have wings, but she wouldn’t have been hard to carry. She would have loved the adventure of it all. She would have been better for the group, and better with the people they were going to meet along the way.

Thinking about her, in those moments just before sleep when the brain’s internal safeguards and controls shut off, Wrenn found himself descending into self-accusation.

Her death was *his* fault.
That made twice in as many decades that a friend had died because of him.

Suddenly, sleep was no longer a possibility.
Wrenn felt his emotions grabbing hold, and he sat up, doing his best to suppress them.
He failed, mostly, ending up deadlocked.

He remembered what Silas had said about food and drink, and pulled himself completely out of the nest, intending to find a snack. Wrenn always ate when he was nervous, upset, or couldn’t sleep. The habit would suit his new metabolism well, he reflected.

He moved with near absolute silence through the hallway.

His ears were sensitive enough to detect the occasional snoring guest in other rooms, so he assumed their Pony ears were more than sensitive enough to hear creaks in the floorboard.
He didn’t want to wake any light sleepers.

Wrenn ran into Kephic coming up the stairs as he was going down.

“Trouble sleeping?”

Wrenn nodded, “You?”

Kephic snorted, halfway chuckling, “Just thirsty.”
He stared for a moment, Wrenn figured he must be taking in his tells, “You want to talk about it?”

Wrenn wanted to say no, but at the same time he felt an overpowering need for catharsis.
For someone to talk to.
So he nodded.

“You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute. Put on some coffee, we’ll need it.”

Wrenn quietly made his way into the kitchen. The walls were adobe, but the floor was ceramic tile, and the counters were lacquered wood. To his surprise, and relief, he found a coffee percolator, complete with a primitive, but well made and effective gas driven heating element.

Everything in the cabinets above the counters was clearly marked, and coffee wasn’t hard to find. It smelled, if possible, somehow fresher since it hadn’t been packed up, shipped to Earth, and stored in a warehouse for who knew how long.

The percolator was designed to make enough coffee for several servings, so if he filled it to the brim, he assumed it would make just enough for three Gryphon sized tankards.
The establishment stocked cups and tankards in several sizes, ranging from children’s cups, to dragon tankards, into one of which he could have squeezed Carradan if he’d tried.

About the time the beverage finished brewing, Varan and Kephic arrived.
Wrenn lugged the three tankards out to a table in the corner, and flopped down on one of the padded seats.

The room was dark, especially since it was the hour between moon-set and sun-rise, but none of them felt the need to turn on any lights.

The low luminescence level wasn’t even a mild impediment.

The three Gryphons sipped their coffee in amicable silence for a few minutes, before Wrenn finally began, “I’ve talked about this on and off. But you guys are still the first I’ve ever mentioned it to outright. You and Sildinar. I’ve never really told anyone the entire story.”

Varan nodded, “I wondered if there was more to it than Skye.”

Kephic set down his mug, “You can’t blame yourself. And if you start, I’ll put you in a headlock.”

Wrenn chuckled half heartedly, “Thanks.” He took a deep pull on his mug, “Where do I begin?”
He stared out one of the large arched windows. The moon was gone, but the stars were still out.

“Way back, I had a good friend. Robert Gilchrist. We went through University together, actually. He was getting more degrees than I can count in the sciences, I was in the accelerated Military tactics school.
We were inseparable.”

Wrenn turned his gaze back to the other two Gryphons, “A good few years later, we’re still keeping up via the internet, and meeting whenever I’m free from my duties as Korvan’s bodyguard. I had served on a few squads, I caught his eye, he took me on. I went with it because it was a good career move, decent shot at any position I could conceivably want after a couple tours.”

Wrenn sighed, “Then things went horribly horribly wrong. He met this Pony...”

Wrenn stopped and cocked his head, “This is ridiculous. I’m unloading this ancient mess on you two and keeping you up---”

Varan set down his mug with gentle, yet visible force, “You need to get this out. Frankly, we have nothing to lose except a few hours of closed eyes. You are family, you need this.”

Wrenn smiled, “Thanks. I... I suppose I do.”

Kephic gently nudged him back to the tale, “So Rob met a Pony?”

Wrenn nodded, “And became obsessed. Fell head over heels. And not in a healthy way.
I thought he might get converted, but if there was one thing he loved as much as that Pony, it was his work. He was *deep* into high level quantum chemistry. Never would say, to anyone, me included, what he was trying to accomplish. But it was major. Anyhow...”

Wrenn sipped his coffee again, “Korvan? Around this time he was getting interested in the Bureaus. Now there’s something you need to understand; Earthgov has a major logistics problem. Projections say the rate of Conversion won’t be enough to match the bubble’s rate of expansion. Earthgov needs to convince more people to sign up now, rather than waiting until they absolutely have to, or the logjam will kill millions.”

Kephic sipped his mug, “So what does that have to do with Korvan, and Rob?”

Wrenn raised his mug, “Korvan was just getting into the Bureaus. He figured he’d do the world a 'favor.' He had statistics on his desk which said that a solid chunk of the people who faced no logistical obstacles, but were choosing not to Convert were A; In a relationship with a Pony, whether convert or native, and B; holding off on their own Conversion till later, but very open to the idea.”

Varan mumbled, “I think I see where this is headed.”

Wrenn nodded, “Yep. Korvan brought a resolution to make interspecies marriage, and civil union illegal, including retroactive dissolutions after a grace period. Figured it would give non-converting significant others a shove. Well, given that it was an issue of life-saving logistics for potentially billions of people, he started to gain a lot of momentum in the council. And he started making a lot of people angry.”

Kephic snorted, “I’ll just bet.”

Wrenn sighed deeply, and inhaled, “Rob came to me. He was genuinely starting to scare me with his behavior at this point. I told him flat out; I didn’t think that mare was good for him, he flipped. He accused me of supporting Korvan, and of plotting against him, and it just went downhill from there.”

Varan raised an eyebrow, “Do you agree with Korvan?”

Wrenn nodded, “Yes and no. Interspecies marriage and mating doesn’t bother me, and abridging people's freedoms certainly does. But the logistics don’t lie. We’re talking about staving off an extinction-level disaster here. Act, or millions, maybe billions, die. So I feel conflicted, to this day, about the resolution, but ultimately I don't think I'd stand in the way of it.”

Kephic and Varan nodded their own agreement with Wrenn’s logic.

Wrenn took a large swig of coffee, and then another deep breath, “The next day... Korvan came before the council for the final ratification. Before that, during the open floor segment, they brought in Rob. I was worried the minute he stepped in, but I figured he was just going to make a fool of himself at worst...”

Wrenn did his best to keep his emotions in check, “Instead... he pulled out a bioplasmic grenade and tossed it. He didn’t care that it would kill me along with Korvan. I think he even wanted it. I pulled my pistol, and batted it up with the butt. I had a split second of sight picture.”

Wrenn sighed, “I took the shot. Grenade went off. I didn’t see him die. I never even watched the recording. They tell me I shot true. Right through the occipital lobe. They issue us sabot jacketed armor piercing rounds. My guess? His brain was the consistency of tapioca when the medics got to him. ”

Wrenn tossed back the last of his coffee, “So. I shot my best friend in the head, and got Skye killed. My track record is not exactly comforting.”

Varan growled, the anger in the sound surprised Wrenn, “If you had not killed this Robert Gilchrist, then we certainly would have. Had we been there.”

Kephic nodded, “You did *exactly* what you should have. He tried to kill you, and thus he sealed his own fate. You did what any warrior should. You killed him first.”

Wrenn shrugged, his voice conveying his depression, “I’m still ultimately to blame. I should have seen it, should have gotten him professional help. Heck, institutionalization would have been a better outcome. And I still failed to save Skye. No excusing that.”

Kephic shook his head, “I’m not saying these issues shouldn’t bother you in some way, but they bother you for the wrong reasons, and you are coping with them all wrong.”

Varan chimed in, “You acted honorably, and as well as you knew how in both situations. You only indulge in self-deprecation now because you know the outcome. You did not, and could not, in the moment.”

Wrenn half-chuckled, trying to keep the sob out and failing miserably, “You guys... You’d make great psychiatrists you know that?”

Varan snorted, “We’re your brothers, not your doctors.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “After hearing what happened to the last guy who called himself my brother, you really wanna think of me that way?”

Kephic snorted, “No. We want to make it official.”

Wrenn sat in slack-beaked silence for almost a minute.

Finally Varan broke the silence, “It is sometimes difficult to be a Gryphon without a clan or family name. We do not look down on it, but it is harder to have emotional, financial, moral, and logistical support. Every warrior needs a stronghold and loved ones to come home to. Even the best of us.”

Wrenn stammered, “But me? Really? Me?”

Kephic chuckled, “You. Yes. You. You’ve fought with us, we owe you our lives several times over, and you us. You’ve shared some difficult things with us, so clearly you trust us, and we certainly trust you. What’s to stand in our way?”

Varan nodded, adding, “There are rough skies ahead. Where we have to go, no one besides unsavory sorts have gone in centuries. It is a long, hard journey, and after that I suspect war is brewing. And when all is said and done, if we are victorious, there is quite a life ahead. A harsh and wild frontier. You need to be a part of a family again Isaac. We want you to be part of ours.”

Wrenn wasn’t even trying to hold back the tears in his eyes. He’d wondered if Gryphons could cry outright, now he had his answer, “I’d be honored.”

After that, the talk turned to the sort of frivolous enjoyable banter good for putting emotional issues to rest. They discussed war stories, old school pranks, amusing mishaps, and poked fun at Earth politics, until the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

For the moment, Wrenn was content.

It wasn’t a resolution to the issue. He wasn’t deluding himself.
Issues like that could not be laid ultimately to rest with one night’s worth of catharsis.
But it was a start.

It was a start.

Chapter 24

Sildinar glanced down at the small glowing disc, examining the intricate default layout of the positronic pathways contained within. “Let me be sure I understand fully; You want to make an... ‘Engraving?’ Of my brain?”

Hutch nodded, “I guess you could call it that.”

“And you think the resulting AI will be able to track the invasive one that infected your systems?”

The technician, who had been flown in to the Bureau from Australia, nodded vigorously, “Based on what I’ve been able to learn from the initial scans of your brain, an AI based on a Gryphon should be capable of bypassing most existing security measures, and the aggressive tactical nature of your brain will leave an unprecedented template for a tracking AI.”

The man was animated, clearly pleased to get such an important opportunity.
His field of study was AI.

Sildinar looked across the lab at the imaging machine; A biobed, with a large scanning ring around the head, “Very well. Let us get this over with.”

He lay down on the biobed, resting his head on his foreclaws and closing his eyes.
The ring began to spin, glowing softly as the tomographic imaging scanners embedded along its circumference pinged his skull, and sent the resulting image to a read/write particle beam array attached to the AI storage disc.

The process took nearly an hour. Sildinar found himself bored, but he had the patience to hold still. Nevertheless, the scanning ring produced a humming noise that the humans didn’t seem to be able to hear. It was most annoying, it kept him from sleeping, and the Gryphon was glad when it was finally over.

He got up and moved over to the work-table. The storage disc’s pathways had reshaped, going from their default angular, tessellated layout, to a complex, curvy, twisting shape reminiscent of a Celtic knot.

He peered into the disc’s teal glowing depths, “How long until it is ready?”

The technician was already deeply concentrated on reviewing the positronic copy of the Gryphon’s brain, but he spared a moment to speak up, “I’ll spend several days pulling out the pathways that don’t really translate to anything but inexecutable gibberish; Leftover mush made from memories, personality, and what not. Things that can't be translated to positronics. I’ll then fill that space with a logic tree of directives and the necessary military AI protocols to make it functional and weaponized.”

Sildinar nodded, “And how do you plan to deliver this once it’s complete?”

Hutch looked over the tech’s shoulder, squinting at the millions of lines of code passing by, “Well the infection seems to have come from Gavin/Schummel. The operative who was picking up the information drops was embedded there, so Lantry figures the best place to start is there.
We’ll offload the AI to their mainframe during a routine security inspection. We reserve the right to oversee parts of their security given how much of our biomedical equipment they provide. Hopefully from there, it’ll do what you seem to do best.”

Sildinar nodded, “Hunt the prey.”

Wrenn had finally managed to get three hours’ sleep. It wasn’t ideal, but being a soldier had forced him to adapt to long hours without much rest. If the disadvantage to a Gryphon’s high speed metabolism was the constant need to eat, then the advantage was the sheer level of energy that could be gained from a good meal alone.

Three hours of sleep, and three portions of breakfast, made Wrenn feel fully recharged and ready to meet the day. Perhaps the amount of caffeine uptake also helped.

IJ was up at the crack of dawn, Carradan predictably slept in, the only one in the group who didn't have experience in 'combat rest rationing.'

By popular vote, the group elected to wait a few hours, rest more, and eat an early mid-day meal before setting out again. That seemed to bother IJ a little, but she didn’t complain, which helped set Wrenn’s mind at ease.

In the warm light of day, the issues of the previous night seemed pale, alien, and distant.
By contrast, his forthcoming adoption into Kephic and Varan’s family was an ever-present source of happiness and excitement.

While Carradan was pulling himself out of bed and helping himself to nearly as much food as a Pony could stomach, Wrenn treated himself to a quick flight around Neighvada.

It wasn’t his intention to go anywhere specific, he just wanted to take in the sights under the light of day.

Watching the Ponies put their hooves to their daily tasks, mingled with a few Diamond Dogs, and even one small Dragon, Wrenn became even more convinced that the business in the town primarily revolved around catering to travelers, the wealthy, and the mining operations they owned.

He observed very basic electricity, gas heating, coal furnaces, steam power, and a great many interesting Thaumatic devices. Overall, it gave the society a more medieval or renaissance feel, even though technologically it was well into the industrial revolution. Minus the smog created by traditional coal burning. Pegasi seemed to be able to bottle up the fumes, and reuse them as second-stage fuel in the furnaces, like some sort of magical, and completely effective afterburner.

An hour before noon, Wrenn returned to the inn. Lunch was a quiet affair. From what he could tell IJ and Carradan had suffered some kind of falling out, and Varan had rather harshly intervened, making IJ prickly, and Carradan rather timid.

Silas seemed almost sorry to see them go, “Ya’ll come back if you’re ever back this way, ok now? Yer some of tha more inerestin’ customers I’ve had ‘n a while.”

Kephic smiled, “We certainly will. You’ve been most gracious.”

“And your food is delicious!” Carradan added.

Wrenn chuckled, “Agreed.”

Silas smiled, “Ya’ll have good winds, and fair weather!”

The further north they flew, the more desert-like the terrain became. It wasn’t a pure-sand desert, so much as a red-dirt desert. Wrenn had seen the terrain archetype before, in old Western movies. The wind carried new messages the further they went. If he had to guess, he’d say the desert extended north and west, while to the northeast the terrain turned back to verdant, rising into Alpine peaks.

Tacksworn wasn’t as long a flight from Neighvada as Neighvada had been from Foals’ Haven, so the group arrived just before sunset. The town lay at the base of a large mountain jutting up from the plain below as if a volcano, thousands of years ago, had decided to be contrary and show up uninvited to the wrong geologic location.

As they approached, Wrenn spotted, among other things, two inns, one that looked as though it likely charged a fair bit more than the other, an eatery called ‘Beryl’s’, a salt bar, and separated a short ways from the town proper, a schoolhouse.

Wrenn observed a higher ratio of Diamond Dogs to Ponies here than he had seen in Neighvada, and as they came in to land, he thought he saw what might be Gryphon dwellings, though he wasn’t sure, as he’d never seen one before.

The setting sun framed the town in beautiful shades of red, amber, and gold; A sight Wrenn appreciated all the more since he could look directly at it without squinting. He also noticed the continuation of a pattern he had first observed earlier in the morning before leaving Neighvada.

It seemed that the further north the group traveled, and the closer to the borders of the Equestrian nation, the less of a stir their presence created.

The more Wrenn thought about it, the more it made sense. The northern border of Equestria was, in some spots, shared with the Gryphon kingdoms. It was only logical that there would be more co-habitation of the species in the areas that represented both the boundary between their nations and the boundary between their preferred habitats.

In Tacksworn, the arrival of four Gryphons produced no more disruption to the daily routine than the arrival of any other sort of traveler.

As Wrenn landed, he ground his foreclaws into the dirt a bit, taking in the distinctive texture.
He cast a sidelong look at IJ, speaking directly to her for the first time that day, “So, why do they call it ‘Tacksworn’ ?”

IJ shook her head, “I couldn’t say. I’ve never been out this direction.”

A new voice cut into the conversation, “ ‘Cause the Ponies who founded the town stopped when the leader said ‘Tack’s Worn.’ The rest of us moved in later. You guys came up from the south?“

Wrenn turned to see a younger female Gryphon coming out of ‘Beryl’s Bar.’
She grinned, “Headed home to the Kingdoms?”

Kephic nodded, “Yes. I’m Kephic, this is Varan, IJ, Stanley, and Wrenn.”

The younger Gryphon stepped closer, "I'm Carmine..."
Carmine cocked her head, “Wrenn? Funny name for a Gryphon isn't it?”

Wrenn chuckled, “You could say its a... Carryover.”

Carmine looked even more confused, until Varan stepped in, “He’s a convert. The first.”

The younger Gryphon’s head feathers puffed out, in an involuntary expression of surprise, “Really? You were... Human?”

Wrenn nodded, “Yes I was. Can’t say I miss it, but my opinion is biased. You could say I had ‘eye troubles.’ “

Carmine chuckled, “Wow. Well, I guess we’ll be seeing more like you through here then?”

“I certainly hope so.”

She jerked a thumb-talon at Beryl’s, “Great spot to eat by the way. Beryl’s the only cook in town who can whip up a decent meal for every species living here. Just to let you know; The surprise is *always* rabbit surprise.”

The young Gryphon spotted a friend of hers, another young female Gryphon, and bounded off across the street to join her yelling, “Hey B! You’re never gonna believe who’s here...”

Wrenn found himself fascinated by his first glimpse of younger members of the species, and he watched the two until they turned down a side alley and disappeared.

He wondered how long it would take to finally get acclimated to the biological differences that pervaded his new world.

Wings, horns, feathers, hooves... It was all so very diverse and complicated.

Kephic motioned with his head in the direction of the more economical looking inn, “I’ll go get us rooms, if the rest of you want to get a table. Save me some ‘rabbit surprise.’ ”

What started as a quiet dinner quickly turned into more of a ‘welcome to town’ party.
Judging by how often he was belabored with questions, Wrenn figured the attention stemmed from curiosity about Earth, mixed with interest in the idea of Gryphon converts using Tacksworn as a stopover in the future.

He had been correct in his guesses; There was a small, but appreciable, Gryphon population in the town. They even discovered that Varan had actually met Carmine’s family, briefly, at one point in the past. Her family offered to provide lodging for the night, as did several of the other Gryphon families, but Kephic had already purchased rooms so it seemed a shame to waste the bits, and to wake everyone up at a needlessly early hour.

The group planned to depart before dawn.

Carmine had developed a renewed interest in Wrenn when she overheard he was a soldier, “So... What are human weapons like?”

Wrenn smiled and took a chunk out of his third Rabbit Surprise. It was quite good, better than he’d been expecting given Carmine’s tone. In hindsight, she’d probably been taking a stab at the ‘surprise’ part more than the actual cooking skill.

“Powerful, fast, accurate. Imagine a large squared off gray slab of steel about yay big...”
He gestured with his claws, “It has a space for a talon to pull back on a trigger, like an arbalest. Towards the front, it fares down, and has a snap-out blade in-case you run out of ammunition.

It takes a little metal slug the size of your index talon, and accelerates it till it’s going faster than any Pegasus in history. POW. That tiny little cylinder will shred anything in its way.”

Carmine’s friend, ‘B’ whose full name Wrenn still hadn't discovered, squawked in disbelief, “No! How long would it take to load? How far does it fire?”

Wrenn grinned, “Far as you and I can see, and a single clip holds several hundred rounds.
The mechanism reloads each shot automatically with a magnetic force, as fast as you can snap.”

The two friends bombarded Wrenn with questions about ships, planes, VTOLs, and computers, and he in turn let loose questions about what it was like to grow up as a Gryphon. They seemed befuddled as to why he’d want to know about ‘boring ol’ growing up stuff’ when they could instead discuss railguns and missiles, but they humored him enough for Wrenn to become all the more intrigued.

He resolved to spend some time with fledglings, to see what it was like. Wrenn had always wondered how it might feel to be a father, but never truly brokered any thoughts of having a child. The issue of being so vulnerable just didn’t allow for it, in his mind.

Adoption had occurred to him, but it seemed an irresponsible proposition considering the danger he put himself in every day as a soldier, and the fact that he would be the lone parent.

Wrenn got the impression that the group could have stayed up talking all night. Every resident of Tacksworn, short of the storied Ambassador Sharptooth and his son, seemed to have turned up to get a good look at Wrenn, and trade some stories with travelers over drinks.

Apparently, the Ambassador and his son were away on political business.
Something about the son, Chip, becoming pro tem leader of an entire Dragon clan.
Since Wrenn had clearly heard one of the Diamond Dogs refer to Chip as a Pony, he was struggling to work out how *that* was possible.

Despite the upbeat atmosphere at Beryl’s, IJ finally badgered them into saying their goodbyes, and getting to sleep early. She had a legitimate point, but Wrenn couldn’t help but think he would have been happier if he had just told IJ to put herself to bed and leave the rest of them to their own devices.

Nonetheless, the cheap but sturdy bed in the inn provided a comfortable night’s sleep, and in the end Wrenn drifted off peacefully, grateful to be getting some decent rest.

Morning came early for the group. There would be no more stopovers, just a long straight-shot flight to Tih’ré Seli’hn.

As the group departed Tacksworn, turning Northeast in the pre-dawn blackness, Wrenn tightened his turn to bring him in line with Kephic and Varan, “So... Tih’ré Seli’hn. I know you told me it was the capital, with a population around fifteen thousand, but does the name itself mean something? I swear it sounds Gaelic...”

Kephic nodded, “Its old Gryphic; The separate language that we use for writing and naming important places and people. Most fledglings learn it alongside the common tongue, you may find it takes some getting used to. It is far more precise than common, which is why we use it to write.”

Varan added his own sentiment, “With Gryphic, there is no chance of misinterpretation in a historical record. There is a word for every variation of a concept which may be lumped under a single word in common.”

Kephic took up the thread again, “The actual written script can be put down very plainly, or it can be worked into complicated designs so fraught with twists and turns that only we can interpret it properly, making it possible to record information that only Gryphons who come after us can read with any sort of comprehension.”

Wrenn chuckled, “Clever. Tih’ré Seli’hn means?”

“Strong Mountain.” Varan’s deep voice conjured up images in Wrenn’s mind of lofty peaks as he said the words.

“The specific word for mountain, Seli’hn, also has the connotation of being a mountain containing an eyrie, as opposed to Sili’h; which is a cold lifeless peak, or Sali’hn which is a verdant, but uninhabited mountain range. The word Tih’ré, spelled and pronounced this way, means specifically the kind strength that comes from a tight-knit family of warriors.”

Wrenn glanced back at Tacksworn, as the still sleeping town receded into the darkness, “So all together, Tih’ré Seli’hn actually means a mountain eyrie, strong because of its tight-knit family of warriors?”

Varan nodded, “Correct.”

Kephic adjusted the tilt of his wings to take advantage of an updraft, “You’ll find that most Gryphic words translate to several words, or even sentences, in common. But truth be told? It’s easier to learn the language as its own way of thought, rather than initially tying it to common.”

Wrenn snorted, “I’m useless when it comes to linguistics, but I’ll do my best. It’d be a shame for me to lose out on all the great books we must have.”

IJ chimed in, “Tih’ré Seli’hn’s library is legend. It contains some of the oldest accounts of history outside of Dragon hoards.”

Carradan yawned, of all the group members he was the least used to rising early, “I don’t s’pose I could get a translator to give me a tour? There’s a lotta readers back home who might like a taste of the history books here, ya know?”

Kephic nodded, “I’m sure something can be arranged. Several of the librarians have taken up translation as a second skill.
Envoys from the Canterlot Archives have been reaching out to us recently, and the beginnings of a knowledge exchange program are in sight.”

As the group flew on, dropping in and out of conversation with each other, the sun began to peek over the horizon, Wrenn noted it was about fifty five degrees to the right, which meant they were travelling more north than east.

As the sun fully came over the horizon, the desert began to change to grassy foothills.
After another hour of flight, the foothills became the first mountains in what looked to be an enormous range.

Wrenn couldn’t see an end to the peaks in any direction save the one they’d come from.

If the lifeless mountains of Earth evoked a barren majesty that chilled the soul, then the Northern mountains of the Gryphon Kingdoms were their diametric opposite.

The snow-capped peaks glittered in the young, crisp sunlight, drawing the eye down their verdant pine-filled slopes towards hidden alpine valleys fed by streams so blue and clear that it was painfully difficult to take in all their beauty at once.

As Wrenn gazed on in wonderment, he caught sight of highlands, tucked in between several of the peaks. The seashore of Foals’ Haven, the salt air of the ocean, the refreshing green of deciduous forests, the dry tang of the desert; They had all evoked strong emotion, and a myriad of sensations.

But this? This was something beyond mere emotion.
These mountains spoke directly to his spirit.

These mountains were home. Home to his species, and more than that, *his* home, even though he had never been there before.

Kephic and Varan seemed equally as caught up in the moment as Wrenn.
To them, this was returning home after a long time abroad. Even IJ and Carradan seemed deeply affected.

All conversation ceased as each of the five became entranced with taking in the sheer beauty of geologic formations as old as time, clothed in forests that ranged from murky and dark, to bright and sunlit, all interspersed with highlands, moors, and open glens.

The further the group flew, the higher the mountains soared.

As the sun passed its noonday peak, Kephic and Varan led them into a shallow climb, to compensate for the increase in the mountains’ size.

The air was noticeably cooler, and it was refreshing after the dry heat of the desert.

Just before dusk, their destination finally appeared, perfectly lit by the golden rays of the sun piercing the clear air and highlighting every tiny detail.

Tih’ré Seli’hn was built directly into the craggy side of a massive mountain peak, spilling out like frozen water to partly fill a small highland glen. Towers sprang from the rock itself, constructed with a clear eye for both beauty and defense.

The structures of the city-castle were all fashioned from a material Wrenn had never seen before; It looked at a glance as if it might have been carved stone, but many of the shapes it created were too flowing to have been created with a hammer and chisel, and it appeared to have no seams.

The texture and tones of the stone were also unusual. Veined like marble, but with less contrast and a darker aspect, much like granite.

Wrenn saw almost no harsh lines in the buildings, taken as a whole it looked a great deal like Celtic designs; Loops within loops, few straight edges. Most of the buildings were very open, but he could see how cleverly hidden steel panels could be deployed to cover open spaces and windows for defense.

The stone was trimmed with actual marble in some places, and steel or burnished bronze in others. Nothing sacrificed defensive potential for the sake of art. Or vice versa.

Wrenn realized it would be impossible for a non-flighted attacker to have even a hope of reaching the capital, much less assaulting it. The terrain precluded arrival by any method other than the air.

Even a mountain goat couldn’t have ascended the sheer cliffs below the city.

Despite its well designed defenses, the city felt open. All the windows were large, clear, and arching with no hint of internal reinforcement by way of panes or filigree.
Closer inspection revealed that they were not made of glass, but some sort of tougher solid transparent crystal material.

Most of the windows were kept open. They seemed to be able to iris, divide, recess, and swing wide in a myriad of different unobtrusive ways, leaving space for the wind, and Gryphons, to come and go as they pleased.

The towers reminded Wrenn of modern Earth skyscrapers. Their shapes defied the expected medieval aesthetic at every turn, substituting inscribed arcs and beautiful leaf-like structuring for the usual round base and conical top that characterized the medieval castles of Earth’s history.

The structure within the mountain, and its attached towers, appeared to be the castle proper, playing host to Siidran’s court, and what looked to be a sizeable barracks. Wrenn also guessed that the library, armories, and any vaults were part of the internal structure.

Beyond that dwellings, shops, and defensive structures were constructed of the same flowing single-piece seamless stone, either freestanding, or hung near the top third of the incredibly tall, thick coniferous trees ringing, and sparsely populating, the small glen.

The streets were made of immaculately shaped cobblestones, laid down in complex and pleasing patterns that were at once intricate, but neither attention demanding, nor garish.

Wrenn noticed that while many Gryphons flew, many also chose to walk over short distances.
A truly directionally unlimited society. The stairs he observed were few, and far between, likely placed there to accommodate the occasional unflighted visitor.

Wrenn immediately decided he loved the aesthetic, more than any sort of architecture he’d ever seen before. Perhaps it was species bias, but he had a long standing attraction to Celtic designs, and 'bring outside inside' architecture as well, which played a part in it.

One part of the mountain, framed between two guard towers, opened onto a large semi-circular landing space, intricately inscribed with twisting designs that contained, what Wrenn assumed to be, written Gryphic script.

Siidran, and a female who Wrenn assumed was his mate and queen, by the similar ceremonial armor she wore, were waiting to greet them.

Wrenn noticed that Carradan was practically in shock, and IJ’s usual mannerisms had given way to outright deference. Kephic and Varan were all smiles, the usually stoic latter of the two beaming, with a smile wider than anything Wrenn had ever seen on his beak before.

Siidran grinned, and gave them each a strong fore-leg clasp in turn, “Welcome! Wrenn, I see you’re looking better than ever.”

Wrenn chuckled, “So everyone keeps saying. I have to agree, insofar as I can without boasting too badly.”

The King laughed, “It’s good to see you here. As one of us.”

He turned to IJ and Carradan, “And welcome to you as well! We don’t get may Equestrian guests, far too few if you ask me. Hopefully you’re helping to set a new precedent.”

IJ inclined her head, Carradan grinned, “Nice ta meet you your majesty! I’m looking forward to all this, it's gonna make a heckuva story. More like a spread really...”

Siidran smiled, then turned to his mate, “Allow me to introduce my queen; Linnea.”

She stepped forward, her voice was soft, and deep, projecting at once a commanding, but comforting motherly tone, “Welcome to our home!” She glanced at Siidran, “I’m sure they’re tired and hungry...”

Siidran nodded, “Yes of course. Please, go to your rooms, freshen yourselves, and an evening meal will be ready by the time you’re done. Linnea didn’t think you’d want to overextend yourself socializing tonight, so it will be a small affair, just you and us. The official welcome feast will come tomorrow.”

Wrenn’s eyebrows went up. 'Feast?' That was going to be most interesting.

A pair of Squires, both young Gryphons wearing light leather armor without plating, showed the group into the castle, through a warren of complex, but logically laid out hallways that were built to unusually large, well lit standards to stave off the feeling of being underground.

All the accommodations for guests, Knights, and Paladins, were constructed such that one wall was taken up with an external window, and that was a relief to Wrenn. His room in the Tacksworn inn hadn’t come with a window, and it was, in hindsight, somewhat unsettling.

He liked being able to see the sky.

The room itself was an exploration of Gryphon lifestyle for him.

There was a sunning rock, like the one in the Neighvada hotel, but this one was heated either by placing it in direct sunlight, or by building a small fire into a cleverly protected oven-like slot cut into the side.

The room also had a hearth, which was built into one wall, and came outwards in a semi-circle, placing the fire well within the room. Above the hearth was a cleverly concealed brass funnel, worked into the ceiling, that Wrenn could tell was producing a small draft to suck out the smoke.

A fire was already pleasantly burning, and there was a poker standing in a small unobtrusive slot in the floor, in case he should wish to stoke it up.

The window took up an entire wall, and was arched, fitting the dome-shaped curvature of the room itself. Wrenn found an intricate metal release catch in the wall to one side of the massive crystal pane, and upon pushing it the entire window dropped seamlessly into the floor, opening his room to the breeze.

He noted that there was a small handle, still accessible without presenting a tripping hazard, which he could use to pull the window back up and, presumably, latch it into place should he wish to shut out the wind. He suspected that the window was only closed during windy rain storms, the deepest wintertime, or when there was no guest present.

For a ‘bed’ the room had what amounted to a nest, made up of a strange combination of woven cushions, a circular mattress, and rocks. Wrenn guessed it was because some Gryphons preferred a harder sleeping surface. He also wondered if sometimes the rocks were heated in the fire, then placed under the chest and wings to provide warmth in the winter, or to soothe sore muscles.

One wall had a small bookcase, filled with tomes, both books and scrolls, which he found impossible to read. Wrenn pulled out one of the books, a thick leather-bound green volume, and idly scanned the pages. Gryphic script was fascinating, a flowing intricacy of designs that looked more like tapestry art than alphanumerics.

Wrenn replaced the book, and turned to the two other furnishings in the room.

The first was a desk, complete with a quill, likely made from a shed primary feather, ink, paper, and a small mage-light lamp. He guessed the actual mage-light component of the lamp must have been made by a Unicorn, Zebra, or Dragon, then imported.

The desk itself was a work of art, intricately shaped from the same stone that the buildings appeared to be made of, but with an inlaid oaken surface at the top, inscribed with beautiful flowing leaf patterns in bronze.

The second and final furnishing was an armor cabinet, an upright open steel structure with spaces for an Arbalest, bow, bolts, arrows, sword, daggers, dirks, and armor itself.

Wrenn felt a small pang of envy, wishing he had the equipment to fill the imposing storage rack.

The only other major features of the room were the floor, and the washroom.

The floor was engraved with patterns similar to the desk, which Wrenn spent a few microseconds mentally tracing, until he realized they all came back on each other.

The washroom was accessible by a curved recess cut into the rock, placing the interior out of sight of the room proper. It had, to Wrenn’s astonishment, working indoor plumbing.

The ‘shower,’ if it could be called that, was a circular depression with a drain cut into the floor.
Water was turned on and off by means of two brass handles, one with a blue gem on the end, the other capped with a ruby.

Some things were just universal.

The water flowed from a concealed aperture near the ceiling, down over a flare in the stone wall, giving it the appearance of a small waterfall.

Wrenn allowed himself a short, but enjoyable, hot shower. He spent a few minutes drying himself on the sunning rock, and watching the comings and goings of the city through his window. It reminded him of his Conversion dream, and he nearly allowed himself to drift off, he was so absolutely, supremely, content.

As he rose, and stretched, he reasoned it was because he felt at home.

He was in his native environment, among his own kind, in a room built specifically for his needs, in a style he could deeply appreciate.

If this was what a Gryphon’s home life was like, then it was no wonder they felt content in battle.
It was both a wonderful safe haven to return to, and an uplifting ideal well worth defending.

Wrenn wandered idly around the castle’s mountain keep for several minutes, before finding the great hall. The room held him entranced for several seconds; It was a long ovoid space with a high arching ceiling. The end he had entered on flared out in three directions, two to stairs accessing a corridor below, and one to the corridors on the same level.

The opposite end was entirely made up of a single pure crystal wall, that looked out on the ‘landing pad’ one level down, its two guard towers to the left and right, and the city beyond.

The center of the room was taken up with a massive hearth that mimicked the overall shape of the room. Tables were pushed up against the left and right wall, with peculiar Gryphon chairs stacked on them. Presumably, these were pulled out and setup on either side of the hearth lengthways for feasts.

At the window end of the room, a smaller round table had been placed, with space for the King, Queen, and the group of guests. Wrenn noticed that the King and Queen’s chairs were actually their thrones, which while intricate and beautiful works of stone masonry and bronze filigree, were not ostentatious or overlarge.

There were no servers, the King and Queen were actually making the meal themselves over the hearth, together with Kephic and Varan, who seemed caught up in a happy conversation discussing what had transpired in their absence.

Wrenn approached slowly, examining the food they were preparing. It appeared to be a mix of grilled fish, some sort of scallop, something his nose told him was raw sanitized pork fat stored in salt and covered in spices, some kind of brown bread, and a few assorted fruits as sides.

Kephic interrupted his musings by pressing a tankard into his claws. Wrenn was pleased to note that the shape and size were absolutely perfect, designed by Gryphons for Gryphons.

He sniffed at the liquid within; It was a dark amber color, and chilled to the point that it was making his claws a bit cold. The scent was incredible, some sort of eclectic mix of apple, spices, grains, and something else Wrenn couldn’t identify.

He went all-in and took a deep draught. The flavor was a revelation. Instantly, every cold drink he had ever tasted, with the possible exception of iced coffee, became a tepid hazy half-memory. It was rich, without being overpowering, spiced without being spicy, and above all supremely refreshing.

He idly wondered if it was fermented in any way, but quickly realized that no longer mattered.

The Equestrian specialist had informed him, off-hoof, that Gryphons couldn’t get drunk due to the sheer speed of their metabolism and the protective chemical layers around their brains.

“What *is* this?!”

Siidran laughed, “First taste eh? Its called Heather Meade. It’s one of our specialties. It’s known to have quite an adverse effect on creatures of slower metabolism. Equestrians love it, but I’m always leery of exporting it. They can usually stomach no more than a quarter of what you just took in without becoming quite... Inebriated.”

Wrenn glanced down at the mug, “I hope you have something different for Carradan and IJ. I would not want to see either of them ‘inebriated.’ Especially not both of them. At the same time. Together.”

Linnea chuckled, the sound reminded Wrenn of running water in that it flowed melodiously,
“We make several kinds of tea, none of which are fermented, most of which can be served cold.”

Wrenn smiled, “Well that’s a relief. Stan gets wonky on the sugar from synth juice, much less this stuff.” He took another deep pull on the tankard, “Thank you. Its... Well its quite something. Especially since the only non-synthesized thing I’ve ever had access to is Coffee.”

Linnea gasped softly, “You have nothing organic left on your world? At all?”

Wrenn shook his head, “Nothing, short of some gene-forged kelp-like substances we can grow hydroponically.”

Obviously Wrenn was the only one who knew what the word meant, so he elaborated, “Its a... Strange method of growing plants in liquid filled glass tubes, using artificial light and chemicals.”

Siidran snorted, “It sounds distasteful.”

Wrenn made a face, “Hydroponics itself is a fine science but... You have *no* idea. Artificial Kelp is disgusting.”

Carradan arrived, and interrupted any further unpleasant memories of the green squishy substance, “Hey! That smells almost palatable, and I don’t even do meat anymore!”

The talk then turned to discussing the architecture of the castle, the way the crops were grown in nearby cleared highland fields, the source of the meat, which turned out to be streams and lakes for the seafood, and dumb wild pigs for the pork, which Wrenn had correctly identified.

After IJ finally arrived, and surprisingly apologized for being late, dinner commenced.

The food was sublime, and the conversation was enjoyable. Siidran and Linnea had much to tell Wrenn about the current affairs of the Kingdoms, Kephic and Siidran and Varan told a few war stories, mostly about border skirmishes with Diamond Dogs and Changelings, to IJ’s clear distaste, and Linnea sang a little in Gryphic, to thunderous accolades from all.

Carradan, Wrenn could see, was learning to stomach watching meat eaters without becoming sick or put-off. It helped that Gryphons were not uncivilized or unnecessarily disgusting in their eating habits. Wrenn imagined, however, that like any creature they could be quite savage in a wilderness situation.

IJ barely spoke. Aside from genuinely admiring Linnea’s singing, she seemed upset by the meat consumption, and even more upset by the war stories.

Siidran and Linnea were gracious hosts. Wrenn was constantly deferring to them, trying to find an honorific title they wouldn’t shrug off, but they always insisted that he not treat them overly formally. Siidran told him there were times when that was important, but otherwise Gryphons did not stand on rank and protocol. The bonds of camaraderie and sometimes even family, were too strong for there to be much need of bossy, direct, commanding leadership.

IJ excused herself to bed early, but the rest of the group remained, talking long into the night.
Wrenn participated, but increasingly found himself content to lapse into silence and just enjoy hearing tales of his new homeland.

He realized, once again, that this was the source of his new contentment.
He was, for the first time in his life, well and truly, home.

Author's Note:

Tacksworn, Carmine, her friend B, and Beryl's are from here:
The Ambassador's Son
Why aren't you reading this yet?! Go! Shoo! read it!
It's one of the best stories out there, from one of the best Authors out there!

Chapter 25

The morning routine in Tih’ré Seli’hn began before dawn. Wrenn could have slept in, but he’d made a note of asking about his status as a Knight over dinner, which had lead to Siidran inviting him to observe the changing of the city guard at sunrise, which in turn meant that he needed to be up and about just before dawn.

He had left his window open all night, bringing the temperature in his room down to what he guessed was a balmy fifty degrees. The fire was still smouldering from where he had banked it before nesting down, and he jabbed it with the poker until a small flame sprang back to life.

He hoisted the window back to a closed position, to trap some of the heat, and treated himself to a quick navy-style shower. He dried himself as quickly as possible over the fire, then turned to the armor rack before remembering that he hadn’t been issued any gear. Strapping on weapons and armor in the morning was such an ingrained routine that it almost felt wrong to go out without them.

The sun’s light was just beginning to brighten the horizon, and the stars were winking out.
Wrenn opened the window again, and spread his wings. He didn’t have a lot of practice hovering, but it was easy to get the general hang of it. He held his spot outside the window, and re-raised the solid crystal pane to the locked position.

No reason to risk an afternoon rain shower soaking part of the floor.
He noted with approval that there was a release clasp on the outside as well, and it only took a moment to memorize the position of his window in relation to nearby features of the city.

Siidran had told him that changing of the guard was always held on the concourse, which was the proper term for the large landing pad outside the great hall. The two guard towers, great hall window, and the concourse itself together made up one of the most visible landmarks of the castle, and they were quite close to Wrenn’s room, so it was pure simplicity to glide the relatively short distance.

The actual guards themselves changed positions seamlessly, with the old guard standing by at their posts until the new shift was in-place. The ceremony was only attended by the watch commanders for each quadrant of the city. There were eight quadrants in all, which meant sixteen Knights would be present.

The old watch commanders would pass off ceremonial halberds, each bearing a variation on the city’s emblem, to the new watch commanders. To hear Siidran tell it, the spectacle was a masterful display of choreographed military parade maneuvers.

Wrenn, to his relief, was early. He found Siidran, complete with his usual ceremonial armor, standing just outside the entrance to the mountain, gazing off at the horizon.

The king heard him coming, and pulled himself away from his thoughts, offering Wrenn a small smile, “Good morning. I trust you slept well?”

“Like a rock.”

Siidran chuckled, “Good. You have a string of long days coming. Kephic and Varan said you didn’t wish to be eased into anything, so I’m obliging. After the changing of the guard you have breakfast with the old guard division, then you’ll be taken to the training grounds and put through the tests for your chosen specialization.”

The King’s eyes gleamed with a touch of mischief, “Assuming you can pass without having properly prepared, and I have faith you can, then tonight you will be formally inducted into Knighthood, and then we will show you the meaning of the word ‘feast.’ Are you ready?”

Wrenn smiled, “If I wasn’t, I certainly wouldn’t say so. I prefer to learn on the job rather than pass up difficult opportunities.”

Siidran laughed outright, “You won’t have any trouble fitting in here. Not one bit.”

They weren’t given a chance to continue the conversation.
Silently, so silently that Wrenn almost failed to notice them, the eight new watch commanders filed out of the corridor behind him, in two lines of four.

The eight Knights took up a semi-circular formation on the concourse, facing outwards and standing stock still. Wrenn noticed that the King had taken up a similar stance, reminiscent of military attention, so he did his best to replicate the formality.

With equal silence, the eight old watch commanders descended to the concourse from above, arriving from eight equidistant points of the compass, ceremonial halberds in-claw.

They landed at precisely the same moment, in the same exact fashion, resulting in each old watch commander facing each new watch commander. All sixteen, still without a single word exchanged, switched to standing on their hind legs, to a position Wrenn thought looked more like a combat stance than a ceremonial pose.

The eight Knights with halberds broke the silence, speaking in tandem, “Are you prepared to shoulder the defense of our home?”

The eight new watch commanders replied, “We are prepared.”

Siidran’s voice rang out alone, “Then prove your readiness.”

Without warning, the eight halberd wielding Knights ferociously engaged the other eight, who went from being ostensibly unarmed, to having swords and defensive stances faster than Wrenn thought was possible, even for a Gryphon.

As he watched, fascinated, the eight new watch commanders engaged in identical, rehearsed ceremonial duels with the eight old watch commanders. While the moves were obviously pre-determined, and second nature, to both parties, the weapons were sharp, unprotected, and real, as were the apparent attempts to violently harm each other.

Wrenn realized the ceremony was more than mere symbology; The only way either party could escape without serious injury was to be in top physical and mental shape, and to be exceptionally quick witted and agile.

The changing of the guard was, in fact, a very real test. If one could finish it without injury, one was ready to take over the city watch. If not...

Wrenn didn’t want to think about how badly those halberds could maim a wing, or a foreleg with even a glancing misplaced blow.

The weapons were so covered in tapered sharp edges, that it seemed like an exercise in skill to merely hold and use one without doing bodily harm to self, let alone avoiding it from the receiving end.

Wrenn realized that each watch commander had to do this twice in a day, once on each side of the duel.

The identical fights were soundless, none of the weapons ever impacted each other.
Each combatant was simply too far ahead of the moves his opponent was planning for either to ever actually lock weapons.

The battle went on for nearly two minutes, which was an eternity at those speeds, before ending in a perfect standoff.

Siidran spoke again, his resonant voice rebounding off the side of the mountain, “You are indeed prepared. The watch is changed, may fair winds grace your wings.”

One by one in sequence, the old watch commanders flipped over the halberds, and passed them, blade down, to the new commanders, who in turn flipped them right side up, and launched from the concourse to join their platoons.

The old watch commanders marched in formation to the mountain entrance, stopped, waited for three seconds, then disbanded.

Wrenn stood in shock. The display of prowess had visually underscored just how much he had left to learn in order to make full use of his new body’s potential. The revelation was daunting.

Siidran grinned dangerously, “Don’t worry. Your own test won’t be quite so trying. Not that you should relax just yet either. I warned your instructor that you have significant previous martial experience.”

Wrenn made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort, “Wouldn't be any fun if it wasn’t difficult. Besides, how else will I learn to be that good, if not by pushing myself.”

“Well said. Auric!” At the sound of his name, one of the old watch commanders turned.

Siidran beckoned him over, “Auric, this is Wrenn. He is the new convert. Would you please see to it he gets a morning meal, and finds his way to the training grounds afterwards?”

The sorrel and yellow Gryphon nodded, “Of course.” He turned his gaze on Wrenn, “Welcome Wrenn, and well met. I’ve already heard some interesting rumors about you...”

Wrenn reached out and grasped his proffered foreleg, “Well met. That was quite a duel...”

Auric smiled, “You approve? I hate to brag, but at this point it’s second nature to me.”

Siidran inclined his head, “I’ll see you this evening Wrenn, and I expect to see you with a Knight’s sash.” Gryphons, in lieu of having much in the way of clothing, wore ceremonial sashes when they needed to display rank, or awards.

Siidran turned, as if he were ready to leave, but paused, “I’ll make you a wager. If you succeed then we draw out a tankard of the best Heather Meade tonight for you.”

Wrenn smirked, “Make it a cask, and if I lose I owe you one.”

“Done.” With that, Siidran took flight, presumably to oversee whatever was next on his royal to-do list for the day.

Auric raised an eyebrow, “I do hope you realize he will hold you to that cask if you fail.”

“Yes. And I will hold him to it *when* I succeed.”

Auric chuckled good naturedly, “Excellent answer. Come, I will introduce you to our section of the guard, and we’ll get you something hot to eat.”

Auric led Wrenn down to a dining hall adjacent to one level of the castle’s barracks.
All the way down, he peppered Wrenn with questions about Earth, his Conversion, and how he was adjusting to life as a Gryphon.

The dining hall itself was half the size of the great hall, and filled to bursting with Gryphons seated at three long wooden tables.

Smells of food hung in the air, thick like smoke, and Wrenn realized with a start that he was famished.

Auric smacked his fisted claw against the nearest table, producing a booming noise that drew the attention of everyone in the room, “Everyone! This is Wrenn. He is the new convert you’ve been hearing about. Make him feel welcome, and find him something to eat!”

Almost instantly, Wrenn found himself besieged. He had a tankard of something that smelled like orange juice shoved into one claw, and a bowl full of a hot grainy substance with two links of pork on the side, into the other.

The mood was welcoming, and more than a little rowdy. Everyone wanted the chance to ask a question, or see him take his first taste of what he later learned was oatmeal and sausage.

There were a few disquieted glances, and distrustful expressions mixed in, but overall Wrenn was engulfed in a familiar atmosphere of military camaraderie, but at a level he had never experienced before.

Wrenn found himself wishing he had more time to share the morning meal with the old night-watch; For once he actually felt like branching out, meeting new people, swapping stories and sentiments, and being truly social.

However, as soon as he finished downing his second orange juice, Auric was at his side again, “Time to report to the training grounds. Get enough to eat?”

Wrenn nodded, Auric smiled, “Good, you’ll need it. Lack of a midday meal is part of the test.”

Auric escorted Wrenn back out of the mountain. When they reached the concourse, they took to the air. The training grounds were across a canyon, to the west of the city, within visual range of nearly any tower with a good view.

Auric led Wrenn to one of the outbuildings, which was constructed partly of carved wooden beams and had an almost modular appearance, as though it could be reconfigured for different exercises and purposes.

As he landed, Wrenn took a moment to examine the main feature of the grounds, which was a flat circular field two hundred yards in diameter surrounded by monolithic upright slabs of granite. Each stone was carved with Gryphic script, artful designs, and faces which Wrenn presumed were monuments to fallen Warriors or past leaders.

The slabs were tall, dark, and imposing. They were some of the most evocative monuments Wrenn had ever seen, and that included all the major memorials of Earth.

As Auric led him into the main outbuilding, Wrenn gestured to the circle of stones, “Memorials?”

Auric nodded, “They commemorate the greatest warriors of our history. Every time a stone becomes full, a new one is added and the circle is widened. It started with a single stone commemorating our first King, and quickly expanded during the first Diamond Dog Wars.
More recently, the Changelings attempted an invasion. Two new stones had to be added in the same year.”

The line of thought was sobering. Wrenn had heard snatches of information about the first Diamond Dog Wars during his orientation classes. He didn’t know much, but he gathered that Diamond Dogs were not native to Equestria, and when they had arrived centuries ago, some of their clans had done something that upset the Gryphons deeply.

Whatever they had done, it was such a source of still-simmering anger, that neither Sildinar, Kephic, or Varan would discuss it openly. Whenever Wrenn asked, they simply gritted their beaks and growled.

After that, the Diamond Dogs had only mounted a serious offensive on one other occasion. A group of packs banded together and tried to annex part of Equestria. The Gryphons had sprang to the defense of the Ponies, and decimated the relatively small, but deadly army so swiftly that it became known as the Weeks’ War.

The two massive defeats were considered to be the main reason, to that very day, that Diamond Dogs had no central government, no cohesive civilization, and a fractured culture. The Troll clans which had drawn the Gryphons' ire had functioned as their species' primary governing structure for eons.

Wrenn glanced at Auric, and decided to indulge his curiosity once more, “What happened during the first Diamond Dog War? No one seems especially keen to discuss it...”

A new voice interrupted Auric as he opened his beak to answer, it was so deep, Wrenn thought he could feel the reverberation in his ribs, “You wish to know the tale of our most bloody war?”

The newcomer was a thickly built jet-black Gryphon with deep green markings so dark that they almost appeared to be differing shades of black in the shadows cast by the building’s roof.
He wore an unusually light stripped down set of armor, and carried not a sword, but a massive double bladed battle axe;
The first of its kind Wrenn had seen a Gryphon wield.

He nodded, Auric’s face took on a strange smile, “I’ll leave you with Brelik. He is the Veteran Paladin in charge of the training grounds, and it is fitting that you should hear the story from him. Good luck Wrenn.”

As Auric took off, Wrenn turned to look at Brelik, “What did he mean by that?”

Brelik chuckled, a deep unnerving rasp, “My father’s father fought in the First Diamond Dog War. His name, and face, are on a stone. Traditionally, we recount the story of a major war or battle to recruits who are about to take the field for their final tests. So I will recount the tale to you.”

Brelik set off at a sedate walking pace towards the ring of stones. Unsure of his intentions, Wrenn followed. Brelik did not begin speaking until he reached the circle, and began a slow march around its perimeter.

“The Diamond Dogs are not native to Equestria. Their species migrated here when our world brushed against theirs. There are several subspecies of them who tend to divide along clan and pack lines. There are the Lupines, who have long been friends to us but often keep to themselves in the far north wastes. There are the Vulpines, who inhabit brushlands to the far east, and sometimes trade with Equestria, there are miscellaneous breeds of all sorts....”

He paused and gazed meaningfully at one particular stone, “...and there are the mongrel canines commonly referred to as ‘Trolls.’ By far the most numerous.”

Wrenn stared intently at the stone, filtering out the script and designs and concentrating on the images, which he swiftly realized were a visual recounting of the story Brelik was telling him.

He concluded that, as he'd suspected, the Trolls were the species he had faced in Carrenton, who reminded him of bulldogs so much.

The black Gryphon continued, his bass voice seemed to fill the whole circle, and turn the blue sky a fraction of a shade grayer, “Many Trolls are greedy, and without honor. Their culture seeks power, above all through mineral wealth, and they were used to the high station of ruling all other clans and kith in their kind. When they came to this world, they needed infrastructure, and knowledge about the terrain. Rather than ask, and receive aid and free limitless stores of knowledge from the Equestrians, they decided to do what they do best...”

He turned to stare at Wrenn, his golden eyes containing a fire so caustic that it seemed it would burst forth and consume the stones around them, “They decided to steal. They came to four of our outermost settlements, in the night... And they stole fledglings from nests. Their intention was to use them as *mounts*, and *slaves*.”

Wrenn reflexively stiffened and growled. The concept offended not only his usual logical and moral sensibilities to the point of rage, but it awoke a fury buried deep inside the more animalistic part of his spirit; An all too familiar fury. He had a momentary flash of an orange Pegasus melting under his unyielding assault.

Brelik needed very little emotion for the pitch of his voice to turn from intimidating, to truly terrifying, “By the time we were able to determine where they had taken our young, the Trolls had already slain them. They found out, at cost to the lives of many of their own, that even our fledglings are unbreakable free spirits. Nevertheless, we were not satisfied with the retribution of the dead taking so many with them.”

Wrenn shivered, as the next stone came into view. The carving was clear in the morning sun; Stacks and stacks of Diamond Dog corpses piled, literally, to the sky.

Brelik growled, “We smote ruin upon their species such as had not been seen in war since the reign of Chaos. Some of the Lupines wisely joined us, putting morals above blood ties, seeking freedom from their ancient oppressors. Even a few Dragons whom we called close friends answered the summons to war.”

Wrenn stared in awe at the images, frozen forever in granite, a testament to the foolishness of angering a warrior civilization.

Brelik, to his surprise, chuckled. The sound was a nightmarish exaltation of unthinkable violence.
And to his mild astonishment, Wrenn found himself in agreement with the sentiment.

“By the end of it, we lost many great warriors... And we had crushed *two thirds* of the Troll subspecies. Fathers, mothers, and any pups who were of age and desire to fight. None who at first fought were spared, even when quarter was later asked. But for the very youngest, and any who surrendered before battle was joined, we killed every living thing in every single one of their settlements, we razed every building to the ground, collapsed every mine, took every gem, burned every living plant, and salted the soil behind us.”

Wrenn stamped a foreclaw, “Why didn’t we destroy their nation completely? A threat of that kind...”

Brelik smiled, “You ask a common question. Celestia herself had to intervene. Her persistent pleas finally convinced us to stop short of totally obliterating their society, and sending it to the void. She made a noble, and true point about the value of life, and we agreed. While killing those who choose a fight is no conundrum, neither is the need to spare those too young to do battle, or unwilling in the first place.

Since then, no race has dared to even idly suggest that we be kept as slaves.
Even Dragons, who seem to have a love of thralls, know better than to try binding us.
Their magic can not affect us, and attempts to impose their will in any other way would merely bring about another bloody war.”

Wrenn shivered again, “Could we really go up against them? As a whole? Species to Species?”

Brelik shook his head, “Against some, yes? All? No. But we will never have to. They are noble, and true, and they respect us, as we respect them.

If they did not, we would rather die defending our ideals than sue for peace. But that is a future we never need explore. As for the Trolls, they have been a broken in-fighting mercenary culture ever since. We destroyed their only cohesive government, and in lieu of scattering them all to the winds, we wiped out all records of royal lineage so that none may ever unite their clans as a cohesive whole again.”

The two Gryphons had reached their original starting point, Brelik glared into Wrenn’s eyes, “Does it put a fire in your blood Wrenn? Does it drive you to rage? fury? on behalf of your own?”

Wrenn glowered, “Yes it does.”

“Good!” Brelik smacked him, fairly roughly, to the back of the head, “*But!* See to it that you don’t lose control. Unbridled rage is the first step to failure on the battlefield. The tests I have laid out for you will not be easy. Make your warrior’s instincts, and your keen mind, master of your emotions. Fury should be burning coal in a bellows, not burning trees in an out of control forest fire. Do you understand?”

Wrenn nodded. The worlds seemed to lift the imaginary storm clouds that had darkened the sky, and his mind, leaving behind clear blue; A simple pride in his species and a drive to defend his own.

Brelik smiled, “Good. There are training weapons and armor here, select a sword, and gauntlets. You will have to earn the use of the rest as you complete each stage of testing.
You will need at least a helmet to have any hope of surviving the final challenge. So fight hard.”

In the course of retrieving gauntlets and selecting a generic unadorned training sword, Wrenn discovered two things; First he was the only Gryphon being tested for the day, and second that he would have to choose his specialization before beginning, as it would determine which type of bow he would have a chance to acquire.

When he found out that Wrenn had only received basic training with an arbalest, Brelik offered him a chance to shoot both an arbalest, and a light Alarian bow before making a decision.

The training grounds had an archery range, which consisted of standing at a waist-high marker stone, that doubled as a bench to store ammunition, and shooting at clay discs hung up across a canyon to the west. Brelik informed Wrenn that the total distance to the farthest target was forty five furlongs; A distance which Wrenn estimated visually to be between five and six miles, since he didn’t know the actual conversion units.

The black Gryphon laid out the two weapons on the waist-high stone, along with several arrows for the light bow, and several bolts for the arbalest. The bolts were familiar to Wrenn from his initial practice with the larger weapon; Long, heavy, three inch thick shafts of solid oak, bound with steel and tipped with vicious looking barbs designed to make them impossible to extract without doing massive harm.

The ammunition for the light bow, on the other claw, were something new and intriguing. Each arrow seemed to be made entirely of metal. Upon closer inspection, Wrenn discovered that the shafts of the weapons were hollow, allowing them to remain fairly light and use about the same total amount of steel as an arbalest bolt.

Unlike the bolts, which relied on their momentum and the mass of the wooden shaft to penetrate armor and thus could afford a spiked tip, the arrows were sleek. Their tips were hard to discern from the shafts without close examination, not unlike a railgun round. They had no feathers, like a traditional arrow, but shaped metal fins with intricately carved veins designed to regulate the flow of turbulent air as it passed over the rest of the weapon, and impart artificial spin to the projectile.

To reacquaint himself with the feel of it, Wrenn started with the arbalest, taking three experimental shots at four mile distant targets. The bolts struck true, obliterating the target discs with the force of their impact. Wrenn was once again impressed by the sheer level of momentum the arbalest could impart to its bolts, but the amount of time it took to reload the complicated weapon was a source of concern to him.

Wrenn was used to fast-loading armaments, so he replaced the Arbalest after the third shot, and moved to examine the light bow.

Whereas the arbalest, with its twin three corded metal cables, required anywhere from four to eight seconds to properly reset after each shot, Brelik informed him that a light bow, in the claws of a skilled Alarian, could be reloaded and fired accurately every three quarters of a second.

The weapon was made of a flexible dark colored wood, bound with what appeared to be stainless steel in intricate, but cleverly engineered patterns. The bow could be folded, making it small enough to secure on one’s back along with a sword. The action of unfolding the weapon was easily accomplished with a flicking motion that snapped the two arms into place.

The string of the light bow was corded steel, like the arbalest, but it was twisted differently, making it easier to draw. All in all, Wrenn liked the feel of the light bow, it held the promise of more flexibility and faster re-fire despite a slight decrease in range and an appreciable decrease in armor penetration.

Brelik had to impart a few pointers on properly nocking an arrow, but after that Wrenn found the light bow surprisingly easy to use. It felt natural, and after his first three shots he made a test of expending his remaining ammunition as quickly as he could without losing accuracy.

By the time he finished folding the bow, Wrenn had made his decision, “I believe I wish to be an Alarian. This weapon affords more flexibility than an arbalest, and I wish to focus on perfecting my sword training in the coming years.”

Brelik nodded, “You show natural proficiency with the light bow.”

He gestured for Wrenn to follow him back to the stone circle, “You will face four tests; The first three are designed to place you in difficult, uncomfortable, upsetting situations where we are usually at our weakest as a species. They become progressively more difficult with each victory. The final test will be a more general, but no less difficult test of your basic combat prowess.”

Brelik gestured to a set of gear laid out in the circle. Wrenn wondered who had placed it there, but came to the conclusion that there must be more instructors there than Brelik. He wondered if they were even now hard at work setting up whatever trials Brelik saw fit to put him through.

“With the first test, you will earn a chest-plate and back-plate. With the second, a helmet. With the third, a light bow and three arrows. You are at a disadvantage, given how little time you have had to work with our armor and weapons, and the fact that you have so little dueling experience. This will not be easy, and many do not expect you to pass.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “And you?”

Brelik chuckled, “I do not judge until I have seen.”

He looked to the left, and following his gaze, Wrenn saw two other Gryphons entering the circle carrying a black strip of cloth and two lengths of rope.

Brelik looked back to him, ”You must allow them to blindfold, and bind you. You must not attempt to escape until they tell you the test has begun. As with all these tests, you will not be told anything about the nature of the trial you will face, nor will you be given instructions. You are expected, should you survive, to avoid telling any who have not yet passed these tests the details of their operation. Understood?”

Wrenn nodded. As the two assistant trainers moved to bind and blindfold him, Brelik offered him a small smile, “Good luck Wrenn.”

After that, everything was darkness.

Chapter 26

Wrenn’s advantage was that he had been all but blind for quite some time. He knew how to make the best use of his ears, how to stay balanced without view of the horizon, how not to panic in total darkness, and how to feel his way around when something was out of his viewing range.

That familiarity also served as a disadvantage. Wrenn was more than ‘used to’ his new eyes, he was extremely attached to them. It was a struggle to keep down the rising tide of frustration and nagging claustrophobia that was stemming from the opaque black cloth shrouding his vision; More than it had ever been in the past, even after the loss of his human eyes.

Silently, the two trainers led him along for upwards of twenty minutes. He had to walk on his hind legs since his forelegs were bound at the wrists. Wrenn felt grass, then rocks, then dead leaves under his paws and claws, until at last it all gave way to the sensation of cool moist rock.

The temperature began to drop, severely, and Wrenn realized from that, the broken nature of the ground, and the perceived changes in altitude and pressure, that he had been lead into some kind of cave or excavation.

The trainers lead him in what seemed to be twisting loops and circles for another fifteen minutes, then shoved him to the ground. He landed on his back, in an uncomfortable position. The rock dug into his wings, irritating the joint.

A voice finally broke the silence, “You may begin.”

His first impulse was to thrash and flex until his bonds broke. They had bound him with light cord for a reason, presumably so he could easily be rid of it, and he knew it would be easy enough to break the ropes through raw strength, or slit them with his beak.

It was a struggle, but Wrenn suppressed the overriding impulse to action, and just listened.

If it was as dark as he feared, then he would have a hard time getting out visually.
He needed an initial direction, and the sound of the retreating trainers would provide it for him.

Every second was a battle with his own reflexes and impulses, but he managed to hold still long enough to get a bead on the retreating pawsteps of the two other Gryphons. They were being stealthy, but the fractured shale terrain was just as bad for them as it would be for him, even though they doubtless had dim lights of some description.

When the only audible sound in the indeterminate underground space was the drip of water from the ceiling, Wrenn finally gave in to his baser instincts. He slashed at the bonds on his foreclaws with his beak, furiously rending the cord, not even stopping to spit out the irritating little bits of rope fiber that were getting caught on his tongue.

The moment his claws were free, he ripped off the blindfold.
Darkness remained. Overpowering, complete, suffocating darkness.

He cursed aloud. It was what he had been afraid of; He was so far underground that there was no light for his eyes to pick up on. It was, in the most literal sense, total darkness.

A complete absence of light that even a moonless night could not replicate.

Panic, stronger than anything he had ever known, welled up in his chest.
For years, even with his implants, the fear of total blindness had been an ever present specter.
He knew, logically, that his eyes were working properly, but that didn’t change the frantic impulses coursing through his brain and body.

Some part of him realized that that was the point. That was the test. The whole point was the panic, the panic caused by deprivation of vision.

With enormous effort, he forced himself to take ever deeper, ever slower breaths.
It took almost five minutes, but he finally managed to quiet his instincts and emotions enough to take stock.

The air tasted and smelled cool, and fresh. A few words spoken aloud echoed, revealing that the chamber was fairly large. Breathable air would, thankfully, not be a concern.

Wrenn decided to re-tie the blindfold. To most candidates, it was likely little more than a scrap of frustrating cloth to be discarded immediately. But he had suffered the fear of blindness for a long time. Having the coarse opaque fabric rubbing against his face would keep his brain from assuming the worst, and it might quiet some of his fears.

He did his best to leave enough room at the bottom for some light to seep through should he approach the entrance. It would do him no good if he couldn’t see some indication that he was succeeding.

It crossed his mind, briefly, that there must be some sort of procedure for rescuing a candidate who didn’t escape within a certain period. Still, Wrenn knew enough about deep dark spaces to know that he was in real danger of losing his life. If the tunnels were deep and winding enough, he could end up lost forever, trapped, or injured beyond the ability to move, and ultimately starved to death.

And his body?
Never recovered.

Wrenn stretched out a wing, hoping to detect a breeze across his outermost primary.
The air, unfortunately, was too still so far from the entrance.

His tail lashed automatically in frustration, the fan of feathers at its end picking up a few droplets of moisture from the uneven stone floor.

His only chance lay in moving in the direction he had last heard the trainers’ footsteps emanating from. If he could just keep moving upwards, until he struck a draft or light, then he might be able to feel his way out.

Wrenn’s one advantage was the innate Gryphon ability to sense pitch and altitude.
There was no risk of him losing track of whether he was moving upwards.

He took a few exploratory steps forward. Like any natural cave, the floor of his prison was highly irregular, with rock jutting up at weird angles every few inches. Wrenn was grateful to have quadrupedal capability. Trying to negotiate the broken terrain blind on just two hind paws would have been suicide, by way of a broken femur.

As he negotiated the slippery granite, Wrenn noted an ever so slight increase in altitude.
He continued, encouraged by the change, however minute it might have been.

Stretching his wings out at intervals, he still couldn’t detect a draft, but he did discover that he had moved into a tunnel of some sort. The floor evened out slightly, and the walls closed in.

After upwards of an hour, he wasn’t making good progress. He stopped to think, and to quell his rising frustration. Idly, he kicked at the floor, causing several pieces of loose gravel left over from the tunnel’s creation to skitter away.

The sound triggered a memory.
Something from his Special Forces training.
An antiquated survival trick.

Wrenn had a hunch. He very much doubted he could get lucky enough to find two rocks of the necessary composition, but the metal plates in his gauntlets were already half of the equation.

He removed the blindfold, and tried several rocks in sequence, striking them against his gauntlet with appreciable force.
Finally on the tenth try, a spark.
That was all he needed.

He rubbed the blindfold along the wall until it picked up enough moisture to be just slightly damp, then placed it on the floor. He knelt, and struck the lucky piece of flint against his gauntlet until the resulting spark finally took to the damp cloth and produced a tiny smolder.

The effect was instantaneous.

Wrenn’s eyes took the microscopic amount of dim light, and made the most of it.
It wasn’t enough to see very far, or in much detail, but it was enough to make out vague shapes, far more than Human eyes could have done with the same.

Wrenn could work with vague shapes. He had a lot of experience with them.

He continued down the passage at a slightly accelerated pace; Now that he could see the floor it was easier to negotiate obstacles. The first real problem cropped up several minutes later, in the form of a fork in the tunnel.

Neither choice presented airflow, light, or any appreciable change in altitude.
Wrenn tried to work backwards from what he remembered of the trip down, but without visual reference all he had was a recollection of the changes in compass direction, temperature, and relative altitude.

The choice was arbitrary; Wrenn decided to go right and eschew the left-wall rule.
He could, he decided, always return to the fork and go left if the tunnel showed signs of heading down, or simply didn’t provide any increase in overall altitude.

Now that he could see, he could start to memorize the route he had traveled, thus avoiding pointless repeats and dead ends. The damp cloth would eventually burn out, but given that it wasn’t even a full fledged flame, it would likely take several hours to do so.

As he continued through the passage, Wrenn’s frustration started to take hold again. The ability to see was something of a reprieve, but one he started thinking about escape he realized that it had only taken fifteen minutes to reach the cavern he had been left in from the surface.

Logically, he should be able to escape in that same amount of time, or even less if he could find a straight route. He had already been wandering for upwards of an hour.

The realization that the surface was, geographically close, but effectively as distant as another world, sent his brain back into panic mode.

The intellectual side of him was used to tight spaces. he had served on a ship long enough to be well acclimated to the idea of crushing weight and pressure all around him. But the part of him that reveled in an open sky, in seeing the horizon, felt caged and threatened.

He pinched his left foreleg between his right index and thumb talons until a small cut developed.
The pain abated the emotions, and cleared his head, if only for a moment.

In that space of clear headedness, another thought occurred to Wrenn.

He might not be able to reason his way back through the exact twists and turns of his route down, but he *could* carefully eliminate them and discover the general compass direction of the exit, giving him another factor to consider whenever he encountered forks in the passages.

After another twenty minutes of walking, and having to relight the tattered damp cloth thrice more, Wrenn had only encountered a single junction. The left choice had been the more promising in that instance, given that it was angled in the proper direction and tilted upwards appreciably.

Wrenn followed the new passage for another five minutes, until it abruptly ended in a wall of solid rock. The stone was comprised of massive boulders, likely the result of a cave-in.

Wrenn sat down hard and did his best to keep himself cognizant and controlled.

He had been underground for almost two hours, and his instincts were threatening to take over and send him on a pell-mell directionless dash through the tunnels. He knew that would likely result in becoming terminally lost, and that realization was the only thing keeping him from losing his mind.

For a moment, he thought he would shed tears of pure frustration. Instead, he cut loose and screeched his frustration to the ceiling, with no regard for the likelihood of another cave in.

As he stared up at the ceiling, his rage and frustration quickly died out, followed by his ill advised vocalization. The ceiling. A glimmer of hope.

As he continued to stare, Wrenn realized what he was looking at was not solid rock, but primarily dirt and roots, mixed in with large boulders.

He quickly blew on his smoldering cloth, re-vitalizing the embers and increasing the light level just enough to make out a few more details. He set the improvised torch down, and dug through the smaller stones, finally selecting a long, flat, strong looking piece of granite.

He was taking an enormous risk. If the ceiling fully collapsed, he would likely be buried under several tons of rock, shale, and scree. Thankfully, the roof was low enough to easily reach on his hind legs. If it held, then he might be able to tunnel through the relatively few feet to the surface.

His first experimental stabs with his digging stone were met with a hail of dirt that clogged and irritated his eyes. He squinted and redoubled his efforts, putting as much strength as he dared into the digging motion.

All at once, a large segment of rock and dirt came loose, nearly knocking him flat on his stomach. He beat his wings and lashed at the air with his tail to clear the dust, before continuing unabated.

Once he had hollowed out enough space, he pulled himself into the new aperture, bracing himself against the rough walls of his escape shaft with his wings.

If his claustrophobia had been bad in the tunnel, it was unbearable here. Roots dug into his joints, small stones peppered him with every movement, however slight, and dirt did its best to get into his eyes.

The only thing that kept him going was channeling his frustration directly into his digging.
He had given up all semblance of caution, and was frantically stabbing at the dirt and rock with his granite slab, forcing his way upwards inch by painful inch.

Oddly, one small part of his brain remained active enough to realize that he was sweating profusely, thus answering the question of how Gryphons biologically cooled themselves in the event of extreme heat and exertion.

That small part of his brain found it amusing that he should be inches from self-inflicted death by tunnel collapse, and the one sane thought in his head would be about sweat.

A moment later, all rational thought was replaced by sheer determination, mixed with a large dose of frantic survival instinct, as he felt the dirt around him begin to shift.

Wrenn threw every last ounce of strength into his efforts, clawing away at the dirt and scree with the slab, his tightly closed beak, and even his wings.

As the ground began to cave in around him, it became an all out scramble to stay ahead of the collapse. A tiny ray of daylight caught his eye for a moment, and the encouragement it provided lent even more energy to his efforts.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity longer than the entire stint of his stay in the tunnels, he felt fresh air against one claw. He grasped wildly, as the unstoppable force of the cave in threatened to suck him down again. His claw connected with something solid that felt like bark, and he dug in, using his wings and back paws to continue to shovel himself out.

At last, it was over.

Wrenn found himself lying flat on his chest, one claw rooted deeply in the trunk of a tall pine tree, his tail and back legs hanging over the rim of a freshly formed crater.

He lay there for several minutes, just breathing the clear cool mountain air, and staring at the tops of the pines far above, counting individual needles as a mindless task to reorient his panicked and tortured mind.

The very presence of light, color, and shapes was euphoria itself.
He hearkened back to his first moments after Conversion.
It almost felt the same; A rebirth after being caged in a dark prison.

It took a surprising amount of effort to remove his claw from the tree, he had managed to embed it quite deeply, and he ended up having to slice away several layers of bark with his free talons.

He stood, and shook himself, sending dirt spraying in all directions.
He was hot, gritty, and adrenaline soaked.
But he was free.

Wrenn had taken to the sky, allowing the euphoria of complete freedom to wash away the nightmare of his subterranean experience. Once he had gained some altitude, he quickly spotted the training grounds in the distance. He made his way there lazily, not particularly eager to start his next test. He wanted as much time as he could muster to stifle the horror of his time in the tunnels.

When he finally did touch down in the training circle, Brelik was waiting for him with a small smile, a flask of water, and two plates of body armor, “Well done. Not the fastest escape, but easily the most... Forceful. And direct. I’m not sure any Gryphon in the history of the trials has opted to dig their way out.”

Wrenn chuckled as he slurped down some of the proffered liquid, “Well, you could say I was saved by my ‘extracurricular experience’ and unconventional training.”

Brelik handed him the chest plate and back plate, “Well, you have most certainly earned these.”

Wrenn nodded his thanks, and donned his new protective gear, “How were the tunnels created? I managed some light, and they looked artificial. If sloppy. I doubt very much, given my experience, that we dig often.”

Brelik shook his head, “Diamond Dog excavations, from the war. They were trying to move by tunnel to evade us. We used blackgrit to collapse the chambers in key areas, trapping them temporarily. We then dumped boiling oil down any open entrances. Now the tunnels serve as a testing ground. If you can keep your sanity there, you’re fit to fight anywhere.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “Blackgrit?”

“A powder that explodes on contact with flame.”

“You mean gunpowder.”

“We call it blackgrit, but I assume given your expression, that you know it as gunpowder.”

Wrenn nodded, “It’s an explosive, and a propellant we use in certain older projectile weapons.”
He finished his water flask and upended it, peering into its dry depths, “I could use a little more water.”

Brelik smirked.

“This... Is not what I had in mind.” Wrenn eyed the mountain lake dubiously.

The two training assistants had returned, leading him wordlessly on a five minute flight to a large clear body of water that tumbled down into a stream at one end, apparently the very same stream that fed the wheat farms further down the slope.

The two assistants had bade him stand at the end of a small wooden pier. That worried Wrenn, given that he didn’t see any boats, and his fears were quickly given form when the trainers removed four huge metal objects from a wooden lock box that could only be described as ‘boots.’

The metal objects were connected by small flexible chains that seemed to contain wires.
From what Wrenn could tell, the boots would each be locked onto one foot, irremovably.
He guessed that the only way to remove all four was to unlock all four, given that the boots were stored in locked configuration, and the trainers had to unlock all four before they actually opened.

Wrenn guessed, as he experimentally lifted the one foot that was already securely locked into a boot, that the metal cladding weighed roughly a quarter of a ton, all-four-told. He knew what was going to happen. Logically the only reason they would secure a ton of weight to his feet, split up in such a way that he could still move, was to sink him to the bottom of the lake.

No instructions were given, as with the previous test, but Wrenn watched the locking process intently. He guessed there must be an alternate set of keys on the lake bottom. If not, then he was going to find out how long a Gryphon could hold their breath, abruptly followed by the discovery of how it would feel to die by drowning.

He couldn’t make out the bottom of the lake, it was clear and his eyes were working properly, but the water was simply too deep. The bottom was a dark blue haze obscured by the opacity of the water.

As Wrenn wondered if his claustrophobia would return, he fell back on his Marine training, and started pre-dive breathing exercises. Water wasn’t such a bad thing for a Gryphon; He had observed several fledglings swimming as he had arrived, but they all seemed to stick within ten or twelve feet of the surface, well within the range of sunlight.

Wrenn became fascinated by the way they used their wings to move, and he wondered if it was possible to dive into the water from low level flight, snag a fish, and pop back out before losing too much momentum.

As the trainers secured the final boot, the majority of the fledglings moved to the shore to watch.
They seemed just as fascinated with his test as he had been with their antics.

He smiled and waved, eliciting a few whistles and cheers of encouragement. Apparently a few of them had seen this before, and knew roughly what to expect.

Wrenn began to take increasingly slow, deep breaths. Gryphons’ compound lungs could hold lots of air for long periods under varying pressures, a necessity for high flight, but he wanted to eek every ounce of space possible from his alveoli.

The only warning he received was, “You may begin.”

He just had time to suck in enough air to fill his lungs about three quarters of the way, before he was abruptly shoved off the pier and into the freezing water.

It occurred to Wrenn that he would be able to circumvent the intended test entirely if he could grasp hold of the pier, but the trainers had pushed him too far for that.

The idea must have occurred to one of the Gryphons who had taken the test in the past, so Wrenn guessed the trainers had been instructed to ensure he didn’t use that clever escape.

As he sank, Wrenn braced himself for the panic, but it didn’t come. He had been expecting a swift influx of emotional chaos, an impulse to thrash and squirm, but instead his mind remained surprisingly clear.

The bottom of the lake was rocky, so he kicked up very little dirt when he impacted.
There was almost no light that far down, but enough rays made their way through the millions of gallons of liquid to provide *just* enough illumination to pick up on shapes and even a few details.

He had decided to climb out of the lake, and worry about removing the boots on dry land, but immediately discovered why that was a non option; The sides of the lakebed dropped steeply to the lowest depth from a much shallower shelf that gradiated up into the shore.

Wrenn quickly fell to searching for the keys. Holding his breath didn’t seem difficult, but he knew that would change far too soon for comfort.

He searched for upwards of ten minutes without any success. Movement was already slow going because of the water, and the one ton of metal on his feet compounded the issue to ridiculous levels.

After another few minutes of slow intensive searching, Wrenn was starting to feel a different kind of frustration. It was slow, seeping, insidious. If it hadn’t been for several aspects of his military training, he would have missed it entirely.

Earthgov special forces Marines were trained to be creative, independent, and forceful.

A condition known as ‘objective fixation’ was a major problem among regular military troops; The danger of becoming so focused on a verbatim objective that a soldier could lose sight of the actual *goal* itself, or the safety of any civilians and soldiers involved.

Special Forces troops underwent intensive, sometimes excruciating psychological therapy, testing, and even consensual torture, to have that aspect of their human instinct broken. The idea was to replace the condition with a more diverse conception of the battlefield that was free to utilize, but wasn’t constrained by objectives, orders, politics, instinct, or linear thinking.

Wrenn realized in a sudden flash that this was how Gryphons tested for the same condition. There were no keys. The very constraint of the test itself was an illusion, designed to make use of the blind spot created by objective fixation.

A clever con.

Wrenn could almost hear his drill sergeant’s voice, as if she were there, “Sometimes the OBJECTIVE has to change, to fulfill the GOAL. The GOAL is the prize, Mr. Wrenn, and if you FORGET that, your sorry ass will have to be peeled off the front of some SOB’s TANK somewhere!”

It wasn’t exactly a tank, but death by drowning was just as bad as death by railgun shell, if not worse for the torturously painful aspect.

Wrenn glanced down at the chain securing his boots.

As he had noted before, it was thin and light for mobility. Its only purpose being to protect the wire that held together the locking mechanism.

It took a painful contortion, but Wrenn managed to snag the chain in his beak. He bucked. Hard.
Arching his back, and yanking his head up, the pressure from his neck muscles combined with the force providing by the arching motion snapped the chain, and the locking wire along with it.

The boots released instantly, dispensing a flurry of bubbles as the air trapped around his feet escaped to the surface. Wrenn followed suit, smirking. His strokes, while effective enough to get him upward momentum, were awkward, and he mentally added ‘re-learn how to swim’ to his list of things he still needed to adapt to.

He broke the surface and sucked in a few grateful breaths. He hadn’t reached his limits, but were it not for the sudden flash of memory, that little epiphany from all those years of training, he would have at best failed and been rescued in shame.
At worst he would have drowned.

That was sobering.

Wrenn wing-paddled his way to shore, accompanied by cheers from the remaining fledglings onlookers. A few had gotten bored and moved on, but the majority had stayed to see how he fared. Wrenn idly wondered if they knew he was a Convert.

After scrambling to shore, he shook himself violently. He had been underwater long enough and deep enough for the liquid to bypass the water resistant coating of his feathers.
He was soaked fully to the skin.

The trainers approached. Wrenn smirked, “So... How long does it usually take? For a Knight to realize its one heckuva con?”

Both Gryphons remained silent, and impassive, but one shot him a small half-smile.

Brelik was again waiting with water and a helmet.
The second time, Wrenn consumed the liquid more slowly.
He was tempted to refuse, he had taken his fill of water for the day but he knew he needed to remain hydrated for whatever was to come.

Brelik shook his head and snorted, “You nearly set a record for that test. You are only the third contender I have ever overseen who has displayed such emotional control under water. It is supposed to be a much more trying experience.”

Wrenn smiled, “I'm a Marine. I’ve spent a great deal of time in and around water. And my Spec Ops psychological conditioning deserves the real credit.”

Brelik raised an eyebrow, “Then you and I will speak of it when this is over. Perhaps I can learn techniques we can use to better train our Squires.”

Wrenn nodded, “Sure thing.”

Brelik sighed, as Wrenn donned his helmet, “This brings us to the next test. While I do not intend to give you instructions, it is fairly self evident. And it requires your consent.”

Wrenn cocked his head, “My consent?”

“Yes. We have to bind your wings. This is a serious action, and something punishable by torture and death if done without consent. I must first swear to you that when you complete the test, I will unbind you, or my own wings will be cut off.”

Wrenn winced, “I don’t think I’m going to enjoy this.”

“That’s the point.”

“I suppose.” Wrenn considered the warning for a moment.
His wings had become such an integral part of him, in only a few days’ time.
Deep down, he knew the deceptively simple act of clamping them forcefully shut would be worse than the stress of the tunnel and the lakebed combined.

He glanced at the stone monoliths and breathed deeply, “If I don’t consent?”

“You fail. Automatically.”

Wrenn chuckled, “I figured as much. Very well. I consent.”

The band was pure iron. Six inches thick. Any less, and some of the stronger Gryphons, like Brelik, would be capable of snapping the lock with just the force of their wing muscles. It was heavy, cumbersome, and the unpleasant press of the inner surface against Wrenn’s wings was a constant reminder of his renewed imprisonment by gravity.

Brelik had sworn his oath, solemnly, with the trainers for witnesses, as they attached the band to Wrenn, passing it over his wings and under his chest. It pressed both his back plate and chest plate into his feathers, compounding his discomfort.

If the tunnels had been emotional compromise caused by fear, and the lake by fixation, then this test was emotional compromise caused by anger.

Technically, the test hadn’t even begun, and Wrenn was already seething inwardly.
He had tried to break the band, but even Brelik couldn’t accomplish that feat, and he shattered granite slabs regularly for exercise.

The trainers had left Wrenn in the monolith circle after fastening the band on, and as per usual, hadn't offered so much as a word of explanation or instruction.

After several minutes, Brelik joined him in the ring. He had his axe out, and the pit of Wrenn’s stomach dropped out. He had a sinking feeling he knew what was coming next.
Brelik didn’t speak, he just raised his weapon.

Wrenn unsheathed his sword.

He knew the point of the test was to anger him. Unfortunately knowing provided absolutely no help in stemming the raging tide of his fury. His wings were bound, he had too-little experience to even be in his position, and he was expected to face an unshackled veteran. And win.

Despite all his training, his experience with the HLF augments, and the nagging voice in his head urging him to clear his mind before plunging headlong into combat; Wrenn attacked.

Chapter 27

Wrenn realized he was in deep trouble.
On the second hit, Brelik’s axe put a large gash in the blade of his sword.

A rend in pure steel.

As if it wasn’t enough that the other Gryphon outclassed him as a warrior, and had the use of his wings, he was also much stronger. Normally Wrenn’s best hope would have lain in his greater agility, but the iron band around his chest negated that.

Despite the pounding rage that was doing its best to cloak his brain in a dark red haze, Wrenn managed to pull back to avoid another expert swipe of Brelik’s axe. The massive double edged blade missed him by mere centimeters, the air displaced by its passage rustling his chest feathers.

Wrenn knew the black Gryphon wasn’t trying to kill him; All his maneuvers had been designed to be potentially harmful, but not necessarily lethal. Nonetheless, the test was far less controlled or safe than anything he’d taken part in before, even during his intensive Special Forces boot camp sessions.

Wrenn’s anger was making it difficult to maintain concentration. He forced himself to back off a few paces, dodging madly as Brelik pressed his advantage. He needed space, even it was only a moment, to clear his head and force his emotions under control.

The iron band was heavy, but not so heavy that Wrenn couldn’t lift himself off the ground. While his ability to jump was impaired, his legs were as strong as ever. The next time Brelik brought his axe down, Wrenn made use of the delay to latch onto the Gryphon’s shoulders, and use them as a fulcrum to pivot over him.

Brelik tried to swat at him, but he took too long disengaging his grip from the axe. By the time he had his claw free, Wrenn was already on the other side of him. The added time it took Brelik to re-establish a two-claw grip on the weapon added precious moments to Wrenn’s improvised reprieve.

The entire exchange, and the ensuing moment of calm, only lasted a total of three seconds, but that was more than enough time for Wrenn to stop and devote a measure of attention to his raging feelings.

The key, he tried to remind himself, was to separate the situation from the emotions surrounding it as much as possible, leaving behind only enough anger to act as a fuel for his strength.
Perhaps he was little more than a novice with a sword, but he *was* an expert soldier overall, a veteran of several difficult conflicts, and despite the lack of his wings, he was still fairly agile and strong.

As Brelik closed with him again, his mind was far more clear, and he fell to evaluating the situation.

Strong opponent, extremely capable, veteran fighter.
Weaknesses; Slower weapon requiring longer arcs for full effect, decreased agility due to muscle bulk, firm belief in his own assured victory... Not entirely unfounded.
Lastly, opponent is scaling back his attacks to prolong the battle. Likely to evaluate skills.

Battlefield; Grassy circular space, surrounded by upright granite monoliths. No easy access to sand, pebbles, or small stones... But no enforced limits either.

Wrenn realized that since there were no instructions, and presumably no rules, that he wasn’t limited to the grassy training circle. Still barely fending off Brelik’s manic assault, he did his best to guide the battle out of the ring.

Brelik tried twice to corral him, but his weapon was ill suited to battlefield control. The axe was simply too slow to fully compensate for Wrenn’s retreating strategy.

As the duel relocated to rockier ground outside the ring, Brelik began to make use of his wings.

The axe was, once again, a detriment and an advantage. Assaults from above, with the sheer momentum its weight provided, were nearly unstoppable. But in return, Brelik’s flighted motions were slower than average, making it possible for Wrenn to dodge more easily.

As Brelik made another attempt at putting a dent in Wrenn’s chestplate, a tactical inspiration struck.

His opponent’s flips always terminated at a fixed distance to the rear.
Rocky ground, strewn with scree, dust, dirt, and pebbles.
Conclusion; Potential distraction, leading to opening, providing a possible head-shot.

When Brelik launched into his next flip, Wrenn dodged the axe blade as per usual, but then he stumbled, as if his sense of balance had momentarily faltered or he had lost his stability.
As he heard Brelik’s paws impact the ground, Wrenn kicked the loose shale with the full force of his back legs, sending out a high speed spray of sharp, painful pebbles, dirt, and dust.

Wrenn turned his kick into a smooth rotating motion. As Brelik came back into view, Wrenn could see that he had been forced to put up a claw to protect his eyes from the shower of loose debris. Thinking Quickly, Wrenn brought his free claw up, yanked off his helmet, and in the same move sent it spinning towards Brelik’s head at full speed.

Brelik was easily able to ward off the projectile with his weapon, but by the time he had done so, Wrenn had closed with him, and now he had an opening. He brought the pommel of his sword down against the back of Brelik’s head as hard as he could.

The impact made a resounding clang, as if a gong had been struck. Brelik wasn’t wearing a helmet, but Gryphons' skull bones were some of the thickest in their bodies. The injury wasn’t severe, but it was jarring. Wrenn managed to get in a sharp knee to Brelik’s chest before the larger Gryphon forced him back with a painful blow from one of his wings, and he noticed that Brelik’s expression carried a mild undertone of surprise.

His ears had flicked back a few centimeters, and the muscles at the corner of his beak turned down ever so slightly.

Wrenn managed to snag his helmet as he fell backwards, returning it to his skull. He made a mental note to keep it on, regardless of the temptation to use it as a second weapon again. Brelik wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice, and Wrenn’s ears were ringing from the blow he had just received.

It would be to his advantage to protect his head more vigilantly.

When the duel resumed in full, Wrenn discovered he had a new problem. Brelik was slowly increasing the skill and speed of his attacks, putting an ever rising pressure on him to draw on bladed weapon skills that he simply did not possess.

Wrenn wondered how Brelik’s speed and reflexes compared to the city guards he had seen earlier. If the black Gryphon was that capable, then he would shortly have Wrenn fatally outmatched.

Wrenn’s reflexes and perception were good, but he didn’t have the practice and honed skills of a veteran Knight. Even if Brelik was only ahead of him by a few tenths of a second, he would be able to thrash him *soundly.*

On his next stroke, Brelik landed another surprise blow with his wings.
As Wrenn staggered back, the larger Gryphon snickered.

The pain, and the taunt, threatened to let loose another torrent of anger, something Wrenn could ill afford at that stage. He knew it was a calculated move, and with every ounce of his self control, he stifled his feelings.

“I won’t go down *that* easily. Though I will admit, you have me firmly outmatched.”

Brelik raised an eyebrow, “Then why not surrender?” He punctuated the words with a strong swipe that Wrenn barely managed to deflect with his sword.

Brelik’s smirk was maddening, but Wrenn kept bringing his thoughts back to the memory of the pain the two HLF augments had caused him. He kept reminding himself of the consequences of unbridled rage.

Wrenn smiled, and made a quick jab into the opening left by the axe’s completed arc, “Because surrender is only an option once you’re beaten, and while you outclass me, I’m not out of creative ideas yet.”

Even as the words left his beak, another thought occurred to him.

If he could divest Brelik of his axe, but retain a hold on his own sword, then he would have an equalizing advantage by way of the reach his weapon afforded him.

The maneuver would be exceedingly dangerous, as Wrenn would have to place himself in a highly vulnerable position to get one of Brelik’s vice-like claws off the weapon’s haft.

Then, actually succeeding in knocking the large death-dealing implement away would be a one in a hundred chance.

Wrenn planned several variants of the strategy before making his first move. Battling a normal human, or a surprised enemy, was one thing; Their moves were incredibly predictable.

Battling an aware augment, or another Gryphon, was considerably more complex.

Wrenn slowly allowed Brelik to move in close. He didn’t even have to open himself up for a blow, his opponent was moving so quickly that he could take swipes whenever he desired.

As the axe descended, Wrenn sidestepped, letting the axe clang off the iron band around his chest, and jabbed with his sword. He didn’t intend to actually hit Brelik, he intended for the Gryphon to raise his talons to bat the sword away.

Brelik did so, he had little other choice given that his axe was still moving downward from the momentum of rebounding off the wing band. Wrenn ducked, and kicked hard with his back paws, claws extended. At the same time, he whipped his tail up, flaring the fan to further confuse Brelik.

Amazingly, the last-split-second act of opening the fan provided enough distraction for his back paws to slam full-on into the one claw Brelik was still gripping the axe with.

The weapon slid from his grasp, and spiraled away down the slope, embedding itself up the the haft in a boulder several hundred yards below.

Wrenn took a step back and to the side, placing himself between Brelik and the path to the axe.
He knew that Brelik could just fly over him, but the act of launching into the air would make his chest vulnerable to Wrenn’s sword briefly.

The only way to keep his enemy in check would be to keep close to him, consequently the only option left was to press the attack until the end.

Wrenn’s first blow nearly landed, Brelik was still recovering from the surprise of losing his weapon. The emotion was now clearly written on his face; His eyes were wider, his beak slightly agape, and his ears pressed back.

Despite the near-success of his stratagem, Brelik was too skillful.

He knocked the blow aside with a well place rap of his claw against the flat of the blade, and began attacking Wrenn directly with his talons, wings, and beak.

Wrenn began to realize that, against anyone else, he might have had a chance at winning. But Brelik was amazingly strong, and unusually large. His momentum and strength compounded with his experience, leaving Wrenn with the distinct impression that he was little more than a tin soda can on a maglev track in the face of the coming assault.

Brelik was at last fighting with all his skill and strength. The only reason he didn’t instantly fell Wrenn was because his sword gave him a small advantage.

Despite that, Brelik slowly began to wear down Wrenn’s defenses with ever more complicated and swift attacks.

Finally, the inevitable happened; Wrenn found himself flat on his back with Brelik’s talons pressed hard into the feathers around his throat.

“Yield.”

It took several seconds for Wrenn to reply. He was angry again.
Angry that he had been beaten in a test that had been badly stacked against him.
Angry that a chance he had made for himself to win had been so easily snatched away.
Angry that he was being forced to surrender at all.

Finally, he managed to convince himself that there was no point in defiance.
He had nothing left to prove, and he had failed in any case. He could see no way out; If he even inhaled too deeply, Brelik would doubtless severely injure him.

It was one of the hardest things he had ever said, but he said it, doing his best to force his voice to remain neutral, “I yield.”

With amazing speed, Brelik’s snarl turned to a smile, and his deadly claw went from being a weapon, to a proffered claw of aid.

Wrenn grasped Brelik’s foreleg, and pulled himself up, shaking himself to dislodge dust and dirt, “What now?”

Brelik gestured to the two training assistants, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
They unlocked the chest band, and Wrenn reflexively flared his wings, allowing air to rush over the feathers in a cooling, relieving breeze.

Brelik shook his head and frowned, “Now you leave. You failed to defeat me, and therefore you failed the test.”

Wrenn wasn’t sure which he wanted more, to cry or to screech. But Brelik wasn’t really his enemy, and he had lost fair and square, “How soon can I make another attempt? Am I even allowed to try again?”

Brelik nodded, “The code of Knighthood mandates you wait one year before your next attempt. You will not be asked to repeat the tests you have already passed.”

“I don’t suppose it would count as cheating for you to give me some instruction in your technique? I’m at a fairly severe disadvantage.”

Brelik allowed Wrenn a small half-smile, “If you can find some time for it, I would be willing to teach you.”

Wrenn sighed, “How does this affect my standing in the military?”

“You will, I presume, be allowed to retain the provisional Knight Errant rank.”

Wrenn inclined his head. As the adrenaline of combat slowly faded, so did his anger, replaced by a painful sense of humility at his own inexperience, “Right. Well, that’s a start. I certainly hope to be much improved in a year’s time.”
He offered Brelik a claw, “Well fought. I hope I can learn as much from you as you clearly have to teach me.”

Brelik took the claw in a firm grasp, “It seems you have already learned the most important thing I can teach you. How to accept defeat. Congratulations, you have passed the *fourth* test, and therefore the third as well.”

Wrenn froze. The words didn’t register.
“I... What?”

Brelik chuckled, smiling broadly, “Earning the bow, the fourth test, the supposed ‘difference’ in tests for the two specializations... It’s all part of the same construct. We already know anyone seeking a promotion at this stage is militarily capable. What we truly want to know is if you are capable of dealing with the four worst conditions a Gryphon can be placed under.”

Wrenn’s eyes widened, “Panic... The test of the caves, fixation in the test at the lake, rage in the single combat test... And...
Defeat?”

Brelik nodded, “Defeat. We don’t expect any applicant to pass the combat test. None ever have, likely none ever will. We always pit them against veterans, usually myself or someone of similar skill and age.
The idea is to see how long you can last, and how quickly you can gain control of your anger. Then, when you are inevitably defeated, the fourth test is gauging your reactions when you truly believe you have failed.”

Wrenn stood in silence for a moment, “So... I... Passed? By failing gracefully?”

Brelik laughed outright, “Yes indeed. You’re not the most well endowed when it comes to controlling your anger, but you did eventually succeed. You then managed to last longer than any contestant I’ve ever fought. You are certainly the only one who had ever succeeded in disarming me. And, finally, you chose to yield when it became the best option, then treated the situation with decorum, facing an honorable opponent. You most certainly passed.”

Wrenn considered his situation for a moment, then grinned, “You conned me. 'Task Failed Successfully.' ”

“Yes. That’s the point.”

“Is your offer to train me still valid?”

“Of course.”

Wrenn let out an ear piercing call. A sound of pure triumph and joy.

The feeling of success, in the face of impossible odds, was euphoric.
He had experienced the relief of victory before, but he hadn’t been so happy to end a battle since he had passed his Special Forces boot camp.

Brelik chuckled, “You have the rest of the afternoon to rest before the feast, and ceremony tonight. You’ve certainly earned the respite.”

He winked, “Take a piece of advice. After turning in your training gear, go bathe yourself in hot water. It will prevent the soreness from setting in too badly.”

Wrenn eased out of his battered chest-plate and shook himself, dislodging a fine mist of dirt and dust, “And I could certainly stand to get all of *this* off my feathers.”

At first, returning to his room felt alien for Wrenn. He had been on the move so much recently, never staying in one place for more than a day, that coming back to the same spot he’d woken up in was refreshing.

Even more refreshing was the long hot shower he allowed himself. Wrenn usually forced himself to take ‘navy showers’ out of habit, but in this case he felt he deserved a reprieve.

The stream of hot water pounded the dirt, soreness, stress, worry, and adrenaline out of his system, leaving behind a sublime feeling of calm.

He took a few minutes to dry himself on his sunning rock, and the heat did wonders for the bruises and cramps that had formed from the day’s exertions and abuses. He spared an idle glance for the armor rack, wondering if now he would get a chance to fill it with gear he could call his own.

After fully drying himself, he examined the cuts and scrapes he had acquired in the duel.
None were serious, but a few were still slightly sensitive to the touch.

One he was assured that none of his wounds would require more care, he fell to wandering the mountain stronghold, looking for Varan and Kephic. The Gryphons had done an excellent job with the structure, dispelling most of the feel of being ‘underground,’ without sacrificing the defensive advantages of constructing inside a mountain.

Eventually, Wrenn gave up and decided to try and find the library instead. From the moment it had been mentioned he had developed an ever increasing desire to explore it. Wrenn loved books, especially 'real' books, which had become quite rare on Earth due to the lack of paper producing trees.

After aimlessly wandering for several more minutes, he finally asked directions from a passing Gryphon laden down with construction tools. Apparently there were renovations and extensions in progress.

The architect gave him instructions that took him back the way he had come, then through a series of turns to a T-Junction, then a left, down a flight of stairs, and through a connecting corridor.

Wrenn knew he had succeeded in locating the library when he came upon a massive set of carved wooden doors. The inlay portrayed what he assumed to be scenes from the history of the city, given that in the upper left corner there were several Gryphons overlooking an empty mountain peak, and in the lower right there was a depiction of the city as it currently stood.

There were no handles. The doors simply swung in silently and easily at the slightest push, slowly returning to their closed position on their own without so much as a squeak or a thud.

Wrenn stood transfixed by the scope of the Library.

The chamber he had just entered was one of four long vaulted rooms, each wide enough for three Gryphons to fly abreast, as long as a football field, and at least four stories high.

The four chambers connected to a central domed room that seemed, at first glance, to look out on the sky.

Despite the apparent impossibility of the glass dome in the central chamber, what first held Wrenn's attention was the books and scrolls. The walls of the four long rooms were covered in shelves and pigeon holes, each tagged with something in Gryphic script.

Wrenn spied several doors between the shelves that presumably lead to more small rooms for storage, study, and writing.

He meandered towards the central chamber, trying to take in the sheer scope of knowledge and history contained in the space around him. The floor was marble, and most of the walls were granite, but there were intricately carved wooden bracings, rails, stairs, and metal filigree inlays everywhere.

When he reached the central chamber, the mystery of the sky-dome seized his attention.

He knew, based on his instincts, that he was standing too far underground for the ceiling, high as it was, to reach the top of the mountain. Nonetheless, the roof appeared to be blue sky.

He stood for several minutes, staring, trying to puzzle out how it was possible.
There were no lights, no mirrors, and as far as he could see, no projectors or anything remotely technological that could be responsible for the phenomena.

His thoughts turned to magic, but Gryphons had to import even the simplest of magical things, right down to mage lights. It occurred to him that perhaps it was a gift or relic from an earlier time.

His musings were interrupted by a distinctly female voice, "You've never seen it before, have you?"

He glanced down to see a tan Gryphon. Her head, ears, throat, chest, and back paws were covered entirely in multi-toned blue markings. The same shades populated symmetrical bands on her wings and tail.

She motioned to the roof with her head, "No one ever told you how it works?"

Wrenn shook his head, "I'm... New."

The newcomer cocked her head, "New to Tih’ré Seli’hn?"

Wrenn chuckled, "To the species."

Her eyes widened, "Oh! So you're the convert!"

"In the flesh. And fur," Wrenn shrugged, "And feathers."

"Well... I'm Neyla." She dipped her head in a move that reminded Wrenn of the formal courtesies European politicians still insisted on using despite the unified government.

He dipped his own head in what he hoped was an appropriate response, "I'm Isaac Wrenn."

She raised an eyebrow, "You kept the human name?"

Wrenn shrugged again, "I'm still not sure what I'd use for a new one really. I don't know enough about our language and naming conventions to settle on anything."

She glanced over her shoulder, as if contemplating something, "I suppose... I could help you with that. First, I think I'll put an end to your bewilderment though."

It was Wrenn's turn to cock his head.

She laughed, "The ceiling."

"Oh! Yes! how *does* that work? is it magic?"

Neyla shook her head, "It's shaped diamond. The dome is a solid curved sheet of it that our metallurgists fashioned long ago. Mirrors in small tubes feed in outside light, and the dome magnifies it. It effectively reflects the lighting conditions of the sky, without having to actually touch the open air."

Wrenn gaped, "Sheesh. Diamond fiber-optics. And I thought sun days were a clever engineering feat."

"Sun days?"

He chuckled, "Imagine a sky where the sun never shines."

Neyla grimaced, "That sounds awful."

"Beyond words. Now imagine the biggest most powerful light you've ever seen, and multiply its power by a thousand thousand fold. Then imagine thousands of these lights, all pointed at the clouds. That's how we simulate sunlight on Earth. But we can only manage it once a week in most places. Hence 'Sun Day.' "

Neyla shivered, "It sounds... Lifeless. Dull. I think I prefer the sky-dome."

Wrenn nodded, "You and me both. Seeing blue sky, let alone the sun itself, was a shock, let me tell you."

"You grew up without a sun?"

"Not entirely. But you can't actually see it. Just some of the light."

Neyla began walking towards a large spiral staircase set into one of the walls, "What happened to your sky?"

As they climbed the stairs and roamed the corridors of the Library, Wrenn explained the atmospheric condition of the Earth. He found Neyla to be sharp minded, and she quickly picked up on concepts that Wrenn himself had struggled with for quite some time when they were initially introduced to him.

As they continued walking and talking, Wrenn discovered that the Library's chambers were many-layered, going back further than the main vaults might lead one to believe.

Neyla, peppering him with questions, eventually led him to a small out-of-the-way alcove containing several old scrolls in sealed pigeon holes. The apertures were protected by glass covers with intricately worked brass latches.

Her face bore a confused expression, "So... Humans fly with metal airships that move by burning a fuel so volatile that its combustion produces enough heat to melt steel?"

Wrenn nodded.

"Remind me again how the species survived its first major wars?"

Wrenn laughed, "We barely did."

Neyla shook her head, "I agree with you that many Human inventions and much of their tactical learning will be of great interest and value to us." She gestured to the alcove, "We're here... These are census records for the last few hundred years. Plenty of good names to get you started with."

Wrenn picked a scroll at random, and gingerly undid the cover, removing the paper within as if it were a sacred artifact. It was only the third time in his life that he had held actual paper.

"I'm afraid you'll have to suffer through my idiotic non-comprehension of linguistics."

Neyla snorted, "You seem to have a decent command of the spoken word. If you have trouble learning language, its likely through lack of effort."

Wrenn laughed, "I suppose that's true."

Neyla removed two more scrolls, then led Wrenn to another small alcove equipped with mage lamps, a low-set table, and comfortable floor cushions. Wrenn flopped down and sighed. He had been on his feet most of the day, and his respite on the sunning rock had been all too short.

"So..." He carefully unfurled the first scroll, "Where do we begin?"

Neyla laid a single talon on the first word, "Gryphic isn't like most Equestrian languages.
The words are quite specific, but there aren't individual letters when it's taken as a whole.
They merge to become more than the sum of the individuals."

For the next hour, Wrenn struggled through his first real lesson in a new language.
Gryphic was as much an exercise in art as science. It was specific, unyielding, and complex, but at the same time flowing and situational, often deriving part of its meaning from context, but always unambiguously.

Finally, Wrenn held up a claw, and dug into his aching eyes with the other, "Perhaps we're going at this all wrong."

Neyla looked confused, "How do you mean?"

"I mean how about this; I know a few words of Gaelic. It's an old Earth language. I don't speak it, but I learned a couple of the nouns when I was stationed in that part of the world. I became enamored with the history and mythology of the place."

He shook his head abruptly, clearing out his rambling thoughts, "Anyways, I learned their word for Eagle; Fireun. Can we do something with that? Preferably something that's close to my name as it is now. I think that would make adjustment easier."

Neyla's expression conveyed her understanding, and she fell to examining the scroll in front of her. For a long moment she wordlessly browsed the list of names until she finally hit upon something that interested her, "Here."

Wrenn leaned over and stared at the name she was pointing too. Neyla shied away slightly, and he realized he had probably learned in a bit too close, "Sorry. How's that pronounced?"

She smiled slightly, "That's alright. It's pronounced Fyrenn. 'FihRenn.' It means valor. Specifically valor in combat, or war."

She looked up, her gaze piercing Wrenn, evaluating and comparing.
"I think it suits you."

He smiled, "Fyrenn...." He tried the sound of it out several more times, rolling it around on his tongue, "I like it. And it doesn't hurt that it rhymes with Wrenn...."

Neyla began re-rolling the census scrolls, "So, will you change your name then?"

Wrenn inclined his head, first to one side, then the other, "Perhaps. Not sure I want to make that decision lightly." He rose and stretched, triggering a reflexive yawn, "Pardon me."

Neyla raised an eyebrow, "It's not polite to yawn in public?"

"Not where I used to live, no."

"Strange."

Wrenn laughed, "I suppose it is. Nice to know I don't have to clamp my beak shut every time I'm tired. Thanks for your help, by the way. I would have probably stared at that ceiling until the sun went down if you hadn't come along."

Neyla dipped her head again, "It wasn't as if I had anything else to do."

"Are you the librarian?"

She chuckled, "No such luck. I was here looking for old clan records. I haven't had any success so far."

Wrenn sighed, "I wish I could help, but I'm afraid I'll need a few more tutoring sessions before I can do basic reading."

Neyla shook her head, "That's all right. This is my problem, and my search."

From the tone in her voice, Wrenn gathered that she would rather not continue that line of conversation, "So, will you be at the feast tonight?"

She nodded, "I expect so..."

"Why don't you join us then? I'll introduce you to my closest friends, Varan and Kephic."

Neyla looked hesitant, Wrenn shrugged, "You have family or friends you're sitting with?"

"No no... It's not that..." She looked torn, but ultimately sighed, then nodded, "Why not. I'll see you there."

Wrenn smiled, "Likewise."

As he meandered out of the library, in the general direction of the great hall, he kept turning the name over in his mind;
Fyrenn.

He decided he liked it.
It did indeed suit him.

Chapter 28

An AI was one of the most astounding achievements of the human race. A large part of the technological singularity was attributed to the invention of the positronic processing core that formed the basis for the technology.

AI were not sentient, but they were computer programs that could 'learn,' 'create,' and pass the Turing test; An AI could pass itself off as a person in conversation 9,999 out of 10,000 times.

The capability stemmed not from an actual capacity for emotion, but from the capability to learn, imitate, and even be creative, in an antiseptic non-intuitive sense within the field of their operation.

Since their invention, AI had run virtually everything on Earth, from water supplies to air traffic control. Fighter craft, such as the FA-26 Scythe, would have as many as three AI; One for avionics, one for weapons, and one for electronic warfare purposes.

Naval vessels would often be running over a dozen AI in stand-down condition, and that number could triple in battle. Major cities relied on hundreds, or even several thousand of the programs, to handle the power grid, internet, emergency 911 call centers, sewage, traffic lights, subways, shipping, anti-terrorism security, and any other administrative service that didn't need the human element of intuition to function reasonably efficiently.

An AI could not be programmed from scratch, the complexity was simply too great for even an entire company's worth of computer scientists to handle in a lifetime. Instead, a technique had been developed to flash image a brain, and create a positronic network from the resulting data.

A programmer could then strip out the worthless 'white noise' created by things like personality, memories, and emotional layout, filling that space with more traditional coding to give the AI constraints, a database, and a set of instructional heuristics to lend it purpose.

Despite the inability for personality traits to truly transfer over to an artificial construct, certain tendencies of the initial brain-image would be retained. An AI based on a human scientist would, for example, have a higher degree of technological 'creativity' than one based on a soldier, which would be more militarily capable.

The world's first Gryphon AI had inherited four main traits from Sildinar; A penchant for stealth and stalking its objective, a sense of battlefield logic, and a combination of undergirding aggressiveness and impossible speed that no security program, AI or not, on the planet could ever hope to match.

Since an AI could only run natively within a positron based computing device, the particular AI, dubbed 'Chuck' by Hutch, was delivered to Gavin/Schummel by a government 'snap inspection team.'

When no one was looking, a technician inserted Chuck's original storage core into a deep level access port in the building's mainframe. Armed with government access codes, the AI instantly took over root kernel access, systematically attacking, silencing, destroying, and rebuilding the security AI to its own specifications in a record 0.68 seconds.

In less than a second, Chuck had seized control of all computing assets belonging to the world's largest biomedical firm. The AI had sole root control over communications, stocks, secret patent data, and every other piece of 'digital footprint' that the company possessed.

Within another ten seconds it had indexed, searched, and collated every piece of available data in the entire system, and determined the next course of action necessary to fulfill its objective; Work its way into a PER mainframe.

King Siidran had not been exaggerating when he said 'feast.'

The festivities began informally. Gryphons began to gather in the great hall in small groups while the food was brought out, and prepared on the hearth. The main fare consisted of meat, both cooked and uncooked, a great deal of which was fish, scallops, or shrimp.

Aside from that, there was also a fair bit of wild boar, and smaller strips of something Wrenn learned was dire bear. Apparently the more dangerous the creature, the more prized the meat.

The rest of the portions were enormous, even by Gryphon standards, and it didn't look as if anyone would go hungry. There were at least five kinds of bread, several types of berries, a multitude of cheeses, and apricots, to act as side dishes.

The great hall was filled with the smell of cooking meat, which likely explained why IJ and Carradan weren't present. When Wrenn asked Linnea about them, she reassured him that they would receive their own, less offensive, but no less grand, meal.

As the cooking preparations neared completion, most of the Gryphons who weren't busy with skewers of meat lined up to pull out the huge tables pushed against the walls, and lay out the accompanying chairs.

Gryphon chairs were strangely shaped, from the standpoint of Human design sensibilities.
The legs were short and thick, the seating area shaped to accommodate a tail, and there was no back to interfere with the wings. They were almost more in the vein of ornate comfortable stools than chairs.

By the time the tables were fully prepared, and the food laid out, the great hall was full to overflowing. The same routine was doubtless being carried out in other dining halls, and suitable locations around the stronghold. There was simply no way to fit the better part of fifteen thousand Gryphons into one great hall.

As Wrenn began to fill himself a plate, he spotted Neyla. She was standing near one of the entrances, looking more than a bit uncomfortable in the crowd, if it could be called that. Humans would have filled a comparable space to a far higher density than Gryphons naturally did.

He worked his way over and offered her a smile, "The fish looks fantastic! Here, take this, and grab a seat." He passed her the plate, and gestured to the royal table, which was laid out with space for himself, the King and Queen, Kephic, Varan, and three others.

Neyla's eyes widened, "The royal table?"

Wrenn shrugged, "Sure. It's not full, things aren't overly formal, and I'm sure I'm allowed a plus one."

"Plus one?"

"Human expression. I tend to do use them a lot. Annoys the heck out of Varan, so sometimes I do it just to see his head-crest shoot up."

Neyla looked a bit dazed, but began making her way to the table, slowly.
Wrenn turned to make himself another plate; There was no clear line, everyone was simply helping each other to find a skewer of something they wanted in a disorganized, but efficient mob of wings, tails, and beaks.

Wrenn finally managed to make himself a plate, composed of a heap of fish, a deep dish of scallops, two loaves of bread, and a strip of dire bear meat. He made his own way to the royal table, and arrived just as Kephic and Auric did, rolling a large cask between them.

Siidran clapped him on the back, "I'm a Gryphon of my word, and in this case quite glad to have lost the bet. Brelik tells me you acquitted yourself well in the trials."

Brelik was already seated at the table, beside Varan, he raised a fist in salute, "He did indeed. It took me some time to get my axe out of that boulder."

Wrenn chuckled, "Sorry, I didn't mean to make *quite* that much trouble for you."

Brelik laughed, and nudged Varan.

"I like his sense of humor. Reminds me a little of you and Kephic."

"He should. We're going to be adopting him."

Auric looked taken aback, "Really? That's quite a development!" He glanced at Wrenn, "You're very lucky, you're being invited into a wonderful family."

Wrenn smiled, "Don't I know it."

He shot a quick look at Neyla, and was surprised to see a brief flash of strong emotion cross her face. Her ears reflexively flattened, her crest drooped, and her eyes flicked down, as if something they had said upset her.

Wrenn quickly changed the subject. It wasn't the time, nor was it his place, he decided, to go digging into Neyla's personal issues, "So, shall we get started on that cask?"

As they passed around tankards of Heather Meade, Wrenn introduced Neyla, "I met her in the library. She helped me pick out a new name, and gave me the only linguistics lesson I've ever partially understood."

He went around the table, introducing each of his friends to her in turn.

When he finally came to Brelik, the black Gryphon displayed a small knowing smile, "I have heard of you before, Neyla.
Larande's daughter. Your father's exploits as a Sentinel are legend."

Wrenn took a draught of his Meade and raised an eyebrow, "Sentinel?"

Varan explained, "A warrior who holds to no clan beyond their own family, and holds no rank in the brotherhood of Knights, but accomplishes exploits in battle alone or with the help of only immediate family."

Wrenn suddenly understood Neyla's reaction to his adoption. She was clanless, and if the way they referred to her father in past tense was an indication, she had no living relatives.

A situation Varan and Kephic had described as difficult at best.

Neyla was hurt because in Wrenn's forthcoming clan-joining, she saw everything she wanted but didn't have.

Wrenn again decided to steer the conversation away from the touchy issue, "So, how do I go about getting gear? I don't have any money, I don't even know what we use for money, and I have no family to inherit armor from, unless you two," he glanced at Kephic and Varan, "keep a spare set in my size."

Siidran chuckled, "Your situation is not unheard of. In cases such as yours, where you have nothing to inherit, you forge a new set of armor, a bow, and a sword, which you can then pass down should you start a family of your own."

Wrenn nearly choked on his fish, "Uuuhhh... firstly, I don't know the first thing about using a forge. Second, I'm not really in to the... Well the..." he blushed, glad that his red feathers hid the embarrassing effect, "...I'm not much of a romantic. I'd rather avoid it. Not a fan of being so vulnerable," he glanced at Linnea and Siidran, "No offense."

Linnea smiled, "None taken. Mating is not for everyone, it would be foolish to think that it is."

Brelik chuckled, a deep ominous rumble, "That said, it is something for most."
He punched Wrenn 'lightly' on the shoulder, nearly bruising him, "You managed to get off that lake bottom in record time. If you can handle that, you can handle a mate."

"Well be that as it may, I have no inclination to seek that out."
Again, Wrenn noted a flash of emotion on Neyla's face, this time an inscrutable feeling, clearly not depression. Almost curiosity.

Kephic snickered, "Well, in any case, if you were wondering we use small gold pieces for currency." He dug into the feathers near his neck and produced three small perfectly octagonal pieces of gold. The currency was smooth and featureless, save for a set of pits on one side, and a set of stubby nubs on the other. "They attach, for easy carrying."

He demonstrated by fastening the pieces together into a short octagonal rod, "It makes it easy to store, carry, count, and use."

Auric nodded, "There is a basic allowance every citizen receives after reaching adulthood. Every Knight gets an additional stipend, according to rank, and more for those who are full time warriors with no other source of income. You'll get your first tomorrow most likely."

Siidran nodded, "I've already seen to that. As for your concerns of skill, we don't expect every warrior to be a complete expert in metallurgy, so your role is more as an overall designer and heavy lifter. You'll be guided by experts at every turn."

Wrenn smiled, "Well then, I'm quite looking forward to this. If there's one thing I love, its well designed weapons and armor."

Brelik thumped the table, "Spoken like a true warrior."

After a short silence, during which everyone was mostly concerned with their food and drink, Wrenn turned to Neyla. She seemed ill at ease, and he wanted her to feel more at home with the group, so he chose his conversation topic carefully.

He wanted to draw her out, and get her talking freely, but not touch on a raw issue.

"So what about other Gryphon settlements? This is my first time in one, and I'm curious to know how smaller settlements function."

Neyla started off, timidly at first, "Well... It's not much different from here. Functionally. Of course, it feels very different, and of course the layout can vary wildly...."

Wrenn cocked his head, "How do you mean?"

"Well, for example," she began to warm to the topic, "A settlement in the forest will be made of circular dwellings built around sturdy tree trunks near the top of the growth, in a space cleared of branches. A settlement in a rocky area might be built straight into a cliff face, and one on flatlands may even be made of something resembling a nesting burrow. The city, here, is a good place to see examples of all our architecture together though."

Wrenn nodded, "What about defenses?"

"Well the villages in the tree tops are hard for enemies and beasts to reach period, and the same goes for cliff dwellings. In any case, all our settlements have a barracks, a fully stocked armory, a town watch, and a contingent of standing warriors."

"What about the economy? Some of it was covered in my primer courses, but I'm always looking for fresh perspectives."

"We're known for being the best metallurgists in the land. Diamond Dogs may be better at finding and mining materials, and Dragons may hoard the most, but we of all the races are best at making those materials into well crafted machines, both of war and peace. We will also trade in food we grow and hunt, as well as knowledge by way of the most up to date and detailed maps of the frontiers."

Varan devoured a whole strip of meat in a single gulp, "We will also act as freelance warriors at times, but who we allow to hire us and the jobs we do are always governed by our morality first and foremost, with *no* exceptions."

Wrenn didn't want to start an awkward topic, but the question had been gnawing at him since day one, "What happens when a Gryphon... Goes bad?"

Siidran let out a harsh sound, midway between chuckle and growl, "If it does happen. Apocryphally there are accounts, but even if they are true it only happens once every thousand years or so. We take our code very very seriously. It defines us, even more than our form. Any who would violate it would die a violent death before their names can go to the history books. If we did not kill them, their conscience would cause them to put themselves in a position to be killed before long."

Wrenn shivered and decided to switch topics again, "So... Advice? If I'm about to be an Alarian, I want to avoid common mistakes."

That lead to a much happier conversation that lasted for a solid hour. Everyone went around the table recounting stories, usually of amusing mishaps or difficult situations, and passed along wisdom or encouragement. Even Neyla had a go, telling a story of a time when she and her mother had fought, and killed, a dire bear. She had barely been fifteen at the time.

Wrenn realized that her social timidity, and demure politeness, rested atop a copious reserve of strength.
It made sense. If she was living and surviving on her own as a Sentinel, then she would need to be resilient, resourceful, and strong.

Neyla and Skye would have been great friends. The thought crossed Wrenn's mind with such sobering force that he nearly dropped his meade. He had a sudden desire to be as far away from Neyla as possible. The last person, after all, that he'd tried to befriend in order to help, was dead.

Most of the Gryphons at the table missed his moment of emotional turmoil, but Kephic was staring right at him when it happened, and he shot him a knowing look. His eyes were fierce, almost bordering on angry. The message was clear; Don't you dare start on self-recrimination.

Wrenn believed his threat to put him in a headlock had been made in all seriousness, so he did his best to stifle the sobering train of thought. The night was supposed to be a celebration anyhow, and he figured Neyla wasn't going to be a part of his life for too much longer.

As if to aid his attempts to cheer up, Siidran chose that moment to begin the ceremony.

He stood on his hind legs, and banged his tankard on the table, producing a resounding series of thuds. Silence swept the great hall, slowly at first, then gaining momentum.

The King nodded to two Gryphons who had previously been standing out of sight in one of the room's entrances, "My friends! Tonight, we are here to celebrate the making of a Knight. But more than that... We are here to welcome him to our very species. He is the first of many, and I have little doubt that his name will grace the histories both for this, and for his accomplishments yet to come."

Siidran leaned down and pulled Wrenn up to stand beside him. At the same time, the two Gryphons who had been sequestered in the entry arch arrived at the table, bearing an intricately inlaid lacquered wooden box.

The King flicked open the lid to reveal a gray sash with silver edging lying on a bed of deep crimson. The fabric had a dull glint to it, as if metal had been subtly woven into it, making it reminiscent of liquid silicon, or platinum.

He removed the sash, straightened it, and placed it over Wrenn's head and shoulders so that it lay crossways across his chest, and looped back around, lying under his wings.

"Wrenn, It is my honor to make of you an Alarian in the brotherhood of Knights, with all the responsibility and benefits thereof." Siidran reached down and removed a golden object from the sash case. It was shaped like a stylized sword thrust through a trinity symbol.

Siidran pinned the ornament to the sash, just a few inches above center, and gave Wrenn a solid thump to the shoulder blades, "Hail, Alarian!"

There was an accompanying clatter as Gryphons all over the room slammed their mugs and fisted claws against tables. A reply rang out from all, "Hail!"

Wrenn had never been happier, with perhaps the exception of the moments after his conversion itself. He felt welcome, and once again he felt as if he had accomplished something major without losing part of himself along the way.

For the next two hours, he found himself swept away in the crowd, shuffled from table to table as his fellow Gryphons congratulated him, and plied him with questions about his past experiences, and his future plans.

When the festivities finally began to wind down, and he managed to rejoin everyone at the royal table, the moon was well past its halfway point in the sky.

Siidran, Kephic, and Varan were no longer present, leaving Brelik, Neyla, Auric, and Linnea locked in a heated debate over the merits of the various types of bow wood.

Wrenn stood to the side for a moment, content to watch the good natured argument.
To his surprise, Neyla was one of the most avid contenders, and she finally seemed to have completely forgotten her timidity.

Eventually Linnea noticed him, "I see you received quite a welcome."

"Does this happen to every Knight who gets promoted?"

Linnea chuckled, "Oh yes. But I think there was a further special interest in you. You represent something new, and potentially very exciting to our people."

After a comfortable moment of silence, Neyla got up and smiled apologetically, "Well, if you'll give me leave, I'm going to make good use of the night hours remaining. I have much work to do tomorrow, and I need at least some rest."

Wrenn offered her a claw, "I hope you enjoyed the evening."

She hesitated before clasping his foreleg, but only briefly, "I did. Thank you. It has been some time since I had a dinner with real companions." She cast a glance at everyone around the table, "You've all been delightful!"

Auric raised his tankard, "As have you."

Wrenn nodded, "Good luck with your search."

The look she gave him was, once again, difficult to classify.
A mixture of surprise, appreciativeness... And perhaps a little fear.

After Neyla left, the conversation continued for a few minutes, until Linnea informed Wrenn that Siidran, Kephic, and Varan had left to prepare for his formal adoption, and that by now they were most likely ready for him.

Leaving Auric and Brelik behind, Linnea led Wrenn back to the Concourse, then on a short flight to the peak of the mountain. As they rounded the peak, Wrenn saw that a flat space was cleverly tucked into a cleft of rock, making it nearly invisible from most approaching angles.

The space was perfectly circular, perfectly flat, and the granite of the ground was scored with a multitude of ancient patterns. Torches, actual burning torches, ringed the space, set into iron sconces that were hammered directly into the rock wall.

Wrenn couldn't read much Gryphic, but he did know some of Earth's ancient history, and he quickly deduced that one of the functions of the stone inscriptions was to act as a sophisticated solar and lunar calendar.

The center of the space was occupied by a perfectly circular raised stone hearth. Judging by the shape of the rock, the entire area, hearth included, had been chiseled out of the mountainside as a solid single construct.

Siidran stood before the hearth, wearing a silver sash adorned with a complex gold and platinum ornament, inlaid with a sapphire, that Wrenn assumed was the sigil of Kingship. Kephic and Varan stood behind the stone protrusion, likewise wearing sashes adorned with their ranks and another smaller bronze ornament. Both bronze emblems were identical, leading Wrenn to guess that they were clan or family emblems.

The hearth itself contained a few smoldering coals, but no flames.

Linnea landed and moved to stand by the edge of the circle. Siidran gestured Wrenn forward to the hearth. To Wrenn's surprise, he reached in and picked up one of the burning coals, carefully, between his thumb and index talons.

Wrenn knew, from experience, that talons were texture and pressure sensitive, but not temperature sensitive. The yellow part of the claw was, but it had a higher tolerance than a human hand by far due to the resilience of the scaly material.

Nonetheless, Wrenn suspected the coal would hurt a fair bit if pressed against the sensitive part of the claw.

When Siidran spoke, Wrenn was forced to re-evaluate him. There in the torchlight, surrounded by the trappings of ceremony, he seemed older and sterner. His voice carried a harder edge of authority, "You have been brought to this, our most ancient ceremonial place and the site of the founding of the original seven clans, to receive adoption into a clan and family of your own."

Siidran looked over his shoulder at Kephic and Varan, "Does your offer of brotherhood still stand?"

They spoke in unison, "It does."

The King fixed his gaze on Wrenn, "And will you accept?"

"I will."

"Step closer."

Wrenn did as he was told. Siidran continued speaking, "At this very hearth, over these eternally burning coals, the first clans were forged, and the first King was chosen. For us, there is nothing more sacred and more important than the bonds of family and clan. For those joining a new clan a change of name is not untoward. Do you wish to take a new name?"

Wrenn nodded, he didn't know if there was some sort of ceremonial way to cement his choice, so he simply spoke as he felt was appropriate, "I wish to lay down Wrenn, and take up the name Fyrenn."

Siidran held the coal out at foreleg's length over the hearth, and beckoned to Wrenn, Kephic, and Varan.

One by one, Siidran forcibly took their right claws with his free one, and forced them onto the coal, allowing his own talons to fall away once Wrenn's claw had been pushed into place.

The three stood for a moment, sharing the searing heat and pain. It hurt, but not enough for Wrenn to cry out. Kephic and Varan both offered him a smile, and that helped.

Siidran allowed a second of silence to pass, "This day, you become Fyrenn, brother of Kephic and Varan, member of their family and clan Kh'yn'eos." He brought a fisted claw down on the coal, forcing it out of their grip and back into the hearth.

Fyrenn stole a glance at his claw. It was a little scorched, but nothing overly severe. The coal had been in a cooling phase, and the scaly material of the extremity was quite resilient.

Kephic and Varan stepped around the hearth to stand beside him. Kephic carried a duplicate of the bronze sash ornament that he and Varan wore. He leaned forward and attached it smoothly to Fyrenn's sash.

The moon glinted off the object, underscoring its complex script and emblem in silver.
"Is it for the clan, or the family?"

Varan smiled, "Both. When you learn to read the script, you'll be able to tell a Gryphon's clan and family name by looking at their sigil." He paused, then in a rare display of emotion, embraced Fyrenn with his wings and forelegs, "Welcome to the family brother."

As he released him, Kephic repeated the gesture, too choked up for words.

As the moon dipped toward the horizon, a clan of two left the most ancient high place of the Gryphon Kingdoms as a clan of three.

Chapter 29

Fyrenn had a hard time sleeping. The excitement of the evening's festivities had put his brain and emotions into overdrive.

Nonetheless, he had managed to eek out a few hours of rest before sunrise.

When morning broke, he treated himself to a two minute shower, then went to find breakfast.
He didn't know if he was supposed to eat anywhere in particular, so he checked the great hall first to see if anyone familiar was up and about.

He found Kephic finishing reheated leftovers from the feast the night before.

"Morning! Enough of that to share?"

"Always."

Fyrenn pulled up a chair to the hearth and joined his brother, "So what does my morning look like?"

"Busy. We're setting out tomorrow, so you have today to get your equipment in order. This evening we'll be getting parts of our group provisions together, and selecting another teammate."

The sudden nature of their forthcoming departure came as a shock to Fyrenn. Intellectually, he had known that they were there first and foremost to track down a clan of Diamond Dogs working for the PER, and through them the chain of command leading up to high ranking targets.

But the festivities, the atmosphere, the culture... The sheer euphoria of belonging and feeling so very much at home had pushed most of the concerns of Earth to the back of his mind.

The focus of their hunt returned now, in full force. The HLF had been responsible for Skye's death, but in Fyrenn's mind the PER had been at least partly responsible, given that they caused the turmoil that gave the infiltrator easy access. Not to mention how dangerous a threat they had become to the free will and choice of billions of people.

Fyrenn decided that the path to obliterating the HLF would have to begin with eliminating distractions first; In this case the PER.

Only after considering this for a moment did Kephic's other statement hit home, "Oh yes... That's right, we have to take someone else along."

Kephic shrugged, "Sildinar felt it was necessary that we fill both his role and Skye's. Not that I think IJ does a particularly good job of filling her role, and not that whoever we're adding to the group is going to be in charge... At this point it's more a shared responsibility between the three of us."

Fyrenn knew he meant the two of them together with Varan. Though they held higher rank than he did, they treated him as an equal, following the time honored informal command structure that Gryphons seemed to have perfected over centuries of war and strife.

He absently toyed with a cold scallop before popping it into his beak. The flavor was light, but sufficient. A good breakfast meat. He sighed contentedly, "I see what you mean."

"Hmm?"

"About how having a family makes dealing with... Everything... Easier. Sometimes just the sheer contentment of it is enough."

"You'd be amazed how far that can get you. I wouldn't be the person I am without Varan."

"I'd be a smear on a strip pavement if it weren't for *you*."

"And don't you ever forget it." Kephic laughed and punched him playfully in the shoulder.

"So, where to first?"

"You're expected on the archery range. Unfortunately there's a bit of wasted time between that and the armory... They're finishing up filling an order for backplates destined for an outlying settlement. After that, you'll get a chance to grab some food, then it's off to the weapon forges. You need a sword."

Fyrenn smirked, "I think I'm going to enjoy this. It's embarrassing, a bit, but I'll need directions to the archery range. I haven't seen any sort of map of the city, and I certainly haven't been here long enough to nail down the important spots."

Kephic nodded, "I'll do you one better; I'll take you there. I have a few spare minutes before the vaults open. It will be nice to have my own armor back. Human made armor may be stronger, but I think ours is more comfortable."

Fyrenn replaced his chair against the wall, "Guess I'll find out for myself. What happens to my armor... I mean I don't think I'll ever have a family to pass it on to... Do I gift it to someone?"

"You can. If you've accomplished important or noteworthy exploits it might even be made into a monument somewhere. I still think you're ruling out possible futures too quickly."

"Meh. Humor me."

The archery range was actually an elevated circular platform ensconced in one of the enormous pine trees within the city's borders. Arrows were fired towards a neighboring grove of trees outside the boundaries of the city, and the area was marked off in several spots with bright red cord that was immediately visible from the ground, or the air.

Long range shooting had to be done at the training grounds, the range space was more for the construction, maintenance, and calibration of archery equipment. It had its own small solar forge, which Fyrenn occupied himself by examining intently while he waited for the range master.

The forge consisted of a tray, made of the same preternatural seamless shaped stone as the city's buildings. Around it sat several crystalline lenses, which were lit by pushing a small level at the base of the assembly, which aligned mirrors to the sun. The combined effect of the reflected rays through the crystal surfaces presumably heated objects in the tray to a malleable state.

Most of the shaping implements on the accompanying workbench looked to be meant for small precise tasks. That made sense, given that the metal components of bows tended to be intricate and detail oriented.

The range master finally arrived, interrupting Fyrenn's examination of a peculiar hook shaped steel tool. She was short, wiry, and gray. She looked to be one of the older Gryphons Fyrenn had seen, and her expression and mannerisms instantly told him she was no slower, nor duller, for her years.

"You're the new Alarian? Good! Light Bows are always a good choice. Fun to make! I'm Si'Kiel."

"Fyrenn," he clasped her foreleg in formal greeting, "Nice to meet you." Her voice reminded him of his grandmother, if only in a small subtle way.

"So. I've laid out some bows, you need to try each of them and let me know what stock of wood, grip type, fitting configuration, and limb length suits you best."

Si'Kiel led him to the edge of the platform facing downrange. They had to walk through several partitions, and Fyrenn noted that there were rooms for storing materials, ammunition, and completed weapons.

The platform was roofed, and several of the rooms were enclosed, so rain and temperature issues had been thought out in advance.

The downrange edge of the platform sported a curved bench, which stood at waist level for the average Gryphon on their hind legs. Five bows were laid out in a row, and several hundred arrows lay in a quiver propped against the bench. To even Fyrenn's unpracticed eye, the differences in the weapons stood out.

Each bow was a different color, a result of the varying types of sapling used in their construction. In each, the metal fittings had similar but different configurations, and last but not least their varying spans greatly altered their characteristics. Or so he assumed.

Si'Kiel smiled, "Have at it. I'm going to go start heating the steel rods for the fittings. When you're done, come find me, and we'll get a sapling and the mechanical fittings."

Fyrenn began at the left end of the line, and fired each bow in sequence several times over, getting the feel for the individual firing characteristics; the way they bent, the arc of the arrow, the velocity, and the impact force. The targets were large clay discs, designed to be highly visible so the shooter could evaluate not just where they had hit, but the way the impact shattered the target.

Fyrenn's sharp eyes spotted exactly four thousand, two hundred and eleven spent arrows within the range area. Since they were metal, and not wont to degrade or damage much on impact, he wondered how often they were collected, repaired or reforged, and put back into use.

In the end he expended almost a quarter of the ammunition he had been given, finally narrowing it down to two weapons, from which he selected a final candidate.

The bow had a grip that registered dead center for thickness, it was neither the thickest nor thinnest of the bunch. The span of the limbs was on the long side, but only the second longest of the five. The fittings looked a bit more intricate than the rest of the bows, and after some experimentation Fyrenn realized they could be used to adjust many aspects of its firing characteristics.

Finally, the bow was made of the darkest wood out of the five. Aside from the pleasant contrast between the aged wood, and the gleaming fittings, the composition seemed to lend the bow strength and durability.

Fyrenn folded it and gave a few experimental flicks to open it, repeatedly.
Doing so gave him an idea, and he hurried back to find Si'Kiel.

"I think I have a candidate."

She took the weapon from him, "Hmmm. Rare choice. Most Alarians who take an Oaken adjustable multi-stage like this are either very foolish, and regret it eventually, or have a lot of natural talent and end up being able to use any bow they touch."

She glared intently, making Fyrenn slightly uncomfortable, "Show me what you can do. I don't feel comfortable going with this unless you're sure you want this design, and can prove to me that you're going to be able to use it right."

Si'Kiel thrust the weapon back into his claws, and led him back to the range.
"Now. Fire away. Give me a good few shots from various positions so I can see how you move and think."

Fyrenn obliged, snapping the weapon to its extended position and letting off his first shot in one smooth motion, born of a touch of overconfidence. The emotion was justified, as his first arrow hit home dead center of the furthest intact target. He quickly went through five more arrows, firing from various positions, and once stopping to adjust the firing arc so he could arc a shot over an obstacle.

The curved arrow nearly missed, but the fact that it hit at all, given his low level of experience, seemed to impress Si'Kiel.

"Alright. You show potential, I'll admit it. Seems like you have a feel for kinesthetics. You ever work a bow before... You know... Coming here?"

Fyrenn nodded, "I shot some practice rounds with crossbows. Before that, I dealt mostly with guns, which are very complex projectile weapons. So maybe some of that experience helps."

Si'Kiel gave him an appraising glare, "Don't stoop to false modesty. You have natural talent, and you need to make sure you hone it. I'll let you make one of these if..." She glared even harder, "*if* you promise to let me train you when you get back from whatever grand hunt they're dragging you off to."

Fyrenn smiled, "Deal!"

"Alright then! Oak it is."

Si'Kiel led him to a room filled with nothing but wood, shaped painstakingly over time by master crafters. She went to the back and dug out an aged looking stock of the same dark oak as the candidate Fyrenn had chosen. She blew a fine layer of dust off it, and wordlessly handed it to him.

Next, they retrieved a few pre-made mechanical components. Si'Kiel informed him they would have to cannibalize two parts from the candidate bow, since they were too intricate to complete that morning, they didn't have time to make them later, and there were none in stock due to their rarity.

Finally, everything was ready. The parts were fairly easy to remove from the original bow, the shaft was ready, and the small collection of thin steel rods in the solar furnace burned white hot.

Fyrenn's original idea came back to him. Si'Kiel had pushed it out of his mind with her impromptu test, but seeing the sharp unprotected edges of the bow's limbs reminded him.

"This is supposed to be a design I can alter right?"

"Well.. In a sense. I'm not gonna let you do anything ridiculous, like add a third limb."

Fyrenn chuckled, "No no.. I just had a thought. Would it be possible to add blades? To the end of the limbs I mean. Retractable, but setup so that the right kind of motion can open them. It'd make the weapon more flexible in its use. This oak stock is, correct me if I'm wrong, incredibly durable, especially when the steel binding is on. It could handle the stress, and it'd give me something I could use as both a ranged weapon, and a basic bladed weapon, in the same moves."

Si'Kiel looked a bit taken aback, "You want blade tips for the limbs?"

Fyrenn nodded. She shook her head in wonderment, "You are only the third Gryphon to ask for that in the one hundred and forty years I've worked here."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "Who were the others?"

"One was a Paladin who went on to become one of the few warriors to slay a Wyvern in single combat. The other was King Siidran."

She stared at Fyrenn for a long uncomfortable moment, her golden eyes seemed to be scanning his soul like a cheap paperback novel, or a news article.

Finally she broke the silence, "You're an interesting Alarian Fyrenn. Most warriors think ahead to battlefield control, but not on the level you do. Keep doing what you're doing."

She turned back to tending the steel rods. Fyrenn assumed that her statement constituted and affirmation of his design alteration.

They spoke on and off, as she instructed him in the shaping of the steel fittings, fashioning of the leather grip, and installation of the more intricate components. She intervened a few times to do tasks that required a particularly high level of skill, but otherwise Fyrenn did most of the actual work under her strict tutelage.

He appreciated the method; It gave him an incredible appreciation for, and understanding of, the new weapon that was taking shape before him. It would make field maintenance and repairs considerably easier.

Another thought occurred to him in the process of attaching several of the fittings, "Is it possible to add plating here, " he gestured to the weapon in two places, "and here? That way, it can be used as a quarterstaff without fear of breaking it at the pressure points."

Si'Kiel nodded, "That's a bit more common than the limb blades. Still kind of an oddity though, but you don't strike me as the type who shies away from unusual equipment."

Fyrenn grinned, "Whatever gave *that* away?"

Si'Kiel offered him a mildly disapproving smirk, and went to collect some spare steel plates, while Fyrenn attached the grip. When Si'Kiel returned, she heated the plates until they glowed slightly, beat them into the proper shape with a small iron hammer, and helped Fyrenn bolt them to the frame of the weapon.

Finally, the bow was complete. Fyrenn was amazed to note that several hours had passed. He had been so intent on the work, that he had lost track of the sun, which was nearing its noon apex.

Si'Kiel gestured to a length of steel cord on the workbench, "Well? G'head. String it."

Fyrenn did as he was told, and Si'Kiel only had to intervene once to correct a mistake.
When he was done, a fully fledged bow stood before him. His weapon, his design, and mostly his work, thanks to Si'Kiel's guiding expertise.

"Can we test it?"

She gave him a look that bluntly informed him his question was stupid.
Of course they were going to test it.

Fyrenn touched down on the concourse, the proud owner of a new Alarian bow.
The weapon had performed exceptionally well during its test firing, and Si'Kiel had even given him a quiver to match.
She told him the leather case meant very little to her, but it had seen action once or twice, so it was well broken in.

The quiver itself was shaped and hardened leather, with a comfortable strap to keep it on, and feather-light intricate steel ornamental binding. It came with a two-flapped cap, the first flap had holes through which fifty arrows could be poked. It provided enough friction that the projectiles could stay in during aerobatics, flight, and sudden jarring movements.

The second cap was a full piece of cylindrical leather that could fasten down and fully close the quiver.

The great hall was nearly deserted, but a passing Sagittar informed him that it was a training day, so lunch was being served wherever various groups of Knights and Squires happened to be doing their exercises. He also told Fyrenn that the nearest group was in a sparring paddock not far from the concourse.

When he arrived, Fyrenn blinked in surprise. The small grass circle was bounded by a short stubby wooden railing, and leaning against it were a variety of young Gryphons. He guessed the youngest was sixteen, but he couldn't be sure. The oldest looked to be twenty or twenty one.

The only other adult there was their instructor, but he seemed intent on repairing a broken gauntlet and didn't look to be up for conversation. Fyrenn though it might seem a little awkward for him to butt in, but he was starving, so he helped himself quietly to some of the food, which consisted of skewers of cold meat laid out on a clean flat stone, open for all to take.

He found a quiet spot to rest near a large upright stone. The slab of granite looked to be part of the mountain that had simply decided to jut up through the grass. He leaned against the cool surface, and bit into his skewer.

It wasn't until she spoke that he realized he had company. "Hey."

He glanced behind him, and saw that a young Gryphon had gotten the same inclination to find a cool quiet eating spot. She was a tawny shade of gold, with a white head sporting light purple eye and crest markings.

Fyrenn nodded, "Hey." He was going to leave it at that, but then his curiosity got the better of him, "So... You're a squire?"

"Yep. 5th rank, and top of my class!" She seemed proud of the accomplishment, so Fyrenn assumed '5th rank' meant she would graduate soon.

"I'm Fyrenn." He offered a claw.

She shook it, briefly, "Gilda. What brings you down here?"

"Food, the best of reasons for going anywhere."

"Heh. I hear ya."

That was it for the conversation. They finished their meals in silence. Gilda looked to be lost in thought, Fyrenn spent the time comparing her coloration and markings to the reconstructed 3D models of Bald Eagles he'd seen in the Natural History Museum.

He had arrived late, so the Squires, Gilda included, finished long before he did, and went back to sparring in pairs. He noted with no small level of interest that they all wore light leather padding with thin, unadorned metal plates on the leg and wing joints.

For weapons, they used wooden quarterstaffs. And they fought rough, though never it seemed out of spite.
The instructor never seemed to need to intervene, they tended to lay off once an opponent was beaten.

Fyrenn fell to watching Gilda specifically as he finished his skewer of meat. He noticed she was amazingly acrobatic, far more so than any in her class. She was also much more aggressive, and while she never crossed the line, she was clearly just a little bit merciless.

Whenever her opponent got a shot in on her, they paid for it in spades with bruises.

At one point the instructor did finally have to intervene.
As he led the winded younger male out of the circle, Fyrenn caught him mumbling something about Gilda being his 'somehow best and worst student.'

Fyrenn knew it wasn't his place to get involved, but he did have some spare time on his claws, and Gilda looked talented. She was still too young to outmatch him, by benefit of his reach at the bare minimum, let alone years of general combat experience, so he felt comfortable from a skill standpoint.

He sidled over and tapped the instructor on the shoulder, then gestured to Gilda, "May I?"

The Gryphon snorted, "Have at it, if she'll let you. Maybe you can knock some proprietary into her. I warn you, she hits *hard.*"

Gilda had been watching the whole exchange, and as Fyrenn moved to join her in the ring, her expression seemed to indicate that she was amused by the situation.

She jerked a thumb at him, "You and me?"

He nodded.

For a moment he thought she would refuse, but instead she shrugged, and added nonchalantly, "Why not? Maybe you'll be a challenge."

Fyrenn removed his bow from its attachment point on the side of the quiver, and snapped it open. The display brought a complete halt to the rest of the mock duels, and everyone quickly exited the ring to give him and Gilda a wide berth. The instructor motioned for his students to watch, and learn.

Fyrenn twirled the bow a few times, getting a feel for it as a quarterstaff, "So... Ever face a Knight in combat?"

Gilda smirked, and moved her own staff through a complex series of twists, "I beat up my instructor once or twice. You don't look to be much better than him."

Fyrenn hooked her staff between the string of the bow and the shaft, and twisted, forcing her to drop the weapon, following through by smacked her lightly on the head with a wing.

"I've been on the field of combat once or twice."
The tone in his voice made the sardonic humor of the statement imminently clear.

Gilda snarled, and lunged after her staff. She was even more agile than Fyrenn had realized, and she nearly left him with a large bruise of his own. But she was also acting purely out of anger, and while that might work against her normal opponents, Fyrenn knew, marginally, better.

He easily deflected the incoming barrage of strokes with the plates of his bow, putting in his own set of harsh raps to Gilda's armor. He didn't want to hurt her, but he did want to jostle her.

Her potential talent was being offset by her emotions. He had experienced the same effect recently enough to be well aware of the signs.

"You know, if you bury your fury enough to leave just a smoldering coal, rather than a haze of red, you might actually be lithe enough to put a shot through."

"Oh yeah? What do *you* know about fury?"

"Plenty." He administered three quick blows which left her face down, beak buried in the grass.
"I know it'll put you flat on your ass faster than anything on the battlefield. From experience."

She lunged, he dodged, "Oh come *on*! You're better than that! You're probably better than *me* if you'd just think for a dang minute."

She ignored his advice, so he thwacked her soundly three more times, punctuating each stroke with a word, "Get! it! together!"

She lifted herself more slowly this time, taking a moment to brush the grass out of her fur and feathers. He thought she might come at him again, but instead she begrudgingly set down her stave, "Alright. I give. How did you do that?"

Fyrenn thought he noted a tiny glisten in the corner of her eyes, and for a moment he was taken so far aback that he didn't speak. Clearly no one else noticed it, so he forged on ahead, "I'll show you." He gestured for her to leave the ring, so the rest of the lesson could resume for everyone else.

The Instructor shot him an expression as he passed, which he interpreted as thanks.

Fyrenn and Gilda resumed their sparring on the far side of the upright stone, moving slowly and making practice moves as they talked, "No, plan your arcs. You want to have as many options for defense and retaliation open as possible after each swing. If you choke up on the grip you'll lose some force, but gain agility and speed. Stop using killing blows to open, save it for when you *know* you have a clear shot."

She grunted, "So what makes you such an expert? You must be an Alarian... Where'd you learn to teach?"

Fyrenn grinned, "I didn't. Most of my experience was as a Special Forces Marine in the Earthgov military."

She whistled, "So you're *that* red Gryphon. The convert. And here I thought Humans were dweebs."

"Nah. Soft skin, brittle bones, very very big brains. And even bigger weapons. I've faced down guns that could punch holes in this mountain."

"Noooo..."

"Yes. Don't count em' out just because they aren't built for war physically. We adapt. You should too."

"Hey! I do just fine!"

Fyrenn shook his head, "You're wasting your potential. Emotion is a helluva pitfall for us Gryphons.
I should know, I've been recently.... *Intimately* introduced to the detrimental effects of the wrong emotions in the wrong places. It's easy to see that losing bothers you. Buck up, and concentrate on the bigger picture."

Gilda lowered her stave and grunted, mumbling, "What if I don't like the bigger picture?"

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, she waved him off, "Nothing that concerns *you!*"

He hadn't meant to get really involved, he figured he was just going to give her some pointers, and then let it be. In truth, he had also wanted a good excuse to test his bow as a melee weapon.

But now that he was in it, he couldn't let it slide.

Something was eating the young Gryphon up from the inside out, and if she hadn't dealt with it yet it was likely because she had no one to help her sort it out. It was a shot in the dark, and a bold deduction, but Fyrenn went for it.

He jammed his bow out, flicking the blades into view from their hidden compartments, blocking her way. She growled, low and menacing.

He snorted, "You know what I think? I think something is eating you up. You know why? Because I know the feeling!"

She shoved the weapon down and made as if to leave, "You don't really know what it's like..."

He hissed, the sound was threatening enough to bring her up short. Her ears instinctively flattened. He punctuated his words with steps, ending with his beak directly in her face, "Yes. I. Do. I don't think *you* know how bad it can really get. I've lost friends. One of whom I had to kill *myself.* So don't pretend your problem is any worse than mine. You want to brush off an offer of a friendly ear? Fine. But don't do it because you think no one else knows how much the world hurts."

He backed off, "Now I dunno what's eating you, but I *do* know what it's like, and I know you probably haven't dealt with it. If you don't? You're only setting yourself up for failure. You don't have to talk to me, but you have to talk to *someone.* Got it?"

Gilda shook her head. Traces of tears were back in the corners of her eyes, but her voice was steady, "I don't have anyone. Dad... Well... He's away on the frontier. Wouldn't take me with him. Won't be back for a year or more."

Fyrenn knew better than to ask about her mother. Gryphons had a truly hardwired morality. They didn't experience infidelity, let alone divorce, so it likely meant she was dead.

He once again went out on a limb, "Well you can talk to me then. It sure as heck isn't anything to be ashamed of, if *that's* what you're thinking. Humans have a phrase, 'shit happens.' '"

She cocked her head, "Shit---?"

He interrupted her, "It means erhm.... uh..."

"Oooooh! Hah! That's a new one!"
Her momentary amusement was short lived.

Fyrenn pressed her, "Well? When else re you going to get a chance to pour it all out to someone you will probably never see again? There can be comfort in that if your pride has already taken a beating."

Wordlessly, she sat down on her haunches in the shade of the rock. Fyrenn sat beside her, and waited patiently. She began, haltingly at first, then picked up momentum as bottled up fear, anger, and resentment finally saw the light of day.

"Dad's away... Mom... She was gone before I was old enough to know her. Mining accident. How *lame* is that?"

She paused, holding back tears, "So I'm an acrobat, right? I mean I'm *awesome!* The schools here? They're mainly focused on combat acrobatics, warfare and long distance flying. I aced all the courses, then wanted more. So I went to Pegasus flight school. They go for the pure acrobatics you know? And I think maybe it ticked off my Dad."

Fyrenn nodded, "You wanted his attention."

"Yeeeah."

"Well does he love you?"

"Sure! He's just... Busy. Always. He's the Champion Paladin for our Kingdom, and while he holds the title he... Well there's an endless stream of dweeby Diamond Dogs pestering him for mining rights in the area. We have a lot of gems out there on the Desert."

Fyrenn nodded again, this time letting her continue under her own power.

"So I went away to flight school and I met someone. Rainbow. Dash."
She said the words reverently, the way one might refer to a family member.

She snorted and continued, "Dash? She's awesome! Even by Gryphon standards. I'd never met a Pony with that kinda... well... Spunk. You know? So we became friends. Everyone else was kinda scared of me, but Dash? She even tried meat once! On a whim! Out of curiosity! Can you believe that? A Pony and meat?"

Fyrenn chuckled, an image of IJ grimacing her way past a scallop forcing its way into his mind's eye.

Gilda continued, "Anyways. For Four years, we were the *best* friends. She was family, by the end. Real family. My sister."

Fyrenn nodded, "So... What happened?"

Gilda snorted, "Dweebs happened. So awhile back, I get some free time from training... And there's a yearly envoy group going to Canterlot. Dad got me a spot tagging along. Where Dash lives is only a short flight away from Canterlot, so I dropped in for a visit."

"And?"

Gilda growled, "And she had... Friends."

Fyrenn shrugged, "Your point?"

Gilda switched from depression to rage faster than Fyrenn could pull a pin from a grenade, "My POINT?! My point is she was FAMILY to me! They had no BUSINESS trying to shut me OUT of her LIFE!"

And in the space of a heartbeat, she flipped back to depression. Gilda began to cry, full out sobbing, burying her head in Fyrenn's shoulder, near the crook of his wing.

He awkwardly patted her back, not sure how to deal with the storm of tears.
He hadn't bargained for such a complicated situation. Most Earthgov soldiers never cried openly to their squadmates.

Fyrenn waited for the tears to end, then he offered Gilda short sharp hug.
"Now. Tell me everything. But especially how it makes you feel."

For the next hour, to his abject amazement, she poured out her heart.
She gave him a full recounting of the situation, and slowly, Fyrenn's unique perspective as a Convert brought the picture into focus for him.

When she had finished, he sat still for several moments.
Gilda had moved away again, seemingly embarrassed by her outburst, but deep down he knew she had needed a literal shoulder to cry on. A father, or bigger brother figure. He had been there.

He took a deep breath, and did the scariest thing he had done in months.
He offered relationship advice.

"It sounds to me, like it was a misunderstanding. I'm new to this, but I just got adopted into a family and let me tell you... If Kephic and Varan's friends acted that way, I'd have a hard time not taking it as them trying to shut me out. But I've been a Human too. I carry most of that with me still. And that side of me knows that what they were doing wasn't meant to exclude you at all."

Gilda stammered, "But but..."

"Let me finish." Fyrenn paused to see if she would wait, then forged ahead, "I know a few Ponies. To them, friendship is this wonderful bubbly casual-yet-somehow-incredibly-deep connection with no rules, written or unwritten. Just the unconditional love of friends."

He thumbed his chest, "For us? The love of family is, in one sense, unconditional, but we still have unwritten rules. Dash probably understood enough of those on an instinctive level to bond with you, but not enough to prevent the blow-up you just described. If I had to guess, and I often do, I'd say what you expected was for her to value you above them. After all, you're family, they're just friends. Right?"

Gilda nodded, wiping a stray tear from the purple feathers around her eyes.

"Wrong."

She cocked her head, "Whaddya mean?! We *are* family!"

Fyrenn nodded, "Yes. You are. But so are her friends. She just acts differently towards them because it's a different kind of family bond, one that we don't instinctively understand from the get-go. We have to learn it. Just as most Ponies have to learn what a Gryphon familial bond is, or what Human relationships are, and vice versa. That misunderstanding led to you thinking they were trying to shut you out, and your reaction made them think you were... Well... How do you say it? A 'dweeb.' "

Gilda sat back, looking dazed, but gradually her expression turned sour, "Well what does it matter anyways? She's never gonna wanna talk to me again...." She idly scrawled patterns in the grass with her index talon.

Fyrenn smacked her lightly, almost imperceptibly, upside the back of the head, "Stop that *right* now. If she really was family to you, then you by far and away haven't crossed any kind of unforgiveable line. Now if you go back there, apologize to her, and then explain why you felt like you did, then you'll probably get a hug, a laugh, a smile, and you'll get your life back."

Gilda looked aghast, "APOLOGIZE?! *they* were the ones who---"

"Yes. And no. Their unintentional offense against you is *no* smaller than *your* unintentional offense against them. But if you apologize first, you take the high ground, and the noble route. That gives them room to understand. And once they understand, they'll probably apologize too, and who knows... Maybe they're not so dweeby as you think. Family mergers happen right? Maybe you'll come out of it with a bigger family."

Gilda looked a bit taken aback, so Fyrenn pressed on, "Worst case? Absolute worst case, where she kicks you out and tells you never come back? Then at least you have closure to it, and you can get the hell on with your life. But don't sit on this. You're a Gryphon. We don't sit on things, we *act.*"

Fyrenn punctuated his final word with a solid thump to her shoulder blades.

Gilda gave him a look that was a confusing mixture of gratitude, melancholy, hope, and curiosity, "Who *are* you really anyways? Why do all this for me? Why bother?"

Fyrenn sighed, "Because once? I let a break with a friend... A brother... Go unfixed. And it led to him throwing a grenade at me. I had to shoot him. I walked away from it. He didn't." He fixed Gilda with his gaze, hoping his own eyes could convey the meaning in his words, "Don't'! Let! This! Sit!"

She nodded, "All Right... I guess. The next envoys go in..."

Fyrenn shook his head, "No. You go *now.*"

She sighed, "I can't. I couldn't make that kind of trip alone at my age, they would never let me... And no one is gonna volunteer to go with me."

Fyrenn smiled, "I would, but I have... Other concerns."

Her face fell, he grinned, "But I think I know someone who could arrange for it if I asked nicely on your behalf."

She looked up, and smirked, "Nah. It'd probably take an order from the King to get me leave from training for a personal visit."

Fyrenn stood grinning. It took her a few seconds to catch on.

"No. Way. You know the King?"

"Yes. Way."

Fyrenn spent the rest of his free time that afternoon making a young gold and white Gryphon, with purple crest marks, very happy.

And very hopeful.

He hadn't intended to become involved, but deep down it made him feel warm and content to have helped Gilda.

As he left the great hall, leaving an astonished Gilda in the capable claws of Linnea, thoughts of what it would be like to have a son or daughter of his own pried their way into his brain, and not for the first time.

He admitted the appeal to himself, then banished them swiftly.
Aside from his inhibitions, he had plenty of other things on his mind.
Not the least of which was a good set of armor.

Chapter 30

It turned out that the armory was a massive hollowed out space buried deep inside the mountain.
The complex was protected by foot-thick iron doors with steel plating, at each of its four entrances.

Fyrenn imagined, judging by the complexity of the machinery that governed their movement, that they could snap shut instantly with enough force to slice any living creature, regardless of size or armor, in half.

The armory contained a warren of rooms connected to a single vaulted hall that housed armor and weapons enough to equip an emergency defensive force of four hundred Gryphons at a minute's notice.
Beyond the central hall, there were storage rooms for materials and completed gear, forges, and curing leather.

The space smelled strongly of the aforementioned substance, combined with the tang of burning coal in the forges, and the distinctive scent of super-heated metals.

As Fyrenn stood taking in the sights and smells, two burly male Gryphons approached from a side-chamber. He immediately noticed that they were very much alike, except for subtle differences in their blue and black patterning.

Both sported leather sashes hung with a variety of small tools, and both looked as if they'd spent a lot of time recently in proximity to a bellows. They were caked with coal dust up one side and down the other.

The one on Fyrenn's left smiled broadly, "Ah! So you're on-time! Good! Welcome to the armory. I'm Serath...."

The one on Fyrenn's right picked right up, "...and I'm Sorath. Twins, if you hadn't guessed."

Fyrenn smiled, "Nice to meet you. Isn't that rare for us? Twins?"

Serath nodded, "Oh aye. But sometimes a family can have two eggs at once, and of those times very occasionally, you get twins."

Sorath picked up the conversation right where his brother had left off, "So you'll be wanting to forge a proper set of armor then? Something you can pass on with pride!"

Serath nodded, "Alarian? Aren't you? Right! Try to keep up! We've got lots to do, and according to orders from higher up very little time to do it."

"We usually prefer to do armor over the course of a week...."

"...But it's not impossible to get it done, and done right, in a day."

The way the twins finished each other's sentences and lines of thought was starting to make Fyrenn's head spin. The visually similar pair lead him back through a series of rooms, passing by stacks of sheet metal, cylinder ingots of pure iron, and crates of diamonds, finally arriving in a large domed stone room with an enormous forge set into the opposite wall.

The heat was so intense, Fyrenn was already slightly uncomfortable at the entrance.

Several other Gryphons were hard at work, one of whom was removing some sort of crucible from the sun-like intense fires. Fyrenn could see that the iron inside wasn't just molten, it was so hot it was nearly evaporating.

If the furnace could do that to iron, that begged the question; What was the crucible made of?
It wasn't even red hot.

Fyrenn asked the twins, eliciting a chuckle.

Sorath pointed, "The crucible? Twice-recrystallized diamond, with mica lacing. Celestia's sun probably couldn't melt it..."

Serath snorted, "...But it's so brittle you could break it jus' by sneezin' on it."

Sorath shrugged, "Right then! Shall we?" He lead the group to a side room, insulated from the furnace's heat with extra thick walls. Most of the room was occupied by a shaped-stone table, covered from end to end in the Gryphon equivalent of drafting paper.

Fyrenn noted that most of the designs were for variants of armor plates.

The twins began their own hushed high speed conversation, "So he's an Alarian..."
"...which means he'll be needing...."
"...oh aye. That, and a set of good gauntlets..."
"...true but what about...?"
"...of course that too..."

Fyrenn coughed, loudly, "Uh... Care to include me in the design phase?"

Sorath looked up apologetically, "Ah sorry 'bout that. We tend to go on at times..."

Serath smirked, "Aye that we do. Come have a look."

Fyrenn leaned over the table, taking in the central design, and the myriad of smaller sheets the twins had assembled around it. The basic layout was reminiscent of the armor he had worn on Earth, but the design was more intricate. The other diagrams were variants on designs for nearly every component.

Fyrenn could just barely make out the Gryphic for 'Alarian,' and noted that it appeared on all the sheets. Apparently, Sagittars had a different set of designs.

That sparked another question in his mind, "So what about Paladins? Do they have specific armor?"

Sorath nodded, Serath shook his head, both spoke in turn, "They don' 'sactly have *a* specific design..."

"...They just get to come back and have access to special materials, and help to have their current set modified however they like. Usually after a few years o' battle, a warrior has some idea for modifications an' enhancements."

"We've seen some suits four or five times over, as they were passed down from father to son, modified then, and then again every time he advanced in rank and so on..."

Fyrenn whistled, "Well, I'll just be happy to have something to call my own. I feel... odd.
Not having my own gear set."

The twins smiled and spoke in perfect unison, "We know 'sactly whatcha mean."

Fyrenn leaned over the table again, and gave the diagrams a thorough once over.
He then spent the next fifteen minutes plying the twins with questions on the functionality, durability, weight, and complexity of the various combinations of components.

He found it easy to visualize completed designs, and it didn't take long for him to come to an internal consensus on the components he wanted. He even had a few ideas about modifications that might be of use to him in combat.

He gestured to some writing implements, and the paper, "May I?"

Sorath nodded, "They're copies rubbed from permanent etchings. Have at it."

It took him a few minutes to get down the changes he wanted.

Serath and Sorath counseled him in several places, and occasionally asked questions on the purpose of a change, or what Fyrenn's English written notations meant.

When he was done, he had a sleek aggressive suit of medium weight flexible armor, with a special notch in the right gauntlet to assist in multi-arrow nocking, deployable hidden blades in both arm guards and lower leg guards, and hidden wicked looking snap-out curved blades in the wing-joint guards.

He glanced at the twins, "It's not... *Too* unique is it?"

"Nah! Every suit of Knight's armor is unique."

"All similar..."

"...but all unique..."

"...and they tend ta' get more unique wit' time."

Fyrenn jerked his head at the assembled sketches, "So can we build it?"

Sorath chuckled, "Do axes leave very big dents in skulls?"

Sorath and Serath offered to take forge duty, but Fyrenn wanted some experience in every part of the process, so for a few minutes he endured the sweltering heat of the open flaming maw, and got a lesson in using a crucible to melt ores, and create alloy.

Much to his astonishment, Sorath informed him that armor and swords were made of a titanium like alloy, something Fyrenn thought only humans had the technology to create. The process was taxing and expensive however, so steel, bronze, iron, and other easier to refine materials were preferred in the construction of anything else.

An even further shock was the discovery that Gryphons had developed some sort of special secret method for melting, molding, and re-crystallizing diamond into a matrix of incredible durability. Armor plates thus consisted of leather backing, to ease contact against feathers and fur, a thin alloy plate, a woven matrix of diamond crystal, and then another slightly thicker alloy plate.

The entire assembly would be almost exactly as thick as the solid metal plate in any other armor, but would be much more durable.

Fyrenn commented on the fact, as the Twins brought down molding clay from a shelf.

Serath nodded, "Aye. It's so durable, that Celestia herself pays us to make armor for her royal guards..."

"...and her sister's night guards," Sorath finished.

Fyrenn chuckled, "What does she pay you in?"

"Corn, and Apples." The twins said in unison.

"Apples?"

"Oh aye. Most varietals won't grow up here, winter's cold kills tha' trees..."

"...and tho we dun' need em,' we do like em..."

"...'sides which, it augments our harvests and hunting nicely. Big appetites and all."

The trio turned to making the armor molds.

Fyrenn was not surprised to find that the armory stocked metal inverses of the basic molds, which would be used to make the actual base clay mold. Once it was complete, it would be modified to suit a particular unique design, baked solid, and then it would be ready for the molten alloy.

Each individual piece of the armor would require two molds, one for each layer of metal.
The crystalline weave sandwiched in between would be created while the molds were cooling.

The twins wouldn't let Fyrenn help with the mold creation process. Time was short, and even a tiny mistake would be costly. It was a task best left to professionals. Fyrenn watched intently, however, and extracted a promise that they would let him come back and practice mold making at some point in the future.

He found himself deeply fascinated by the armor and weapon making process.
He wondered if perhaps he hadn't found himself a peacetime calling, but that was a question to explore in peacetime.

Once the molds were finished, baked, and cooling, the twins introduced Fyrenn to the crystalline matrix creation process. Some parts of the formula were secret, known only to those who made the substance, but the actual creation of the matrix was very simple.

Water was poured into a large sheet-mold of hexagonal spaces, and a specially treated diamond dust, plus the secret chemical, were added to the mix. Within moments, the matrix rubberized.
It could then be laid over the base piece of armor. The top metal layer would be partly reheated before being affixed, and the temperature transfer would flash-harden the weave.

Pouring the alloy into the molds was easy from a skill standpoint, but was a slow painstaking process that required care to avoid spilling liquid metal onto a limb. Sorath took the helmet, and greaves, Serath took the leg pieces and back-piece, and Fyrenn took the chest-pieces.

Once the task was complete, Fyrenn sighed in relief.
The twins offered him some water from a chilled canteen, which he gratefully imbibed.
The work had been hot, tedious, and a bit frightening. A single slip in concentration would result in painful disaster.

The diamond crystal matrix could not be applied until the metal plates cooled, so the next item was cutting the leather for the backing, assembling buckles and straps, and creating the mechanisms for the six deployable blades Fyrenn's design called for.

Most of the required springs, catches, and pivots were already stocked by the armory, so it only took some miscellaneous filing to bring them up to specifications. The leatherworking was easy; The knives and shaping tools were intuitive and well made.

By the time they had finished creating all the individual pieces of the armor, Fyrenn's stomach told him it was almost dinner time. He understood why the twins usually insisted on spreading out the process. Given the nature of each stage, it would be easier to do armor in groups, taking it at a stage per day.

By that point the metal plates had fully cooled. Applying the leather backing, and crystal matrix was easy. The three Gryphons divided it into an assembly line; Fyrenn riveted the leather backing on, Sorath applied and straightened the matrix. Finally, Serath heated the top plate and affixed it. The temperature did not have to be raised by much, the plates could even still be handled with bare claws.

Once it was all said and done, the final step was adding the myriad straps and buckles, and finishing up the blade mechanisms.

The completed set finally sat before the trio, laid out on the stone of a large workbench.

Fyrenn smiled, "So... Can I try it on?"

Serath shook his head, "Needs decoration..."

Sorath nodded in agreement, "...got ta leave your mark on it."

"Now you can't paint it red, you're red, and it would just blend...."

"...and you can't use blue, it'd clash...."

Fyrenn considered, for a moment, while the two bickered good naturedly, before finally interjecting with his own opinion, "How about Bronze? it's strong, and a good color match for unpainted silver, and my red feathers."

Sorath beamed, "Aye! Bronze! Why didn't I think of it?"

Serath chuckled, "Because you're the dumber of us."

"At least I can hit the broadside of a door, you can't aim for pinfeathers."

"Shall we bring up your abominable axe skills again?"

The twins continued to argue, good naturedly, as they set to heating a small quantity of bronze.
Fyrenn sketched out some designs for the placement; He primarily wanted to use it as trimming along edges and joints. He also wanted his clan and family combined emblem in the center of the chest-piece, which the twins told him was a very common request.

It took another two hours, and all three Gryphons were quite hungry by the end, but once the modifications were complete the armor looked amazing, even as pieces strewn out over a table.

Sorath chuckled, "*Now* you can try it on."

Serath clapped Fyrenn on the shoulders, "We never let a Knight leave until his armor looks as good as it actually is."

Fyrenn carefully, slowly, strapped on each individual piece, making sure it fit properly and comfortably when cinched before moving on to the next. When he was done, the twins whistled in unison.

Sorath grinned, "My my, you look *quite* the business."

Serath laughed, "Aye! that you do! Let's find you a mirror."

It turned out there was a mirror in one of the antechambers, put there specifically for armor fitting. When he saw his reflection, Fyrenn pulled up short, and stared.

He did indeed look 'the business.' The bronze highlights made a perfect counterpoint to the gleaming silver of the plates, and the red of his fur and feathers. The angles and curves had materialized exactly as he envisioned them. He didn't just look intimidating, he looked incredibly dangerous.

He finally remembered to breathe, and set about testing the deployable blades.
His claws and talons and beak were already formidable sharp weapons, but the addition of blades to the gauntlets and greaves would let him do added damage through other arcs of motion. The blades in his wing joints would turn them from an impact weapon, into a surprise instantaneous killing blow if used at the right time.

Fyrenn tore his gaze off his reflection, and looked back at the twins, "Thank you. This is... Well... It'd be the first armor I ever got sentimentally attached to. And that's saying a lot. I hope you'd be willing to teach me more if I came back."

They nodded. Sorath spoke up, "We need a new designer, one of our best died a few seasons back..."

"...but you'd have a lot to learn. Still, you should consider it."

Fyrenn smiled, "I'll keep the idea in mind."

Since the training 'day' lasted long into the night, dinner was being served to training groups wherever they happened to be. Most were, as Fyrenn discovered, quite far afield doing combat exercises, so he had to seek out the commissary and collect some food himself.

He took a large portion of scallops, some bread loaves, meat skewers, and a tankard of apricot juice up to the great hall. The room was deserted, and the only light came from the setting sun, and smoldering coals in the massive hearth.

Fyrenn stoked a few of them up, and had just begun to heat his skewers, when he noticed he was being watched. He looked up to see Neyla standing in one of the entry ways.

He waved, "Join me?"

She hesitated, but upon seeing the food, she ambled over.

Much as she was obviously trying to avoid it, she couldn't take her eyes off Fyrenn's new armor.
He hadn't removed it, he reasoned he needed to break it in. Truthfully, he just wanted an excuse to wear it some more.

"Hungry?"

She nodded, "Famished actually. I got caught up in the library again. Lost track of time."

Fyrenn nodded, "Here..." He divided his food swiftly into two equal portions.

She smiled, "Thank you." She paused, then nodded at his shoulder, "Your armor is quite well made. I wish I could afford a complete set."

"You don't have a full set of armor?"

She shook her head, and bit into a scallop, "Being a Sentinel doesn't always pay well, and I burn through my citizen stipend quickly with travel expenses. I haven't had a major contract yet, so I could afford either good armor, or good weapons to start out. I decided to go with good weapons."

Fyrenn chuckled, "Good choice."

They ate in awkward silence for a few minutes, before he tried to jumpstart the conversation again. Neyla looked melancholy, and he figured he had already had success cheering up one sad Gryphon that day.

"So... What do you need with old clan records?"

Neyla sighed, "You might as well know the story."

She bit into a piece of bread, chewed thoughtfully, then began, "Once, my family was part of a clan. But it was a small one, and mostly wiped out during the first Diamond Dog war. My father's father was stubborn, and refused to merge, or start over. So our family, the last, became Sentinels by trade. My father continued the tradition. I'd rather not."

"Oh?"

"No. I respect his decision, but I am not my father, and he knew that. I was hoping to find a record I could use to lay claim to clan assets. Once it's official, I can bring in other clanless Gryphons looking for a home. The only other way is to marry into a family with assets who are clanless, or willing to split off from a clan. But... Well... I'm not interested in that."

Fyrenn laughed, "I know exactly how *that* feels."

She glanced over at him with renewed interest, "You do not wish to settle down with a mate? You mentioned it at the feast but... I find it hard to believe. Most creatures are social, we are no different."

"I just... Well I was never comfortable with the loss of control. Everyone tells me that will change when the right person comes along but... I doubt it."

Neyla seemed to relax, and she chuckled, "Well it's nice to hear someone say that. Our kind is chivalrous, but can be a bit forward. I hate meeting a new male, only to find out he sees me as a potential mate."

Fyrenn snorted, "Well I can see why. You're intelligent, kind, and..."

She cocked her head, and smiled, "And?"

"Well I was going to say beautiful, but I was afraid you'd take it wrong."

She blushed, "At least you're honest, though I think you give me too much credit."

Another long awkward silence passed, before Fyrenn made another attempt to smooth things over, "So, any luck with the clan records?"

She sighed deeply, "No. A lot of records that were kept in various villages were destroyed in the war. I'm afraid any documents entitling me to land, or resources, are long gone."

"So what will you do now?" Fyrenn sipped his juice, then offered the tankard to Neyla.
Gryphons didn't seem shy about sharing cups, and she accepted.

"Keep traveling I suppose. I can always hope the records exist somewhere, and I need to find a new contract before I exhaust what meager savings gold I have."

"Why not become a Knight?"

Neyla scoffed, and passed the tankard back, "Me? A Knight? Hardly. I wouldn't be able to handle the structure. I prefer my independence, and I'm too used to it to have to obey a command structure, however flexible it might be."

Fyrenn grinned and cocked his head, "I wouldn't have taken you for the rebellious type."

She laughed outright, "If my father were still alive, he'd probably want to nail you to the wall.
I was a roving terror when I was a fledgling. Drove him out of his mind some days."

Fyrenn smiled, and stared down into the remaining liquid in the wooden vessel, "My father would have said the same. My one dream was to be a pilot"

Neyla raised an eyebrow, "Those metal airships? You called them 'Scythes'..."

Fyrenn nodded, "It was all I thought about, all I talked about, and I used to run screaming through the apartment with this set of flying goggles on, pretending to be up there... In the clouds... Of course I could have never known how much better it is to do it on your own wings. But I did manage to break a vase and a lamp or two."

Neyla guffawed, "Somehow, I can visualize you doing that just fine."

Fyrenn inclined his head, "I do have a habit of shooting, slicing, exploding, and crushing things."

There was a third silence then, but it was amicable, and not the least bit awkward.
The two Gryphons had bonded and gotten a basic understanding of one another, and each found the other to be free of the suspected characteristics had that privately worried them.

As they finished, Fyrenn let Neyla explain some of her hopes and dreams for a new clan.
She had a head for logistics, and visions of a highland castle on the frontier, full of love, friendship, strength and opportunity. It sounded like the kind of life Fyrenn himself would want, assuming everything eventually settled down.

Finally, Neyla trailed off, and Fyrenn got up, "Well, I have to return all of this..." He gestured to the eating implements, "...And see about a sword."

Neyla nodded, and smiled, "Thank you for the meal. And for listening."

Fyrenn smiled, "Anytime."

Sword forging was such an intricate and technical process, that rather than making them in the armory furnace, the Gryphons had set up a specifically constructed forge just for making bladed weapons.

The structure was outside the mountain, built at ground level out of the smooth seamless shaped-stone that seemed so ubiquitous in Gryphic construction.

Fyrenn arrived to find a thinning, older, impatient looking auburn and white male Gryphon waiting for him. The moon was just rising, and the silvery light gave a strange cast to his feathers.

"Good! You're here. We need to get started right away. I'm Keilal, you're Fyrenn. Now that that's out of the way, we need to get your grip size, blade length, and balance point figured out."

What followed was a whirlwind tour of twenty different swords, all of varying make, as Keilal forced Fyrenn to repeat the same set of maneuvers with each so he could evaluate his stance, style, and grip.

Once he was finished, he shoved some blank paper and a quill at Fyrenn, "Now, I expect you'll want to design your hilt. I have to go begin the heating process for the alloys."

He stepped to the doorway, which lead into the furnace room, and cast a glare back at Fyrenn, "Don't touch anything."

Fyrenn fell to sketching. He wanted something significant, but he couldn't think what.
As Keilal hurried back through with a stack of metal sheets, he inquired as to what most warriors put on their hilts.

"Mmmm... Most like to use their clan symbol, and inset it with a chunk of their eggshell. But you don't have an eggshell. So... I wouldn't know." With that, the hyperactive Gryphon hurried back to the forge.

Fyrenn sat and tapped the quill against the page a few more times, before inspiration struck.
He scribbled furiously, and finished just in time for Keilal's return.

"What did you decide on?"

Fyrenn showed him the design.

The auburn Gryphon sniffed, "It looks like a constellation. Or a rune."

"It's a cutie mark. A memorial to a friend, who died."

That seemed to resonate a bit with Keilal, who nodded appreciatively, "A noble and worthwhile choice then. Let us begin. Just so you understand, you are here to watch only. This is a delicate process, and I can't have you upsetting it."

True to Keilal's word, the creation of the blade was a mesmerizing, confusing, and delicate process that seemed more art than science. It involved heating and cooling in certain patterns, layering malleable white-hot metals back on themselves, with shafts or sheets of diamond crystal sandwiched in, and finally pouring some sort of molten substance over the whole object, then sharpening it while it was still hot.

Keilal placed the blade into a special tray, and set it partly into the furnace to keep it glowing, then set about making the hilt.

Fyrenn was amazed to see the Gryphon's claws work on pure metal with such alacrity and precision. Most of the tools involved had small precise tips, and sometimes Keilal used the tips of his own talons. Fyrenn wondered if years of dipping the tips into red-hot steel had dulled any of their textural sense.

When the hilt was finished, Keilal asked him to test the grip, then abruptly repossessed it, and set about attaching the blade. The hilt had been forged directly into a shaft of pure diamond, which stuck out from it approximately half a foot. Keilal slowly, but surely, shoved the shaft into the still malleable metal of the blade itself, cementing the length of metal to the hilt.

He then dipped the weapon swiftly into a standing vat of oil.
The resulting steam cloud filled the forge, and when it dissipated, Fyrenn beheld the complete weapon.

The blade was silvery, but had a slight blue specular to it when the light caught it. The hilt was steel, with Skye's cutie mark inlaid in bronze.

The weapon was of middling length. It could be used with one claw, or two, making it a 'one and a half claw' sword; A common Alarian melee weapon standard. The balance, Fyrenn discovered as he twirled the new weapon, was made, literally, just for him.

The entire process had taken nearly seven hours, and the moon had passed its apex.
Keilal seemed much more friendly and relaxed, now that his work was done. Given the precision demanded of him by his job, Fyrenn realized it was amazing he was as controlled as he appeared to be.

"It is beautiful." he remarked, tilting the blade so that the moon brought out the blueish tint.

Kielel nodded, "That's nearly unbreakable metal now. The flash cooling permanently cements it. You'd be hard pressed to dull, scratch, melt, or bend it. You still need a scabbard though, to keep it clean, and yourself safe. That I am willing to let you make. If you helped with the leatherworking of your armor, then you should be capable enough."

Keilal supplied him with a pre-cut piece of leather, some bronze filigree, a riveting tool, and a few heated coals in a stone dish, to make the bronze malleable if necessary.

Fyrenn spent half an hour assembling the leather covering, carefully working his clan design into the outer mid-section with the bronze. The metal turned out to be surprisingly easy to work with.
When he was finished, he strapped the scabbard to his back, beside his bow and quiver, and placed the sword in it.

Kielel nodded, "Now you look the proper warrior."

"Thank you. I'm quite glad to have a sword to call my own."

"Treat it well, and spill much enemy blood with it."

"Oh..." Fyrenn grinned deviously, "I intend to."

Fyrenn returned to his room. He wasn't sure where he was supposed to meet Kephic and Varan for their evening's activities, so he figured he would drop off his bow, and parts of his armor.
The gear was designed so it could have components removed, and still work as passable light armor.

He needn't have worried, however, as Kephic and Varan were already waiting for him.

Kephic whistled through his beak, "That's quite a suit of armor."

Varan raised an eyebrow, "Well designed. And I see Keilal has been busy..."

Fyrenn nodded, "I'm *thrilled.* I haven't been this happy to get something new since Christmas as a ten year old kid."

He removed his helmet, parts of the armor, his quiver, and bow, placing them on the armor stand in their appropriate places.

Kephic gestured for him to follow, and he and Varan led Fyrenn through to mountain in a general downwards direction, "We need to select our final team-mate."

Varan grunted, a sound Fyrenn assumed was intended to convey displeasure, "There's a list?"

Kephic held up a sheaf of scrolls, "Five Candidates from Sildinar. Two Alarians, three Sagittars. All with impeccable records."

As they descended, he read out the description of each, which included a small but detailed evaluation of their personalities.

Finally, the group reached a long, low hall, that Fyrenn realized with a start, connected to one of the Armory entrance-ways at one end.

The space was full of packs, crates, and supplies of all kinds.

Varan had a mental list of the gear they would need, and they went through the stacks of provisions, selecting the required materials.

It was a short list, Gryphons traveled light on hunting trips.

It mostly consisted of basic emergency medical items, a small cache of non-perishable backup food provisions, and a small kit of tools for maintaining weapons and armor.

If they split the load, they would each be carrying less than ten pounds of gear. Most food and water would be collected in the wild as-needed.

The brothers gathered around the small pile of gear, and a moment of silence passed.
Kephic snorted, "Ignoring it won't make it go away. We need to select a candidate."

Fyrenn voiced their shared sentiment, "It's not that any of them sound... Unpleasant... It's just that none of them sound right for the group. Does that make any sense?"

Varan nodded silently.

They stood for a few minutes, deep in thought, before an idea occurred to Fyrenn.
He was slow to voice it, but it took hold and worked its way into his head. An insistent little voice of inspiration. Or Providence.

"What about Neyla?"

Varan looked taken aback, Kephic looked intrigued.

When they didn't immediately shoot the idea down, Fyrenn continued, babbling a little in his haste to express the thought, "She needs the gold. We could pay her with my first stipend, I don't need it and I'll likely have a second one by the time we get back..."

Varan stared at the wall, pondering, but Kephic spoke, "Are you sure that is a good idea? We don't know her all that well..."

Fyrenn nodded, "But I know her better than any of us know the Gryphons on that list, no offence to them."

Kephic nodded, "No, I see what you mean, but I'm asking if you're *sure.* This is an important decision."

Fyrenn nodded again, more emphatically, "Yes. I think she's a good fit for the group. Call it instinct, and a flash-judgement of character."

Varan finally added his input, "I'm with Fyrenn. Better the companion you know, than anyone else."

Kephic looked pensive, then nodded his agreement, "Very well, I agree also. Have you mentioned this to her?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "No. It just occurred to me, though I'm surprised it didn't earlier."

"Alright, then you propose it to her. We'll be in the great hall making a final check of our personal gear." Kephic hefted half of the assorted items on the floor, and Varan went for the other.

The speckled black and white Gryphon shot Fyrenn a final glance, "I hope you're right about her. I'd much rather have someone along who will get along with us."

It took Fyrenn several minutes to find Neyla. He started in the library, correctly assuming she would still be there, searching. The problem was finding the section dedicated to clan records.

In the end, he just kept guessing, until he found her, lying on a large pillow digging through a pile of scrolls and making notes on a small piece of paper.

"Burning the midnight oil?"

She glanced up, an expression of curiosity on her beak, "What?"

"Human expression. Pre-electrical lighting in some eras relied on oil lamps. Means 'staying up too late.' "

Neyla snorted, "Sleep is for the weak."

Fyrenn chuckled, "Maybe." He paused, and took a deep breath, "I have a question for you. More of a proposition."

That seemed to get her full attention and she stood, looking a bit nervous.

Fyrenn forged ahead, "We need a sixth member for our group. We're hunting a Diamond Dog pack in the northern wastes, they can lead us to high up leaders of the PER, a faction of terrorists on Earth. I want you to be the sixth member."

Neyla's expression worried him, so he continued, more quickly, "We'll pay you, or rather I will. My whole first stipend."

She looked shocked, "You would part with that much.... Just to have *me* along? why?"

"Because I know you better than I know any of the other candidates, and I think you'd be good for the group."

Neyla looked torn. Fyrenn couldn't even begin to analyze the myriad of variables that must be worrying her, influencing her final decision in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

After almost a minute, she locked eyes with him, "This is for a good cause?"

"These terrorists? They take away people's free will and choice."

"And the rest of the group?"

"I don't know if you'll like IJ. And Stanley... Well... He's a good guy deep down, but hard to get used to."

Neyla hummed pensively, "At least you're honest."

"That seems to be the running theme."

She chuckled, and thought for a few more moments, "Alright. I'll do it. I need the gold, the cause is good, and I think I can handle the group. Kephic and Varan seemed nice enough when I met them at the feast, and you're..."

Fyrenn smiled, "What?"

Neyla smirked, "Well I was going to say 'a wonderful Gryphon' but I was afraid you'd take it wrong"

"At least you're honest."

Neyla laughed, "Haven't we had this conversation?"

Fyrenn grinned, "Wasn't it the other way around?"

She shook her head, "You have quite a sense of humor. Well... In short, yes. I'll come with you. Though once you find out how troublesome I can be, you might end up regretting it."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Somehow, I doubt that."

Chapter 31

Fyrenn woke over an hour before dawn.

The group's first destination, the northernmost Gryphon settlement, was a day's hard flight away. They would have to make an early start if they wanted to arrive on time and still have enough hours of darkness left over for a short rest.

Fyrenn took a brief shower, then indulged himself for a moment in staring at the armor rack.
Unlike previous suits of standard issue military gear he had utilized over the years, this new creation was his; Both conceptually, and literally.

As he carefully strapped on each piece, and cinched it tight to avoid chafing, he wondered what a product of combined human and Gryphon design might look like.

Human armor had energy diffusion technology, which could absorb energy based projectiles, such as the blast from a laser pistol or particle rifle, and a kinetic absorption gel layer designed to reduce damage from falls, blunt strikes, and blast waves.

Gryphon armor, on the other claw, was more durable versus directed sharp kinetic damage; Piercing, and slashing. Fyrenn's own estimations told him it could stop a pistol round outright, anything but a straight-line shot from a RAC, and it could retard glancing rail-snipe blows enough to give the wearer half a chance. He wondered if he could take some spare plating back to Earth one day, and test the hypothesis.

His new armor's biggest weakness was that its flexibility and lightness left him open to taking fire in unprotected areas.

Gryphons, being fast creatures, believed their agility to be one of their most important battlefield assets; A fact Fyrenn would not dispute, having been party to a pitched battle himself in his new form. Weaponry, of any sort, was useless if you couldn't hit your target.

As he checked his bow and sword, his thoughts turned to the task at claw.
He concentrated fully on making sure his weapons and armor were in proper working order.
It wouldn't do to have something suffer a catastrophic fault right out of the gate.

Once he was completely kitted out, Fyrenn made his way to the Great Hall.
His understanding, from the past days' experiences, was that it served as the de facto meeting place in the city when not in use for ceremonies or feasts.

The city was surprisingly busy for pre-dawn hours, but then again perhaps it wasn't surprising; Gryphons could just as easily choose to be nocturnal as diurnal, if it better suited their post or habits.

He found Kephic, Neyla, and IJ working on breakfast. Kephic was heating meat on one end of the hearth, IJ was heating bread on the opposite side, as far from the smell and sight of the cooking pig meat as she could get.

Neyla was busy double checking her own gear.

She had not been exaggerating when she said her weapons outclassed her armor.
She carried a Sagittar's arbalest, which Fyrenn noted had two ferocious looking deployable bayonets at the front, with serrated edges and hooks designed to do maximum ripping damage to an opponents organs.

She wore an unadorned basic helmet, greaves, gauntlets, and what looked like a trainee's chest-piece. She had no wing joint guards, no back plate, and no plating for the rest of her legs or chest.

Fyrenn snagged one of the skewers of meat. There were four laid out, so he presumed that meant one for each of them, "Good morning."

Kephic smiled broadly, "Good morning. Varan went to light a fire under Stanley."

"I hope not literally...."

The look Kephic gave in response actually made Fyrenn wonder, for a brief moment, if Varan wouldn't use heated coals as a means to evict Carradan from his slumber.

As Fyrenn devoured his breakfast, he watched Neyla practice with her melee weapons.
She carried an unusual pair of short double-ended blades. The grips were designed for a single claw, and protruded into a longer and shorter blade on each side. The long blade reminded Fyrenn of a cutlass, the shorter one was about half that length, and curved the opposite direction.

With two of them, Neyla had four whirring blade surfaces with which to swiftly disassemble an enemy. Completely, mercilessly disassemble, judging by the way she seemed capable of filling a space with the sharp unstoppable razor edges of the weapons.

Fyrenn gestured to them with a claw, "Those are unusual."

She nodded as she continued her grim, beautiful parody of a dance, "They do seem to take enemies unaware." She underscored the statement by coming to a standstill, and clicking hidden catches in the grips of both weapons.

The secondary blade slid into a hidden compartment, and the swords appeared to be nothing more than short scimitars, which Neyla sheathed at her sides under her wings.

Fyrenn snorted in amusement, and respect, "I bet that's won you more than a few fights."

Neyla nodded, and retrieved her own breakfast skewer, "You should see the looks of surprise. Some wiser creatures have come to expect hidden blades on Gryphon weapons, but few are wise enough to suspect more hidden blades in weapons that already have blades."

The conversation was cut short by the arrival of Varan and Stanley, who looked as though he was still waking up. Fyrenn didn't see any burn marks though, which was encouraging.

IJ offered Stanley a wooden bowl of juice, pushing it towards him with her muzzle.
He gratefully dipped his own mouth into the vessel and guzzled down the liquid, dispelling the dehydration sleep sometimes seemed to bring.

Fyrenn chuckled, "Good morning sunshine. Sleep well?"

"Mfmmmfmmmhmm... Goway..."

Kephic laughed, "Well, I will take that as 'yes.' " He passed Varan his skewer, "I think I'll get my armor on now. The King expressed a desire to see us off, but after that I think we should make the best pace we can. We're already using up valuable hours."

Fyrenn guzzled some juice from a tankard thoughtfully left on a side table, "Do we have some idea of who we're looking for, and where they might be? I know we're pursuing Trolls employed by the PER... How do we track them, distinguish them from other Trolls, or even know where to start? I'm used to having my intel provided by analysts and satellites, so I don't think I'll be much help."

Varan nodded, "Do we know who they are? Yes. And no. We know the pack the PER is employing from the sigils on their weapons. The ruby-claws. As for their location, hopefully there will be news of their more recent movements when we make our stopover in Kah'rsiin."

Fyrenn shot Neyla a questioning glance. It took her only a moment to interpret his intention, "It means 'cold wind.' The very specific sort of cold wind that puts a chill between your feathers, going right down to the bone."

Fyrenn shivered involuntarily. He had never seen white snow, most of the precipitation that fell on Earth was gray or green, but he had felt the sub-zero bitter cold of northern winters, and it was not an experience he was eager to repeat; Fur and feathers or no.

He finished off his skewer, "So do we have a map of the area?"

He wondered how much of their route had been cartographed. The idea of entering unfamiliar terrain in a tactical sense was alien to Fyrenn. Humanity had mapped every corner and cleft of the globe with satellite imaging decades before.
Soldiers had complete access to all up-to-date terrain data pertaining to their theater of operations, no matter where on Earth it was.

Kephic, busy donning his own protective gear, nodded, "The battalion at Kah'rsiin will have the latest maps of the surrounding few hundred miles."

IJ sighed, "But this won't be a matter of looking at a map."

Varan shook his head, "No. It will not. We may be able to use the terrain to locate their trail, but once they know we are hunting them, it will be a chase."

IJ looked more than a little grim, "Your and your 'hunts'..."

Neyla snapped the limbs of her Arbalest shut with a resounding thwack, "If you don't want to watch, or participate when it's time to spill blood, you don't have to."

IJ stiffened, "I have the blessing of Luna. I am prepared to do what is necessary just as much as you are. I simply take less pleasure in it."

Varan intervened to diffuse the subtly mounting tension, "And that's a fact no one will fault you for. Our particular warrior's way is not for everyone, that includes some warriors."

His words restored peace to the room, and Fyrenn smiled ever so slightly.
For a member of a species that didn't play politics, Varan was good with words of encouragement, mediation, and kindness. Particularly for someone with his penchant for silence, and sardonic sense of humor.

Then again, Fyrenn reasoned, perhaps this eclectic combination of traits was what lent him his interpersonal skills, or at the very least formed the foundation.

Kephic twirled his helmet on a talon, before placing it on his head.
His armor was coated in a shade of light silver paint that gave it a very different look to Fyrenn's.
If the red Gryphon's armor resembled chrome, then Kephic's was closer to brushed aluminum.

The trimming, however, was the same reflective burnished material as Fyrenn's armor.
On the whole, the effect went nicely with Kephic's patterning. Fyrenn noted that their clan emblem was inlaid in bronze on the upper left of the chestplate, like a badge.

For his part, Varan was wearing armor with more angular edges than Fyrenn's, and it was painted such a deep shade of gray that it was most of the way to black. The finish of the paint gave it a gunmetal appearance.

The trim was Bronze, like Fyrenn's, but there was less of it, and in different places. Varan had apparently asked that the clan Emblem be worked into his left wing-joint plate.

Carradan perked up a little as he finished his bread, "Hey... Don't I get some sort of protection?"

Kephic chuckled, "No. We're using you as bait."

There was a momentary beat before Carradan realized it was a joke.
It took all Fyrenn's self control not to giggle aloud.

"Aha aha very funny guys," Stanley's voice was halfway between a whine and a sardonic mumble.

Kephic grinned, "We actually pulled a batch of Royal Guard armor for you. Had it properly custom sized and fitted. It's not received its final gold plating though, so it's still silver."

Carradan brightened visibly, "You mean I get a fancy set like IJ's?"

Varan nodded, "It also lacks a plume on the helmet, but functionally it is the same armor."

IJ sniffed in disdain, "We do not allow those who are not Royal Guards to don the uniform.
The punishment for doing so is a hefty fine." Her tone made it clear she wasn't engaging in friendly banter.

Fyrenn didn't like her tone, so he put an end to the conversation before Varan could even open his beak, "Well we aren't in the Equestrian nation, are we? We're in the Gryphon Kingdoms, and until it gets shipped this is our armor to do with as we please. I think, in a tossup between your uniform code, and his protection, I'll take his protection. Who's to say he couldn't do your colors proud anyhow?"

Carradan looked appreciative for the vote of confidence, IJ simply glowered, but thankfully did not attempt to extend the argument. Fyrenn threw in a strong glare to ensure her continued silence.

Kephic quietly took Stanley over to a pile of equipment on the floor, and dug out his new armor, while Varan took IJ aside and discoursed quietly with her in a corner.

Neyla came to stand beside Fyrenn. She kept her voice low, "I see what you meant about IJ. What does it stand for, if anything?"

"Inside Joke."

Neyla cocked her head, "An unusual name for a Pony."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "I'm beginning to think so as well."

Neyla glanced at IJ, still deep in conversation with Varan, "Her cutie mark is a divided drama mask... That's also peculiar. Has she told you her talent?"

"Sensing emotions on some level."

Neyla stiffened. For a moment, Fyrenn wondered if he'd hit a nerve of some sort.
The brief expression that flitted across her beak left him with no doubt; The revelation upset her for some reason.

Neyla's voice had an edge, that worried Fyrenn, when next she spoke, "Sensing emotions is not a talent common to Pegasi..." Neyla paused and shook her head.

"I don't like her. I don't trust her."

Fyrenn shivered involuntarily. He had all but dismissed his worries about IJ, content to deal with her particular brand of emotional grating until their task was complete. But to have Neyla's initial judgement of her conform to his own nagging worries only served to draw them back out, and make them stronger than ever before.

Neyla seemed kind, but discerning. Fyrenn realized her opinion meant an unusually great deal to him, given how short a time he had actually known her. He wondered if it was his own snap-judgement tendencies, his appreciation for her amiable personality, or a strange combination of both.

Fyrenn sighed, "Well, she seems to do fine around Varan, so at least we have someone who can talk to her when she's upset. Otherwise my knee-jerk reaction is that if she doesn't fit with the group; Tough luck. Her problem."

Neyla shook her head, "I agree, assuming that is that I understood your metaphors. Knee jerk is like wing jerk right? You know, the way we reflexively snap our wings when hit in just the right nerve between the shoulder blades?"

Fyrenn laughed, "Humans do that, but with the legs. It happens when the knees take an impact in exactly the right place."

Neyla's amused reaction was cut short by the arrival of Siidran and Linnea.
The group reconvened quickly. Carradan actually looked fairly presentable in his new defensive gear, and IJ seemed to have calmed down thanks to whatever Varan had said.

Kephic and Fyrenn both shot Varan short thankful glances, before turning their attention to the King and Queen.

Siidran gave each member of the group a long appraising glance, "We have chosen to support Humanity in its conflict. For the sake of their future, and ours. The reach of our enemies is great, and their resources are many. You are charged with pursuing those under their employ, and extracting valuable information from them. By whatever means necessary."

Linnea offered them each a smile, "May fair winds grace your wings."

The head of the PER was finally back in his office.
Veritas had never seen him react so strangely to a setback. He had locked himself away in his apartment and refused to be seen, or spoken to, for over a week.

The Carrenton disaster had obviously affected him more deeply than anyone else in the organization. The salvation of Earth was his passion; His shared passion with Veritas.
To see their plans gone so terribly awry had put him in a dark mood.

Normally, Veritas would have expected him to go into a depressive tailspin, but as far as she had been able to find out, the head of the PER had in fact spent the last week furiously working at his computer terminal.

The sealed and encrypted communication records contained more data than the entire average monthly communication logs for all PER cells continent-wide.

Now, the enigmatic man was back in his office, hard at work.
For Veritas, the sight was a relief. As long as he was working, it meant he still had hope, and still had a plan. She was most at ease watching him ensconced in the sleek, gleaming off-white surfaces of his workspace.

She stepped up beside him, quietly, and nuzzled his hand, "I see your mind has not been idle?"

He surprised her with a comforting chuckle, "No. An idle mind is an invitation to decay.
I have had a vision. A vision of a world made pure."

"The same vision we all work towards."

He shook his head, "This time, it was real. It *is* within our reach. We've gotten so bogged down with the Bureau's new program, and the very real danger it presents, that we've pulled our focus away from our *main* goal. Well. Soon the world is going to be reminded that we are still here, and we still stand for their salvation."

The man swiveled his chair to face the window, and scanned the Manhattan skyline with his piercing gray eyes, "Its time we delivered these people into the light."

He turned to Veritas and smiled, "All of them."

"You know I don't want to be overly harsh right?" Against his better instincts, Fyrenn had decided to try and smooth things out with IJ. He was at the front of the group, level with her. Everyone else was several hundred yards behind.

The winds were fair, the sun had just crested the horizon, and the beauty of the mountains seemed as if it could go on forever in every direction.

Fyrenn still wasn't sure he liked IJ, but he wanted to give her a chance to fit in better before he completely condemned her. And that meant reaching out. A task he was not traditionally fond of, but had admittedly had some success with recently.

IJ nodded appreciatively, "I know. I don't mean to seem too dedicated either. I just respect my uniform."

Fyrenn smiled, "I understand the feeling. But the key is what it represents, not the object itself."

IJ responded only by nodding again, and Fyrenn decided to quit while he was ahead.
He pulled back and glanced over at Stanley. He still couldn't believe that Stanley and IJ had volunteered to carry all the supplies.

IJ had explained it as they were departing; Pegasi had the innate magical ability to alter the mass of inanimate objects they carried or pulled. In effect, while neither IJ, nor Stanley, nor any Pegasus, had the aerial agility nor unlimited long-distance stamina of a Gryphon, they could fly for very short bursts at Mach speeds only fighter jets could match, and carry up to four tons for surprising distances as if it were light as a feather.

The endurance issue had bothered Fyrenn, but IJ had reassured him that she could keep up as long as the Gryphons didn't adopt their fastest pace, and as long as the group got at least *some* rest every night, rather than sleeping on the wing, as Knights were often wont to do.

Fyrenn was more concerned with Carradan. He didn't have the intensive physical training IJ had received as part of her Royal Guard regimen. That had the potential to slow them down, and overtax the reporter.

Fyrenn shot the salmon colored Pegasus an encouraging grin, "Holding up over there Stan?"

"So far!" His tone was jovial, but Fyrenn thought he detected the hint of a wheeze.

Kephic smiled, "Look at it this way; by the time we get back, you'll be much more appealing to all those females of the species you seem to be so interested in."

Varan rolled his eyes, "I'm not sure that even matters; Their gender ratios are so badly stilted."

Carradan guffawed, "Just my good luck then. Charm, brains, *and* a physique to match, in a species where the gals outnumber the guys. To think I would have missed out on all the fun if I hadn't fallen in with you lunatics."

Fyrenn shook his head, "If by 'fun' then you mean brutal cold, nasty enemies, minimal food, biting winds, and long nights with too little sleep... Then we're happy to have obliged you."

Carradan grimaced, "Is it too late to turn around?"

Neyla snorted, "And miss your chance to impress the ladies?"

Kephic, Varan, and Fyrenn laughed, Carradan giggled, and even IJ allowed a small smile to tug at the corners of her muzzle.

It was a beautiful clear day, and everyone was, if only for a moment, happy.
Fyrenn gazed long and hard at each of them.
He wanted to imprint the moment in his memory.
Something to hold on to for the rough road ahead.

//SHIPPING MANIFEST: << 019735168-A532714-6391785-B >>
//ORGN: << Dapsen Mfg. Plant (Singapore) >>
//DSTN: << Gavin/Schummel Environmental Cleanup Research Field Offices (Capetown) >>
//IDCD; << 47-1-ME >>

//DESC: << 12x Aerial Atomizer Assemblies for Dispersal of chemicals over a large area. >>
//NOTE; << Packaged items are a controlled device, verification required on delivery >>

STAT: </// MISSING ///>

'Chuck' understood the relevance of the information the moment the warning crossed a Gavin/Schummel server relay in Strasbourg on its way to New York.

Curiously, the original programming of the security AI within the system would have instructed it to delete the message the moment it arrived. 'Chuck' made a ghost copy of the data, appended its own notes, and sent the data via encrypted microburst to the Manhattan Conversion Bureau's ConSec division.

Chuck then allowed the Strasbourg server to carry out its original orders and erase all traces of the vital shipping manifest, and its dire warning.

The directive had been, according to an instruction stack trace, delivered from an external line of communication. As the important new development whizzed over the internet towards The Bureau, Chuck began a new search.

Perhaps a trace of the intrusive directive would ultimately lead to the stolen Atomizers.
They were, after all, controlled devices, and with good reason; Atomizers were a key component in most forms of Area-Dispersal Bio-Weapons.

Nightfall in the mountains was a spectacular sight.
From high up, the group could see the peaks, covered in snow due to their Northern track, lit up at once by the silver of the rising moon, and the liquid rubies and gold of the setting sun.

The temperature was steadily dropping, and the wind had picked up.
Unfortunately it was a headwind, which threatened to slow them considerably.

To everyone's surprise, IJ insisted on taking the front of the formation.
Amazingly, the moment she did, the headwind dropped to nothing worse than a stiff breeze.

Fyrenn gaped, "How are you DOING that?!"

IJ smirked, "Pegasi have weather magic. Didn't you know? I'd need a whole weather team to completely turn the wind, maybe two since this part of the world has completely wild weather fronts, but I can diminish the headwind for us in the immediate vicinity."

Kephic chuckled, Varan nodded, "Well done!"

The rest of the trip passed smoothly. The work of parting the wind did seem to be a mild added exertion for IJ, but she bore it well, increasing her estimation strongly in Fyrenn's eyes.

Before the moon was two-thirds of the way across the sky, the mountains had finally ended their long march, descending into currently frozen seasonal flatland forests. Equestria was not like Earth; The seasons could be very different in differing locations, not only as a product of the artificial seasons within the nation proper, but also as a product of the world's odd shape on the whole.

The group angled for the last great peak in the range. Sheltered against the wind in the cleft of three spurs of rock, tall curving structures stood out, their windows projecting an inviting warm golden light.

Fyrenn had to blink several times to be sure what he was seeing was indeed real; The structures reminded him of advanced skyscraper architecture from Earth. The buildings were shaped stone, with closed massive glass windows. The construction was all curves, with no hard edges. Many windows had protrusions for takeoff and landing, and there was a concourse-like landing area tucked into the middle of the center tower.

Kah'rsiin was built in an area with almost no flat ground, so the Gryphons had done what Humans did in crowded cities.
They built upwards.

Snow was beginning to fall, and the wind was whipping across the forest and into the space above the peak at such a high velocity, that IJ was having visible trouble holding it back.
The group made an all out rushing dive for the landing concourse.

Fyrenn had to pull back and partly shelter Carradan with his body. Stanley was too weak a flier to yet compensate for the wind. In the end, he and Fyrenn nearly crash-landed onto the stone circle, where a group of Gryphons ushered them in with sheltering wings and blankets.

The inside of the central tower was warm, well lit, and dazzling.
Most of the space from the concourse level up was open in the center, allowing Gryphons to fly to and fro without the need for stairs or ladders.

Each 'floor' of the building had balconies and platforms in various locations dotted around the central atrium space. Due to the size of the windows, there was an almost two hundred and seventy degree view. The 'spine' of the structure was host to closed off private rooms, and hallways, which doubtless had their own Northern facing windows.

The effect was something like being inside a glass Cathedral.
There was just enough stone to make the structure feel solid, and protective against the cold, and more than enough glass to make it feel open to the world at the same time.

Whatever surfaces weren't made of shaped stone with intricate bronze inlay, were either made of polished pine, or shining brass. The materials caught and in some cases reflected the glow of the structures many lights, giving the entire space an aura of golden warmth.

The lighting came from a large semi-circular hearth at one end of the room, which doubled as a great hall, as well as hundreds of torches and suspended mage lights.

Despite the late hour, quite a few Gryphons were awake. Some were obviously awaiting the group's arrival, but others were simply engaging in a nocturnal lifestyle, either because it suited them, or because it was part and parcel of their job.

An older ash-gray Gryphon with green flecks, accompanied by a similarly colored fledgling, who could have been no more than twelve years old, approached the group, "I am Varak, Champion Paladin of the Northern Kingdom, and this is my son K'itrel. Welcome to our settlement.
You must be tired and cold, come... We will find you hot food, hotter drink, and warm beds."

Chapter 32

"Mic check... Communications are live. Assault teams verify positions."

"Breach team, ready."

"Fire team one, ready"

"Fire team two, ready"

"Tech team, ready"

Hutch adjusted his headset and fidgeted with the right earphone nervously. He hated being stuck in the command post.

Four heavily armored assault teams of ConSec troopers, each lead by two Gryphons and supported by a Unicorn medic, were about to do what he considered to be *his* job.

He had spent so long working in the field that a command position was a double edged sword.
On the one hand, most of his days were spent serving the world as an effective leader, which gave him a sense of fulfillment On the other hand, whenever he had to oversee troops going into danger, it rankled him that the regulations didn't often permit him to join them.

Hutch sighed and swept the room with a quick glance. The command post for the operation was the back of a ConSec utility truck parked in a side-alley. The location information Chuck had provided them pinpointed a large warehouse outside Chicago as the staging ground for not only the missing Atomizers, but several other tons of stolen industrial equipment of varying and disturbing descriptions.

The warehouse was far enough away from the Chicago Bureau that protocol called for a mobile command center. Nonetheless, someone had been thoughtful enough to provide Hutch, and the technicians seated in the cramped terminal booths behind him, with coffee, so the mission wasn't going to be as painful as it could have been.

That said, the space in the back of the truck was small, dark, and every inch of non-seating real estate was filled with computer equipment. All lighting came from the glow of three dozen open holoscreens linked to helmet cams, satellite feeds, and the warehouse's security cameras.

Hutch leaned forward and tapped his mic, "Alright... Commence breaching action."

Sildinar, and one of the new liaisons from the Gryphon military, were leading the breach team.
The liaison, a russet and white female named Seyal, had caught General Lantry's attention early on in the process of forming a joint military strike force, so he had placed her in a high level position.

The warehouse assault was hopefully going to prove that Gryphons and Ponies could act as sorely needed force multipliers to human ConSec and Special Forces troops, allowing Earthgov to gain a solid and standing military advantage over the PER and HLF.

"Alright... Commence breaching action."

Sildinar gestured to Seyal, who covered him with her light bow as he positioned himself to smash in the side door to the building. Many of the new Gryphons on-station with Earthgov hadn't had time to qualify with RACs or pistols, so they opted to use their own gear until they had a chance to become better acquainted with human technology.

The major exception was armor; Human made Gryphon armor did sacrifice some piercing kinetic resistance over the personal sets most Gryphons had brought with them, but given that the PER was known to use particle rifles, it seemed wiser to sacrifice that advantage for the presence of an energy diffusion matrix.

The warehouse's employee entrance door was little more than a rusting sheet of tin, less than an inch thick. Sildinar didn't even need to use a blunt object, he simply struck the latch with his fist, and the already aging metal crumpled inwards.

Before Sildinar even had time to raise his RAC, he heard the distinctive *twang* of Seyal's bow, and an arrow arced over his head, burying itself up to its fins in the reflective black glass of a PER trooper's helmet.

The corded steel of the weapon's strings could impart more than enough force to turn an arrow into an armor piercing projectile, if the archer had good aim.

"Looks as though we have the right address," Sildinar popped off two shots, and rolled left to take cover behind a stack of crates. Seyal loosed another arrow, and went right. In tandem, they made short work of the first platoon of guards. The element of surprise made it almost impossible for the white armor clad terrorists to mount an initial defense.

ConSec troopers, more Gryphons, and the Unicorn medics poured through the door into the warehouse, fanning out into their assigned fire teams, and working their way around the building's internal perimeter.

The ConSec troopers all wore fully sealed heavy armor, with recycled internal air supplies.

When dealing with the PER, caution was a necessary quality.

There had been no progress at finding a defense against PER potion rifles, however, so the Gryphons of each team were taking point, and rear defense.

The rifles appeared to have a built in sedating effect, but it took three to five immediately consecutive shots for it to accumulate enough to bring down a Gryphon. Most PER troopers were too conservative with their shots to manage the feat, given that the rifles' major weakness was a low supply of ammunition for their proportionate weight.

Seyal loosed another few arrows, and spared a glance for Sildinar as they worked their way between the piles of crates, boxes, and miscellaneous goods, "Does this really strike you as the level of resistance we should be encountering?"

Sildinar slammed his fisted claw into a small crate, driving it into the chest plate of a nearby trooper, thus giving him enough time to deal with the enemy's two squadmates, "No. Something is wrong. Either its a trap or..."

Seyal put a shot through the heart of the first soldier, who was just staggering up from under the crate, "Or?"

"Or they've moved the atomizers already, and we're too late."

"Commander?"

Hutch practically leaned into his headset in anticipation, "Go for Hutch."

"Sir, the warehouse is secure. I think you'd better come see this... Something has really upset the Gryphon in charge."

Hutch snagged a RAC from the small cache of weapons strapped to the doors of the utility truck, and hopped out into the open. The warehouse was only a short walk away, and there was a general hustle and bustle as MPs swept the area for safety.

As he had expected, Sildinar was waiting beside the now open main doors of the building.
Hutch strode up and dove right in, "Talk to me. What am I looking at?"

Sildinar shook his head, "The PER are shipping great deal of dangerous material back and forth, under the guise of legitimate biomedical cargo crates. In short; Trouble. In the worst way."

"They moved the Atomizers?"

Seyal ambled up, walking bipedally and clutching something in her right claw, "Correct. And you won't be happy about where."

She passed the small item, which turned out to be an RFID embedded plastic shipping tag, to Hutch, "We caught them in the middle of the shipment. The atomizers and most of the other dangerous items are gone, but enough was left behind that we can be sure it was all part of the same manifest. They were dealing with enough inventory that they opted to use tags to identify container block, and destination for each item."

Hutch whistled quietly, an expression of pure concern, "You two wrap this up. I'll put in a call, see if the shipment can be interdicted, but unfortunately it's probably already arrived by now. In that case, I have to have words with the council."

Sildinar grimaced, "About?"

"Declaring martial law."

Hutch let the manifest chit fall to his feet as he stepped away.
A breeze flipped the wafer of plastic over, revealing the externally printed destination.

'Manhattan.'

Fyrenn had never seen a parchment map before.

The digital holograms of a military cartograph were more detailed, to be sure, but there was some sort of undeniably transcendental quality to the presence of a physical paper to which ink had been set, and many a claw in gesture.

The Gryphons of Kah'rsiin kept highly accurate and detailed maps of the surrounding hundred miles. Beyond that line,
ancillary maps were created on hunting, mining, and woodcutting expeditions. Those maps generally extended far beyond the boundaries of the usual cartographs, but were less detailed and sometimes older.

The group, along with Varak, K'itrel, and the Captain of Varak's guard, were gathered around a large circular wooden table abutting the main tower's hearth. Varak's hospitality had provided the group with comfortable lodging in which to eek out a few precious hours of sleep, good food, refreshing drink, and even some added grains and preserved fruits to add to the Ponies' food supplies.

The sun was still just below the horizon, but its light already tinged the sky with yellow.
The previous night's storm had broken, giving way to a cloudy dome of gray that threatened more snow in the immediate future.

Fyrenn found it intriguing that even the gray skies of the world of Equestria felt alive, and healthy, as compared to the gray and teal skies of Earth.

Varak's snort brought his mind back to the conversation. Kephic had asked for news of the Ruby Claws pack, and it was this that had elicited the disdain from Varak, "Mongrels. Thieves. Murderers. But resourceful ones. They are the epitome of the reason we're constantly at war with the trolls; disrespectful of laws and borders, uncouth, immoral, willing to stab their own families between the eyes for a shiny rock or two."

Varak gestured to one of the dozens of maps laid out on the table, "They roam the north-most edges of the forest, and the tundra it abuts. They sometimes try to push further south, but they've learned that such action is a death sentence. The King recently declared them permanent enemies of the Empire after they took a contract from the Changelings to try and collect a Gryphon carcass."

IJ interjected, "What do Changelings want with a Gryphon carcass?"

Fyrenn was thinking the same thing, but he found her query odd. He would have expected her to be the one with the answer, not the question.

Varak's Captain of the Guard provided the elucidation, "As the rest of your companions, with the exception of you," the Gryphon glanced at Fyrenn, "Likely know; Changelings have two forms of mimicry, visual and true. Visual mimicry can be done from just the sight of a creature, or a sufficiently good image..."

Fyrenn finished the thought, "So true must require an actual genetic sample right?"

Varak nodded, "If by genetics, you mean the life-code within all living skin, bones, muscle, and feathers, then yes. It must be fresh though. The carcass must be quite recent, and acquiring the pattern from a live being seems preferable. This is how we have been able to keep their kind from acquiring widespread use of Gryphon forms."

Neyla winced, and Fyrenn wondered why the topic had suddenly become so sensitive to her.
IJ snorted, "It's a losing battle though. They'll manage it eventually."

Neyla glowered, and for a moment, Fyrenn thought she would physically strike IJ. The Gryphoness' voice was hard edged enough that it had a similar effect.

"Not while *I* am alive they won't."

The razor in her tone brought a momentary pause to the conversation.

Varak had to step into the silence, "In any case, they haven't succeeded. The Changelings nor the Ruby Claws. But last we heard, the clan was pulling back further into the wastes, despite the toll on their young and infirm. I think they realize they may soon be hunted to the death outright."

Kephic grunted, "In which case we may already be losing valuable ground. Are these the most recent maps of the tundra?"

The Captain of the Guard nodded, "The snow shifts like desert sand though, so you can almost certainly count on the terrain to be completely different by now."

Fyrenn cocked his head, "How old is this map?"

K'itrel piped up, "Three months! Made it myself!"

Fyrenn whistled, "It changes that fast?"

Varak nodded, "Faster. The wastes are an unpleasant, cold, windy, dark, dangerous place.
My son made the map more as practice than anything. Part of his first long term hunting trip." The grey and green Gryphon patted his offspring affectionately, "His cartographical skill is innate, and he hones it well."

Neyla offered K'itrel an approving smile, before turning to Varak, "What can we expect to encounter? I've lived most of my life in the western deserts, or the central highlands and forests."

Kephic shook his head, "Varan and I have been fairly far north, but never quite this far."

Varak stared down at K'itrel's map, "We haven't heard tell of any Dragons, wild or civilized, but that doesn't mean you won't run into them. The latter are easy enough to deal with, as we aren't currently on bad terms with any individual Dragons. The former are quite dangerous, and you'd be doing everyone a service if you hunt down and kill any you encounter."

The Captain of the Guard took up the thread, "Wyverns sometimes stalk the forest between here and the tundra, but we haven't seen any in months. Other types of Diamond Dog roam the wastes, most notably the arctic species, and some breeds of Hyena."

Varak finished, "But the unsettling truth is that, with the world expanding, and with much of this area being unexplored as it is, you may run into something never before encountered. I would advise you to give little or no warning before attacking anything that piques your suspicion. Almost everything that you will encounter will be ruthless and hostile, anything which is not so should be easily identified by sight."

Fyrenn tapped K'itrel's map with his index claw, "So we strike out due north? Keep on until we run out of supplies, or strike a trail?"

Kephic nodded, "That's the plan. A Hunt, in the truest sense."

"And when we find the Ruby Claws pack?"

Varan shrugged nonchalantly, "We interrogate the prisoners we choose to take, then kill them, and anyone else present wo is old enough to fight. Ensure we leave no one behind with a potential vendetta to cause trouble."

Fyrenn nodded, "Just wanted to be sure. I've never been a fan of coddling hostile combatants."

Carradan moaned, "Just do me a favor, don't make me watch."

Fyrenn snorted, "Of course we won't. You and IJ are certainly not expected to be party to what we do. It's in our nature, not yours."

Carradan grunted, "Still, this will all make a great story. While we're on the subject, can you deliver a message back across the barrier?"

Varak considered for a moment before nodding, "It may take some days, but we can have something couriered back to Tih’ré Seli’hn, and from there to Tacksworn, from whence the Pony Express can ferry it to Neighvada, where it can be posted to Canterlot, and ferried over to Earth by a messenger. It will not be expedient by your standards, but it will be reliable."

Carradan nodded, and dug something out of his saddlebags with his muzzle, he spoke around the rolled up parchments as he handed them off to the Captain of the Guard, "Been trying a bit of mouthwriting and hoofwriting. Not the easiest to get the hang of, but it works ok I guess. I wrote an article to be published back home."

Fyrenn cocked his head, intrigued, "What about?"

"Oh you know... This and that... Everything I saw in the Gryphon capital. The experience of the thing. Don't worry, it's a good reflection..." He grinned mischievously, "...Mostly."

Fyrenn and Kephic chuckled, Varan raised an eyebrow.

The sun had just risen, only to be obscured by the massive looming cloudbanks filling the sky.
Fyrenn came out onto the landing concourse to find Varan facing north, staring off into the distance. Everyone had been given a few minutes to get their gear back in order, and apparently the two of them were the first to finish.

Fyrenn nodded in the direction of the snow covered forests, and the tundra beyond, "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Varan nodded, "I imagine the effect is greatly enhanced for you. There are moments when I envy the degree of wonderment you must feel hour by hour. Seeing all this for the first time."

"Heh. I don't think youd've enjoyed the trials of living your whole life under an iron sky."

Varan snorted, "True indeed."

A moment of familiar, comfortable silence passed, before the golden Gryphon spoke again,

"I think you and Neyla need to have a talk."

Fyrenn cocked his head, Varan turned to face him, "She may not be well acquainted with any of us yet, but she seems most open to you as a friend. She and IJ are not relating well. It seems as if IJ is stepping on a raw nerve... And out there?" Varan jerked his head northwards, "Out there we can afford no infighting."

Fyrenn nodded, "I'll ask her about it, but I'm not going to force the issue. Everyone has their own private struggles. It took you and Kephic a while to discover mine, I'm not going to deny her the same privacy if she wants it."

Varan nodded, "Nor would I. But it is worth asking if, by doing so, we can diffuse a potentially volatile situation further along."

"Right. The best defense---"

"Is good offense. Old Gryphon proverb."

Fyrenn chuckled, "Funny... I learned it from my instructor in basic."

Kephic stepped out onto the platform, and interrupted any further speculation as to the origin of the phrase, "The rest aren't here yet?"

Varan shook his head, Kephic grunted, "We're wasting valuable time. Its going to be harder to travel at night out there, due to the cold."

Neyla chose that particular moment to arrive, and add her own thoughts to the mix, "Feathers are good for more than flying though."

Carradan and IJ exited onto the platform shortly thereafter, again laden down with supplies.
It still amazed Fyrenn that they treated the weight as if it didn't even exist. Even more amazing was that the sentiment was technically true; For them, the mass didn't produce the same weight as the laws of physics said it should.

Departure was accomplished without any ceremony or delay.
The group turned north again, and as the first light flakes of snow began to fall, the mountains fell away to the south.

Below, ice and snow covered trees whizzed past, hiding murky frozen depths, and many potential enemies.

General Lantry was shouting. His voice was an overpowering force, like a giant steel hammer, inside the relatively confined space of Hutch's office, "I don't particularly give a *damn* what the political ramifications are! The FACT is that we are missing industrial atomizers, the FACT is that they can be used as an area dispersal bioweapon. It is a FACT that the PER are intent on using such weapons with aggressive intent, and it is, Councilors, a FACT that they are the ones now in possession of the atomizers."

The figures on Hutch's wall screen did not look perturbed. The Council at large had refused to even broker a full hearing on Hutch's recommendation, but a few of the more militarily minded Councilors had elected to at least hear what he and General Lantry had to say.

"If it wasn't a matter of your distinguished military career, we wouldn't tolerate this kind of... Creative recommendation. Especially not given the tone you're delivering it in."

Another of the figures cut in, "We're already agreeing to give you unprecedented jurisdiction and powers to increase security citywide. What more could you possibly want?"

Lantry slammed his fist down onto Hutch's desk, "You know, as well as I do, that these scum are insidious, and conniving. This isn't like fissile material, that we can track with a satellite dammit! For all we know, those atomizers could be under a tarp on a roof, or buried under a dumpster in a back alley!"

"Work with what you have General. This is our final word."

With that, the connection cut.
Lantry sighed and rested his head in his hands for a brief moment.
Hutch snorted, "I wonder what they'll say when the bombs go off, and half of New York is affected."

Lantry shook his head, "Those devices won't go off." He stepped to the door.

Hutch raised an eyebrow inquisitively, "Why?"

"Because, working with whatever we have, we can't let them. If they did succeed? We wouldn't have to worry about halves..."

Lantry stepped through the door and cast a glance back at Hutch, "Those devices have the yield to affect the entire greater New York area. Start setting up checkpoints."

The group managed to make it to the end of the forest before nightfall, but elected unanimously to make camp early, rather than press on. There were many cold unsheltered nights ahead, and it was more advantageous to gain one last night of passable rest, and acclimatize to the cold in stages, rather than immediately throw themselves against the frigid tundra.

On top of that, Carradan was exhausted. He would have to learn to deal with more strain eventually, but breaking him physically would serve no purpose.

He, Fyrenn, and Kephic had started a small fire, and were stoking it up to a decent blaze.
IJ had, wordlessly, eaten her bread ration and drifted off to sleep. She had seemed to be in a particularly bad mood since her tense moment with Neyla that morning.

Neyla and Varan had offered to make a hunting sortie, and bring back dinner for the Gryphons.
Fyrenn figured Varan had volunteered to go with her because he intended to have a talk with her about IJ. Varan had indicated it would be up to Fyrenn to determine the 'why' behind Neyla's issues, but that didn't mean the golden Gryphon wasn't going to try to intervene in his own way as well.

As the flames leapt progressively higher, producing a bubble of comfortably warm air in the campsite, Carradan stared off across the tundra and whistled, "Lookit that wind whip the snow. That phrase? You know... About hell freezing over?"

Fyrenn nodded, "Yep. Looks like we get to experience it. Can't really say this ranks high on my bucket list."

Carradan launched into a story about one of his first jobs as a reporter, when he'd been required to go on location in Siberia during the winter for three days. He rambled on, and Fyrenn found himself content to listen with mild interest, until Neyla and Varan returned.

Each of the two Gryphons was carrying a dead wild boar in their talons, already skinned and gutted. Fyrenn understood the significance of the gesture. By spilling most of the kills' blood away from camp, they were helping to stave off the possibility of other wild animals attacking in search of a meal, attracted by the scent of fresh blood. They were also sparing the Ponies the gruesome sight.

Fyrenn licked the edge of his beak, "Nice kills. I'm starving, let's get these on the fire."

Gryphons could, and did, eat kills raw, but in the bitter cold it was better to cook the meat for the warmth.
The trees, leafless as they were, sheltered the group from the wind, but the occasional breeze still swept through, and the air temperature was at or below freezing by Fyrenn's guess.

The meat took almost an hour to properly cook in the cold; Carradan spent most of the time retelling his story for Neyla and Varan's benefit. Graciously, they heard him out, and Neyla even seemed genuinely amused at a few points. Having not seen Earth for herself, information on the alien world intrigued her from an exploratory standpoint.

The meal was spent in relative silence. Everyone was too busy eating to talk. The only sounds were those of food consumption, and the occasional whimper from IJ, who looked very cold despite her proximity to the fire.

Once the meal was concluded, Varan expertly banked the fire, "We should settle in for the night. Best we sleep in a huddle, to conserve heat."

Fyrenn nearly choked on his water. The group was distilling it from the snow, rather than carry any unnecessary weight, "Say what?"

Neyla, Varan, and Kephic eyed him, as if his reaction made no sense.

Fyrenn blushed, as always, glad for the red tinge of his feathers, "Isn't it ahhh... Awkward... for males and females to...
Cohabitate?"

Varan chuckled, Kephic burst out into a fit of laughter, Neyla merely looked confused.
Since Kephic was too busy with his hysterics, Varan explained to Neyla, "Humans treat physical contact... Differently. Their... Biologically driven reproduction, disgusting and vile as it is, makes male/female cohabitation an awkward subject."

Neyla snorted, "Well we have no such problems."

Fyrenn sighed in relief, "There was an orientation packet on... Well... How our species creates offspring, but it was mildly vague. It seemed more intent on playing up the fact that we don't require physical contact for breeding rather than actually explaining how it works."

Neyla shrugged. Fyrenn had been expecting the moment to be just as awkward as when his own parents had explained the birds and bees, but Gryphons truly were a very different species.

Neyla launched into an explanation fluidly, "We are egg-born creatures, but not in the way of Dragons. There are two innate magical properties to our species, cloudwalking is one, our offspring are the other."

Fyrenn dropped a claw full of snow he had been about to guzzle down, "We reproduce... Thaumatically?!"

Varan nodded, "There is a very rare, very special type of Agate native to the mountains and deserts of Equestria. We fashion eggs from it."

"You mean we don't..." Fyrenn glanced awkwardly at Neyla, "You don't... Lay the eggs?"

She laughed, "No of course not. A mated pair simply nests with the egg for a sufficient time, and the fledgling will hatch."

Fyrenn pinched the bridge of his beak, "Wait wait wait... Lemme get this straight... We reproduce via... What? Magical warm fuzzies brought on by an emotional bond? What about accidents?"

Neyla looked genuinely shocked, "How could we have accidents? Only a mated pair can cause an egg to produce life."

"Really?"

Varan nodded, "Yes. Really. In order for life to be conceived, the mated pair must be in tune, both emotionally and physically. It won't work unless they have been through the mating ceremony, and shared blood over fire, in earnest love."

Fyrenn sat down hard, "Wow. Well I have to say that's... Not what I was expecting."

Kephic finally managed to get a word out, "You... Ahahaha! You uh... Aren't disappointed?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "I was never a fan of the human method myself. From the second Dad explained it, it bothered the hell out of me. I'm not the only Human who's ever felt that way, but I'm pretty... Non-normative."

Varan snorted, "I don't blame you. But we still haven't answered the question of who takes first watch."

Fyrenn raised a claw, "I will. I need a few hours to get a handle on this."

Kephic chuckled, "I'll take morning watch"

Neyla nodded, "I'll take second watch. after Fyrenn."

Varan sighed, "I'll take the hours between you and Kephic."

With that, he, Kephic, and Neyla lay down and huddled together in a bundle, with Carradan tucked securely between Kephic's right wing, and side, in the warmest possible spot.
Fyrenn woke IJ, who groggily accepted a proffered position between Neyla and Varan, too cold and tired to proffer any complaint.

As she drifted off, Fyrenn noted that she looked much more comfortable in the warmer location.

Fyrenn took up a position opposite the group, and lay on his own stomach, resting his head on his foreclaws. He wasn't especially tired, and the warmth of the fire was enough to keep him comfortable, if not quite warm enough to sleep.

He faced north, and began his lonely vigil, his mind racing.
The human life cycle had always bothered him. He was a soldier, and a bit of a control freak.
He had no time, or desire, to be involved in something as messy as human romance.

But Gryphons treated the issue, like so many others, in a refreshingly different fashion.
It occurred to him that it was their reproductive method, combined with their mental and moral makeup, that made infidelity, unwanted young, and illegitimate children truly impossible. The orientation had not exaggerated in the slightest.

What did bother him, however, was the way the new revelations made him feel.
His distaste for the human romance had always been a good excuse to avoid it.

Suddenly most of the issues he professed to have were out of the way. No physical disgust, no risk of moral lapse from either party in the relationship. No worry that a child would be left uncared for if the worst should happen in battle.

None of his fears had any logical basis anymore.

He didn't like the way that took his excuses out of the equation.
Not one little bit.

Chapter 33

The Cabinet was going back into session.

Higher military powers in Earthgov were made aware of the stolen atomizers, now in the hooves and hands of the PER, early on. The members of the HLF who were part of the military, had immediately relayed the disturbing new turn of events.

As the group awaited the arrival of Mr. Stalin, Mr. Utah found himself locked in an unpleasant conversation with Mrs. Juno, "I hear you met with our benefactor recently. How was she?"

Mr. Utah glared, "Icy. As always. The details don't concern you. I alone serve as our liaison."

"A fact not all of us appreciate."

"A fact none of you have the power to alter. Stop..." he took a pull on his cigarette, and let out the noxious fumes in her direction, "Stop 'blowing smoke' Juno. You have ambition, but you don't have the pull to match."

The woman glowered, and looked as if she was ready to launch a verbal World War Three, when Mr. Stalin abruptly arrived, "I want to know how the hell this happened, and I want to know yesterday."

Dr. Omaha, another member of Normandy Section, was ready with an answer, "We now believe, through evidence the Bureau has doubtless also become party to, that the PER has some kind of connection to Gavin/Schummel Biomedical. They're using this tie to acquire and covertly ship items they would otherwise have a more difficult time accessing without alerting us sooner."

Mr. Hurricane nodded, "I can confirm ConSec, and the new military wing they're creating, are probing Gavin/Schummel. We will be privy to anything they uncover."

Mr. Stalin grunted, "Alright then. Next question; How do we intend to prevent the PER from going through with the intended use of the atomizers? We can be darn sure Earthgov won't succeed in stopping them, with their half measures and poor intelligence. Give me options."

Mr. Utah stood, suppressing a satisfied smirk, "I believe *I* can offer a tenable offense."

The snow had increased in intensity by the time Neyla awoke to relieve Fyrenn of his watch.
It wasn't a blizzard, but it wasn't flaking anymore either. It was a steady, accumulating snowfall.

Fyrenn was lost in wonderment, gazing at the way the light of the moon, even dulled as it was by clouds, was playing off each flake. He had once been told, by his grandmother, that even the acid snowflakes on earth were each individually unique. His new eyes could verify that Equestrian snow at the very least, conformed to that old wives' tale.

Neyla tapped him on the shoulder, which brought him forcefully out of his musings,
"Oh. Hello. Sleep well?"

She shrugged, "Well as can be expected. Anything out there?"

Fyrenn sighed, "I'm sure there is, but I haven't seen it. I can feel it though. Deep down."

"Something to be worried about?"

He shook his head, "Don't know. I don't think so. Probably rabbits."

Neyla took up a position beside Fyrenn, at a comfortable distance for him, imitating his relaxed pose, "So... Your head stopped spinning yet?"

"Not even close. I can't even *begin* to sort out all my scientific questions, let *alone* my spiritual and emotional ones."

Neyla chuckled, "Well I can answer some of those scientific questions. The rest are your problem."

Fyrenn grunted, "Don't I know it. So... I guess I've only really worked out one question, that uncreatively being; 'What are the precise mechanics'?"

Neyla nodded and launched into an explanation, "It probably doesn't suit your scientific sensibilities, but I'd have to start by explaining that every creature has a magical field. You called it, what, Thaumatic?"

Fyrenn indicated affirmative, Neyla forged ahead, "The egg? Think of it as a 'catalyst' that we create. The entwined 'Thaumatic' fields of a mated pair are the 'ingredients.' The final component is emotion, to drive the reaction proper. Love. None of this will, of course, work unless the pair is mated, because their fields, and emotions, wouldn't be properly...
Tuned I suppose is the word. Satisfied?"

Fyrenn laughed quietly, "More or less. How do you know so much about this?"

"Does not every well adjusted adult human thoroughly understand the species' reproductive methods?"

"Eeeh... No not always. Our culture has hang-ups about it. But Point taken. This is another of those things you just learn growing up Gryphon."

Neyla nodded, "So how about *you* answer *me* a burning question?"

"Shoot."

"Why *exactly* are you so averse to having a mate? Rarely does one eschew the social drives behind most living beings without reasons beyond 'I want control and security.' What happened to you? Who hurt you?"

Fyrenn saw an opportunity, and decided to be bold, "I'll tell you... If you'll tell me why you seem to hit the roof every time Changelings, or anything associated with them, comes up."

Neyla stiffened, and for a moment Fyrenn was sure she was going to rebuff him. Then she sighed, "Well. Fair is fair. You answer me first, then I'll answer you."

Fyrenn mimicked her sigh, "Where to begin?"

Over the next half hour, he explained his history with Gilchrist, and everything leading up to the moment in the Council chamber when the grenade went off.

Neyla gasped, and winced a few times, but otherwise remained silent.
At the end she shook her head, "So this event. It scarred you."

Fyrenn inclined his head, "I guess. I've never really been party to the formative stage of a healthy romance, even though I've known many who were already in healthy relationships of all sorts. All I can think about, even when I can see the illogical nature of it, is what happened with... Him. He let an infatuation destroy him, and in a sense me. I can't stand the idea that I could *become* that monster myself."

Neyla's expression was, as near as Fyrenn could tell, midway between intrigue, horror, sympathy, and a deep deep sadness. Her ears were laid back, and her eyes spoke volumes.

She inhaled deeply, "Well... If it is any sort of consolation to you, I can tell you that you're not that kind of person. You have a better spirit. A deeper honor. You couldn't be one of us if you didn't."

Fyrenn smiled wanly, "Well thank you. It's not likely to change my heart, or take out the scars, but it does relieve the pressure, some, to hear that."

He shifted, and lazily inscribed a random pattern in the snow with a talon, "So... Fair is fair, how about you? Why are Changelings so touchy?"

Neyla shook her head, and grinned mischievously "I said I'd tell you. I did *not* elect to say when. You need your rest, and I need time to think through what I'm going to say."

Fyrenn chuckled, "That is *not* fair. Tomorrow. You'll tell me tomorrow."

She feigned exasperation, "Very well, tomorrow. Now. Get some rest, you'll need it."

Fyrenn made his way over to the misshapen lump of feathers and fur, and worked his way carefully into Neyla's original spot.

Falling asleep was easy; The comforting breathing patterns of friends and family, and the warmth of the same, produced a deep seated reassurance, and inner peace.

The ConSec situation room in the Manhattan Bureau was playing host to history.
Three military Generals, two Earthgov Councilors, the heads of ConSec, top ranking officers in Celestia's Royal Guard, and the son of the Gryphon King were present to inaugurate, officially, the first multispecies military unit in history.

Ostensibly, the Joint Reconnaissance and Strike Force would report to no single government directly. Instead accountability would be maintained by a 'board of directors' made up of an equal number of ranking military officers from all three governments.

Those officers would not be directly responsible to their governments for the actions of JRSF, but indirectly it was in their best interest to maintain accountability on some level. In this way, order and lawful operating procedure of some description could be maintained, while still giving the JRSF unparalleled autonomy and freedom to engage the enemy.

The Board would have nine slots initially, three officers from each of the three races.
It was all but certain that Sildinar would be filling the first position for the Gryphons.

The Pony positions weren't causing much of a stir, leaving the Human slots as the major question everyone was gnawing on.

Humanity would be dragging the most politics into the arena. The Equine members of the board would doubtless help to counterbalance the appreciably more militaristic Gryphons, leading to balance in that respect. That left Humans something of a wild card, and the steering rudder of the whole endeavor.

The mental and emotional state, military experience, and tactical qualifications of the homo sapiens board members would be a strong force in deciding whether JRSF erred on the side of Equine passivity, or Gryphic militarism.

A perfect mix of candidates, in a perfect world, would be able to ensure precise balance. But, Hutch ruminated as he sipped a glass of punch, the world was far from perfect, and the politics behind the candidates would likely undo any chance at true balance. The best that could be hoped for, in his opinion, was a set of strong military candidates who would side with the Gryphons' viewpoint.

The alternative, politicians who would be more easily swayed by the pacifist Equestrian mentality, could end up hobbling the organization before it ever accomplished anything.

It wasn't that the Ponies' points were invalid, merely too extreme at times. Hutch firmly believed that the only solution to the twin terrors of the PER and HLF was to hit them as hard, fast, and mercilessly as possible, giving them no quarter or time to regroup.

Some of the Ponies, even a few of the Royal Guards, who supposedly had some sort of 'blessing' that allowed them to countenance more violence than usual, advocated *negotiation.*

The very thought made Hutch snort derisively into his punch.

Negotiation was all well and good when you had two legitimately governed sides operating a pitched battle over resources, or land. A great many lives could be spared with shrewd deals cut at the table of peace, trade, and bargaining.

But when ideals, religion, and extremism were involved, there could be no negotiating, especially not when two of the sides were terrorists, not even legitimate governments.

The HLF were hellbent on their xenophobia, and the PER might as well have been religious fanatics given how zealously they worshipped Celestia, Luna, and the very concept of Equine existence.

"I think they made it with real oranges."

Hutch glanced over his right shoulder to find that General Lantry, decked out in his dress whites, had quietly excused himself from a gaggle of reporters, and made his way across the room to Hutch's quiet corner.

"Makes you wonder what it's going to be like... Living in a world without synth food." Hutch swirled the fruity brightly colored concoction, and downed the remainder of the liquid.

Lantry chuckled, "It will be like Thanksgiving all the time, but with sweet potatoes that *don't* taste like the gunk they cleaned out of a Scorpion's engine block."

The general snagged two fresh cups of punch from a passing server, passing one to Hutch, "Listen... Hutch... We need to have a word. In private."

Hutch nodded, and the two men slipped across the room, and through the doors into Hutch's office, before the press, or politicians, had a chance to waylay them. Hutch locked the doors, and tinted them to opacity with a practiced swipe of his finger against the desk mounted controls.

Lantry sighed, "When I accepted my promotion into the upper brass, I didn't think it would come with the proverbial ball and chain of those mess-mongering diplomats and their damnable 'agendas.' But eventually I learned that as many strings as they can pull you around by, you can have twice as many to jerk them around."

Lantry paused and sipped his punch, then crossed the room to stand beside Hutch, "I've got too long, and too radical a record to have a shot at this new 'Board of Directors.' But I also have some long strings to pull... They're looking for younger blood, a ConSec officer would have a good shot, and... To be honest? We need your kind of experience, and go get em attitude."

Hutch's eyebrows shot up, "You want me to move out of ConSec?"

Lantry shook his head, "No you keep your active designator in ConSec. You do lose your position here at the Bureau, but there's a promotion in it for you, and... you could do *a lot* of good on the board. If it's my favors that get you in, then you don't owe the devils in monkey suits anything... That leaves you free to go with your gut. Because that's all I'd ask in return."

Hutch stared into his cup, as if he would find answers swirling amidst the carbonated fizz, "What about Aston? She could probably win her way in on merits alone..."

Lantry shook his head, "She already accepted a field-level command position. She wanted a chance to work with the Gryphons, maybe find herself a sponsor for entry into their Conversion program."

Hutch looked genuinely surprised, "I know she's the type... but I had no idea she was thinking so seriously about it."

Lantry chuckled, "You might want to cultivate a closer relationship with that friend of yours... Sildinar. We all have to go sometime Hutch, even us old dogs who hold out the longest. It'd be nice to have someone to share a new life with, and Laura is as good for you as you are for her.

But for now, we need you on that board. Besides, Sildinar is on it, and that's another way to stick close to him, if that's a plan you got a shine to follow through on. What do you say?"

"I don't suppose I have a lot of time to consider?"

Lantry smirked, "All of five minutes. I have thirty different Councilors breathing down my neck with thirty different candidates, all asking for my endorsement. This is, as those gosh-awful internet ads say, 'A limited time opportunity.' "

Hutch stared into his punch for several more seconds, before glancing up, "Alright. I'll take it.
If only because of the old saying. 'You want something done right, do it yourself.' "

Lantry clapped him on the shoulder, "Good man. That's the spirit. I want to see you in my office, tomorrow 0800 sharp. Brigadier General."

"Good morning!" Fyrenn groaned as Carradan's jovial voice hit his brain with all the force of a back hoof, even as Carradan's actual back hoof hit his side with the force of a freight train.

"Unnnngh. I take it you enjoyed your warm, restful, uninterrupted, full night's sleep?"
Fyrenn pried his eyes open in time to see Carradan nod.

"Good. Don't hit me in the morning. I might hit back."

Carradan chuckled and fell to donning his saddlebags.

Fyrenn set about gearing up himself. He was the last one up, much to his chagrin.

IJ had woken everyone else just before dawn, according to Kephic, and they had elected to let him sleep in a few minutes since he wasn't used to the cold, or the strange watch schedule.

Varan passed him some leftover boar meat, apparently it had been heated on the coals of the fire, which had since been buried under a small mound of snow. Fyrenn gratefully devoured the meal, and then cleaned and stashed the skewer in Carradan's pack.

Neyla and Kephic were busy debating a plan for picking up the Ruby Claws' trail.
From what Fyrenn could hear, they had agreed it would be best to spread the group out, and were hashing out a pairing schedule.

In the end, they came to an agreement, and Kephic briefed the group, "We're looking for anything; Pawprints in the snow, remnants of a camp, unnatural movement of prey animals. Anything that could give away the Pack's position."

The speckled Gryphon cast a glance at Neyla, "We want to try spreading out, in pairs, at maximum sight distance. Fyrenn, Neyla wants to pair with you for the morning. I'll take Stanley, Varan you and IJ can be the rightmost pair. Any objections?"

No one spoke, Stanley shook his head. IJ shrugged her wings, "Seems logical."

Something occurred to Fyrenn, and he gestured to the sky, "If the weather turns for the worse and visibility suddenly goes down, I think we should have a pre-determined plan. When we ran search grids in Special Forces, the protocol was to stop, turn to face the middle group using the compass, and the outer groups would work their way in to rendezvous in the center."

Varan nodded, "A sound strategy."

Neyla and Fyrenn spent the first half hour in uncomfortable silence. Fyrenn's job was to scan down and left, Neyla would look down and right, as well as ensuring that Varan and Carradan stayed within their range of sight at all times.

Since a Gryphon's maximum sight distance was well over six miles at such an altitude, the group was effectively covering a twenty four mile swath with their collective eyes.

Carradan and IJ couldn't see as far, but they proved useful in making quick runs to the ground, and back, to make a preliminary examination of anything that looked suspicious.

Their preternatural, nearly supersonic speed in accomplishing the task allowed the group to progress at a good pace.

Finally, just as Fyrenn was on the verge of trying to get the conversation moving, Neyla began speaking of her own volition, "A promise *is* a promise. But understand that I wouldn't be telling you this if you hadn't first told me something of equal weight. I am not keen to trust new friends so soon, and you will shortly understand why."

Fyrenn wordlessly nodded, and let her continue at her own pace.

"As oddly coincidental as it may sound; I feel your exact pain. I know precisely what betrayal is like, particularly where love is concerned."

Fyrenn gaped, and almost forgot to keep his eyes on the snow and ice below, "I thought infidelity and betrayal were exceedingly rare, if not impossible, for our species?"

Neyla nodded, "They are. But I didn't fall in love with one of our species. Of course, I didn't know that until it was too late. That was the betrayal. That's why I, perhaps more than any Gryphon, have cause to hate Changelings."

Fyrenn sucked in a breath sharply through his clenched beak ,"Oh no..."

Neyla nodded, "Yes. To make a long, painful story short and bearable; I once met a male who I thought of as a potential mate. He was charming, accommodating, kind, loving, and he had, or so he claimed, a small clan. It seemed like a dream come true."

Fyrenn was doing his best to hold back tears. Neyla's voice betrayed the emotional turmoil she was laboring under, and in the sub-zero temperatures, tearing up would be an uncomfortable and painful experience.

"If you don't want to go through with this, you don't have to."

Neyla shook her head, "No. I've started, I may as well finish. It wouldn't be fair to leave you wondering in any case, though I'm sure you can guess most of the rest."

She paused for a long moment. Fyrenn occupied himself with clearing some of the snow from his head feathers as Neyla collected her thoughts. With a sigh, she continued, "The Changelings want, very badly, a sample of our code of life. Their advantage is in infiltration, but they've always been unable to adjust to our cultural climate long enough to collect a sample and escape. Thanks to me, they nearly succeeded."

Fyrenn shook his head, "They were... Are bound to learn. If I may impart some advice that I rarely follow, but we both should; Don't blame yourself for events outside your control."

Neyla snorted, "That's a nice sentiment. But I think we both know that emotional scars aren't so easily swept aside by logic. In any case, he had managed to get a sample of life code... 'Genetics,' and was merely biding his time until he could escape in such a way as to ensure he'd reach his hive long before we knew he was gone."

Fyrenn shook his head, "But you figured him out first."

"Yes. We were on a hunting expedition, going after a lone Diamond Dog Troll who had tried, unsuccessfully, to fulfill a bounty placed on a Gryphon living in one of our outlying settlements. When we caught up to him, we found him already nearly incapacitated from the injuries he sustained trying to carry out his mission."

"I assume you put him out of his misery."

Neyla inclined her head, "That task fell to him... To the Changeling, as he supposedly held the highest rank in our party. But he hesitated to deliver the killing blow. Most races don't consider it palatable to kill an unarmed incapacitated opponent, even if they have been sentenced to death already."

Fyrenn sighed, "And that was enough to clue you in?"

Neyla nodded, "In conjunction with other, smaller things that I had ignored, or dismissed as quirks of personality. It didn't help that, while he couldn't directly manipulate my emotions, he could still sense them, and alter his strategies accordingly. It was an incredibly effective tactic."

"So *that's* why you look at IJ like she's some kind of monster waiting to lunge. Her special talent reminds you of him."

"Disturbingly, yes. If it wasn't for the sheer oddity of his hesitation in killing that Diamond Dog, he would have succeeded at manipulating me like some kind of piece on a chessboard." The way Neyla spat out the last words gave Fyrenn the impression the Changeling wasn't in one piece anymore.

"So what happened?"

"I waited until we had some privacy from the party, then I confronted him about it. I was, I suppose, desperately hoping my suspicions were wrong."

"Well?"

"Well he tried to stab me to the head. I stabbed him to the heart first. Five times."

Fyrenn whistled in awe, "I'm so sorry. That can't have been easy."

"Easier than moving on afterwards. I expect you'll fully understand when I tell you that, against all logic, the event has left me with a... Permanent 'distaste' for intimacy."

"I know *exactly* what you mean. It's not about logic anyway, as you pointed out."

"True."

The ensuing silence wasn't entirely comfortable, nor was it awkward. It was the silence of two souls that had very little to say to each other for no ill reason; Content to assuage their separate pains with the comfort of mutual understanding.

"Good one Stan. Good one." Fyrenn gazed intently at the evidence Carradan had unearthed.

The entire group was gathered around the remains of what had once been a camp. The wind and snow had buried all but the microscopic end of a burned stick, which Kephic had spotted.

Carradan had gone down to investigate, and had been about to chalk it up as debris, when it occurred to him that the wood looked burnt. He dug around it in the snow, to the point that his hooves were caked in it, and he had been rewarded with evidence of a Diamond Dog camp.

Fyrenn scooped Stanley in between his wing and his side, to help him warm up. The salmon colored Pony was shivering, and his teeth were chattering as if driven by a mechanical force.

Varan shrugged, snow coming off his wings in soft white clouds, "We may as well break for a short meal. Judging by how little snow this debris is under, we can't be more than a day behind them."

There were even a few paw-prints on the charred firewood, where some thoughtful member of the pack had reached in and pushed the wood into a tight bundle so it would disappear faster.
The move, while clever, had not quite been enough to fool Kephic's Gryphon eyes, and Carradan's reporter sensibilities.

Once again, Fyrenn's estimation of Stanley's competence increased.

Lunch was a short affair. There was very little boar meat left, but split amongst the four Gryphons it was enough to keep them going. Dinner would require the hunting capabilities of at least three members of the party, however, in order to make up for the smaller noon meal.

As he ate, and helped to warm Stanley, Fyrenn took a good long look at the landscape.
The group was far enough out onto the tundra, that the only thing visible for six miles, in every direction, was pure flat white snow, with wind-gusts carrying clouds of the precipitation across the surface of the land. The only line of reference was the gray horizon, leading up to even grayer clouds, heavily laden with still more frozen water.

The startling impression that popped into Fyrenn's mind was of a desert. A cold, moist, white desert. The difference here was that clean water was so abundant, it could be had anywhere, but food was as scarce as the non-sentient arctic rabbits that prowled the wastes between their cozy burrows, searching for the very few hardy weeds and plants that could endure the cold.

Fyrenn had been surprised to learn that Equestria's animal kingdom was split into non-sentient, and semi-sentient variations of the same creatures. Apparently, centuries of exposure to Earth Pony and Pegasus ambient magic had caused domestic breeds of everything, from bunnies to cows, to develop minds of their own, after a fashion.

By contrast, the wild creatures that inhabited the rest of the world were as animalistic, and therefore as ethically edible as the wild animals that had once roamed Earth's wide open spaces.

As the group prepared to take flight again, Fyrenn cast a final glance down at the remains of the since-burnt out campfire.

"See you soon," He murmured to himself, as he took flight

Chapter 34

Brigadier General. Hutch decided that, in the end, he liked the sound of it.
The newly minted member of the senior brass was on his way down to the Fort Hamilton armory.

General Lantry had bestowed Hutch's new rank in an unceremonious, brief, and to the point meeting that morning. The JRSF was receiving a large chunk of funds and assets to arm and provision itself properly, and Hutch was needed to oversee the final approval of the armor, weapon, and Equipment requisitions.

He discovered Sildinar, and one of the Royal Guards, had already arrived, and were waiting for him. The equipment had been cleared from a side room to make way for a Pony, a Gryphon, and a Human, each in matching sleek gray armor, with a dull red diagonal stripe on the right foreleg, arm, and hoof.

The letters 'JRSF' and a rank symbol were stenciled on each stripe in the same gray tone as the rest of the armor.

The Gryphon's suit was reminiscent of the prototype armor Kephic, Varan, and Sildinar had worn for so long, but it appeared to have been enhanced and refined. The Pony's armor resembled Royal Guard armor, as if re-imagined by ConSec, and the Human's armor was the latest advanced version of Special Forces Marine medium plating.

All three warriors sported helmets as well. The Human's covered his entire head, with a clear plexiglass visor infused with an energy diffusion matrix. The Gryphon and Pony wore half-helms, with slits cut for their ears.

Each carried a variety of equipment, the Human and Gryphon also bore a veritable arsenal of personal weapons. The Pony was laden down with something resembling kevlar saddle bags, filled with medical supplies.

Hutch raised an eyebrow, and leaned in closer to inspect the medic, "You're unarmed?"

The Pony, a female unicorn, shook her head, "Aside from my magic, I have other defensive armament." She stomped her back hooves, and vicious looking blades snapped out from hidden compartments. The unicorn blushed, and gestured with a hoof towards Sildinar, "He insisted."

Sildinar nodded, "Especially given the unreliability of magic here, and the untenability of stronger spells in this world. It seemed prudent."

Hutch grunted, "Necessary is more like it. The HLF aren't above attacking under-armed med techs just to get in a cheap shot."

The Brigadier General turned to the Human and Gryphon, then cast a glance at Sildinar, "Shall we review armaments?"

Sildinar nodded, "Human weaponry never ceases to impress."

The frigid wind bit into Fyrenn like so many icy fangs intent on sapping the heat and life from his body. The group had slept fitfully, except for IJ and Carradan, who were able to shelter under Varan and Fyrenn's wings.

The temperatures had dipped to dangerous levels, even for the Gryphons, with their fur and feather covering, and high speed metabolisms. It had even become impossible to make a fire; A major contributing factor being the wind, from which there was almost no shelter on the seemingly endless flat tundra.

The gusts were not yet strong enough to fully impede IJ's weather manipulation, but they were dozens of degrees colder than the surrounding air. Fyrenn wondered if they were a harbinger of further decline in the ambient temperature.

He gazed up at the opaque, cloud filled sky, and wondered if it was actually warmer above the clouds. As if she had read his mind, Neyla pointed up at a particularly menacing formation resembling a thunderhead, "It's too bad we're tracking prey. It's likely a great deal more comfortable up there, in the sun."

Kephic shivered involuntarily, sending up miniature clouds of white powder that the wind took the moment they were free of his feathers, "Here's a nice thought; It will make the trip home *significantly* easier."

Carradan stomped his hooves impatiently, when he spoke his teeth were chattering so hard it made it difficult to determine what he was saying, "Let's... Just... Get moving... So we can... Get this... *Over* with!"

Fyrenn nodded sharply, "Agreed!"

The group took to the air without further ado. Hunting was accomplished on-the-wing, and the kills were eaten raw. Carradan didn't even blanch when the leftover bones were tossed aside; A testament to how deeply the cold was affecting him.

The cutting wind was abated by putting IJ at the front of the formation, but overall the temperature was still abysmally low. For an hour after eating, Fyrenn felt slightly warmer, and from then on he made an effort to seize on every potential kill he could spot, even volunteering to take a spare haversack and lug leftovers himself.

He reasoned that, if a Gryphon's metabolism could produce so much heat and energy from food, then food was going to be everyone's life-line. It helped that the cold preserved any uneaten meat quite well, meaning there was no need to contemplate other methods of keeping the food fresh.

The price for the free refrigeration was that the food had to be eaten cold. Fyrenn would have traded his next month's stipend for a way to keep a camp fire alive, even for a few minutes.

Around midday, the sky darkened several more shades to an angry gunmetal hue.
Lightning was visible in the distance as non-distinct flashes of blueish white through the snow.

Fyrenn noticed a host of small signals that collaborated to form a single instinct.

A storm was coming.

A winter supercell, as the Earthgov Atmospheric Sciences department would have called it.

He voiced his concerns. IJ nodded, and called back over her shoulder, "The weather here changes unpredictably, and quickly, but I'm certain we're in for a bad evening."

Carradan groaned, "I don't like it, but I can feel it too."

Fyrenn knew his interpretation of the weather stemmed from his body; His lungs, sinuses, nostrils, feathers, fur, and skin were all receiving pressure, temperature, moisture, and wind signals that some incomprehensible aspect of his instincts could collate and meaningfully, accurately interpret.

But IJ and Carradan's predictions were more likely to be even more accurate. Their sense of the climate came from a direct magical connection to the sky itself.

Fyrenn shuddered to imagine the weather they were all in for.

He wondered how bad the windshear would have to get before it completely impeded flight for the whole group. The more he thought about it, the more he realized visibility would ground them far sooner than the crosswinds. If they couldn't see each other there was a very real risk of losing one or more members of the group.

A disaster they could ill afford in a frozen wasteland.

He cast a glance at Kephic, "What do you suppose our chances are of catching the Ruby Claws before the storm hits us?"

Kephic spent a few moments appraising the storm, then gauging their speed, and factoring in his own estimation of the Ruby Claws' over-land pace, before answering, "Fairly good. The storm is actually larger, and slower, than it looks from here. We didn't stop for a midday meal, and we didn't sleep for a full night."

Varan chimed in, "Combine that with the advantage IJ provides to our speed, and we should be quite significantly outpacing them."

Fyrenn found himself compulsively checking his bow. He disengaged it from its mounting point, and checked to ensure that snow had not clogged the workings and components.

The weapon was a symbol of comforting certainty. The Ruby Claws might be deadly mercenaries, but there was little to nothing they could do to defend against surprise aerial assault.

Conversation ceased once again. It was an effort to speak above the mournful cry of the wind, and the frigidity of the air would impact one's lungs like a bolt of cold lightning for daring to open muzzle or beak.

As the sun invisibly continued on its track towards the horizon, Fyrenn's concerns over the weather were gradually replaced by a nagging sensation of tension.

Try as he might, he couldn't lay a talon on the source of the bother, but his instincts were ever so slightly on edge, and it seemingly had nothing to do with the quickening storm.

He only had a few minutes to consider the subtle sensation of concern before something more relevant pre-empted it.

Kephic saw it first, but Fyrenn and Varan noticed it before he could even voice his observation; six dark forms loping north across the tundra on all fours, their heads angled into the wind.

Six Diamond Dogs.

Six *Lupine* Diamond Dogs.

"What are the odds?" Fyrenn mused aloud as he struggled to maintain steady flight without the benefit of IJ's weather magic.

Kephic snorted, "Honestly? Not as bad as you think. The Lupines have a generally reasonable standing with us, and a history of hunting Trolls when they cross the line."

Varan and Neyla were just barely visible several hundred yards away, all four Gryphons were hovering, as best they could, within the lowest levels of the clouds, maintaining a fuzzy yet solid sight picture on the pack below.

Fyrenn dipped his right wing to avoid a particularly bad wind gust, "And yet we're planning an introduction to our supposed allies by way of a covert ambush?"

Kephic chuckled, "The Lupines... Don't mistake their similar ethical stances for broad commonalities. Their culture is quite distinct from ours. Very pack-centric. They don't like the way we play fast and loose with rank, and they often expect us to honor their Alpha and Beta, as if we were members of an allied pack...."

"...Which isn't really something we can do?" Fyrenn finished.

Kephic nodded, "Following direct leadership from other races isn't in our nature. We're not entirely above respectfully reporting to someone else at a higher level, but its hard to follow someone not of our kind 'in the field' as you say."

"And some Lupines will kill over this, rather than just accepting our honest respect?"

"Try 'most.' The only way for us to have things both ways is to impress them sufficiently.
They have to understand, believe, and accept that we could and would kill them, or die trying, before submitting to their own dominance rules. That assuages them, because it places us on an equal level to their Alpha."

"Harsh."

Kephic nodded once more, "But necessary."

Fyrenn sighed, "It just seems like an odd way to win friends and influence people. Even for us."

"Admittedly it's not ideal. But you never know with Lupines. Some packs are progressive, and have no trouble working with us. Others are traditionalist, and refuse to treat us differently regardless, but most walk a line somewhere in the center that makes first meetings... Fraught."

Fyrenn squared his shoulders, as much as he could given his position. The maneuver turned into more of a wing stance adjustment than anything.

"Alright then. Let's make some 'friendship'."

"Greetings." Kephic said it more as a formality than anything.

The wind was blowing from the north, and thus provided the dual purpose of masking the Gryphons' scent, and any faint sound that might have resulted from a slip in concentration and stealthy wing-positioning.

But when he and Fyrenn touched down, the nearly inaudible crunching of the snow beneath their claws and paws was more than enough to get the Diamond Dogs' attention. The species had ears that were at least as attuned to sound as a Pony's, if not more so, and a nose of sufficient caliber to match or surpass any living thing in any world.

Judging by the speed with which the pack adopted an aggressive posture, Fyrenn decided that this was not what Kephic had referred to as a 'progressive' group of Lupines.

The six wolf-like creatures were of equal mass to a Gryphon, and likely weighed a great deal more due to their thicker bones and muscles. Counterintuitively, they appeared to be slightly smaller, given that they lacked wings, but they looked no less deadly for it.

Few members of the pack wore armor or clothing. Those that did were only equipped with light, flexible pads of leather. Most were armed. Their weapons ranged from iron spiked lances, to steel double-length 'claws' built into gauntlets on their front paws.

Not that they needed the weapons to be deadly.

Like a Gryphon, or a Dragon, Diamond Dogs were as good as walking weapons themselves; Razor sharp teeth, matching vicious claws, and a bony shock-absorbing skeleton that looked as if it could take and dish punishment in equal parts.

Fyrenn studied the cold, yellow eyes of the Lupine he presumed was pack 'Alpha.'

All the Diamond Dogs wore leather necklaces strung with the claws and teeth of dead opponents, and the male Fyrenn was staring down had by far the most trophies.

The Lupine's yellow eyes were nothing like Fyrenn's own golden ones. They were almost neon in color, and felt a touch less expressive in the moment; Hardened by a single fierce emotion.

Staring deeper into the lens, he guessed that what the eyes sacrificed in light tolerance, and telescopy versus his own, they counterbalanced with exceptional night vision beyond anything else with a pulse.

The Lupines' fur ranged in color from black, through several shades of gray, to a dirty off white.
He noted that two of the pack members possessed icy blue eyes, rather than yellow, and wondered if that was naturally in the Lupines' base genetics, or the result of cross-subspecies breeding.

If it was the latter, perhaps there was hope that the pack was more progressive than he had first guessed.

Silence reigned supreme for over a minute. Then the growling started; Each member of the pack began making the low throaty rumble in turn.

Kephic followed suit with an ear splitting, hackle raising hiss, and Fyrenn did the same.

The Alpha finally decided to make a move, and singled Fyrenn out, likely judging him to be the less experienced of the two. He held a large lance, and took a stab on an arc that would have intercepted Fyrenn's claw if he had gone for his sword. Instead, he snapped out his wrist, and caught the weapon on his gauntlet, the hidden sword-breaker blades whipping into place with a satisfying 'snick' and catching the Alpha's weapon in a friction hold.

The Lupine was now within inches of Fyrenn's beak, and emitted another low growl, "Foolish. Submit to your Alpha."

Fyrenn only hissed in response, presuming that would convey 'go to hell' just as elegantly as words.

The expression on his beak, and the tilt of his ears, were all the Alpha needed to see to know that his chances of killing, or even harming the Gryphon with his next move were roughly equal to Fyrenn's chances of doing the same to him.

Absolute zero.

The two stood locked in their deadly pose for another full minute, the wind whipping at their fur and feathers, snow piling onto their back paws.

Finally, some sort of barely perceptible signal passed between the Alpha, and pack.

Two of the remaining five began inching around to cover Fyrenn from the rear, the other three circled to prevent Kephic from coming to his aid.

Fyrenn knew Kephic could easily take to the air, and use his wings mercilessly as an advantage, but he was locked in too closely with the Alpha, and likely wouldn't last long enough against three aggressors for Kephic to be much help.

Despite all that, he offered the Alpha a smile.

A moment later his confidence was justified, as a smug female voice rang out over the wind, "Drop your weapons. I'm not a habitually patient person."

The Alpha spun to find Neyla and Varan, both a good seventy yards away, covering him with their Arbalests. Fyrenn doubted the Lupine, with his higher mass, could dodge both bolts at such a relatively short range, and even a thick skull was useless against a steel tipped half pound quarrel traveling at bullet speed.

It was a classic standoff. Neyla and Varan could easily kill the Alpha, and Kephic would not be hard pressed to escape in the confusion. The three of them could then wreak havoc on the fleeing pack with their bows. By the same token, none of them were in a position to spare Fyrenn a quick, bloody, lethal battle with the other two Lupines now covering him.

He was willing to take on one, despite the risk, but two would easily crush him before he could take to the air again, despite his lightning reflexes.

These Diamond Dogs were not as agile as a Gryphon by far, but in a straight line they could move just as fast, and both aggressors, infinitely more experienced than he, were pointed right at Fyrenn's jugular.

Varan jerked his head at Neyla, maintaining a sight down the stock of his own weapon,
"I'd be worried about her if I were you. She grew up with that weapon, and she loves a good kill."

The Alpha snarled, with a touch of his own smugness, "If you loose your bolts, we will kill the red one."

Fyrenn shrugged, and snapped out the blades in his other gauntlet, causing the Lupines on either side of him to take a menacing step forward. With more confidence than he actually felt, he calmly announced, "*I* have no qualms about taking my chances, on any day of the week. Neyla? She doesn't take prisoners. And she certainly won't bat an eyelash if you slice off my head, she'll just return the favor. Are *you* prepared to die today?"

The Alpha stood for a painfully long moment, then a low sound began to build in his throat. It took Fyrenn a moment to realize it was guttural laughter. "Spoken like a true *warrior*. You did well, keeping the nerves from your voice, but I can hear your heart racing."

Another invisible signal passed between Alpha and pack, and the Diamond Dogs lowered their weapons and adopted more defensive stances, though Fyrenn noted that they made a point of retaining a strong hold on their implements of battle.

The Alpha turned back to him, "Yes. I am prepared to die today, tomorrow, or any other day.
I have no love for those of your kind who will not respect the rules of nature," by that Fyrenn assumed he meant the pack structure, "...But neither am I keen to kill one who might otherwise be a friend. Were he to learn some respect."

Fyrenn snapped his gauntlet blades back into locked position, "That kind of respect is earned, a task to which you have not made the best of starts. And it still wouldn't give you the right to command me."

"Spoken like a true *Gryphon,*" Fyrenn noted the word carried less surprised respect, and more mild disdain, than 'warrior.'

"Tell me, how many battles are you a veteran of?"

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "Thirty three large engagements. Much more if you count live fire interdictions, feather's-breadth escapes, successful assasinations, and one-on-one scuffles."

"You do not carry yourself that way," The Alpha's voice betrayed subtle hints of surprise, and his ears reflexively flicked back a hair.

Fyrenn shrugged, and stepped over to join Kephic, glaring at the other Lupines, as if daring them to cross him, "I'm new to this body. Not to the battlefield."

The Alpha sucked in a breath, "So they are converting Humans into Gryphons now too?"
The statement betrayed no emotion, but Fyrenn wondered, with mild amusement, if it concerned the Alpha deep down.

Varan left to retrieve IJ and Carradan. Neyla continued to hold her Arbalest in a ready position as she approached. Kephic glared at the Alpha, "We're hunting a Troll pack. The Ruby Claws. You are here for the same reason."

The Alpha nodded, "They are being led by a defector."

Kephic looked deeply shocked, which in turn surprised Fyrenn, "Defector?"

The Alpha explained, before Kephic had a chance to respond, "A member of the pack who leaves without permission. It is incredibly difficult to summon the will to break the structure this way, and considered one of our ultimate sins. Much like disrespecting the Alpha." He glared pointedly at Fyrenn, who returned the expression with an iota of rebellion for every iota of disdain.

Kephic snorted, "Usually they're expected to turn their will to 'pack advancement' which is a nice way of saying they kill for dominance."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "You consider a pack member departing a betrayal, but you *expect* them to challenge you to death duels?"

The Alpha grunted, "I hardly expect your kind to comprehend. A challenge is the way of courage; It forces one to act solely on convictions, without reservation, and not in a cheap fashion. Departure without my blessing is the act of a coward, disrespect, and in this case betrayal. For now the defector *leads* the Ruby Claws."

Fyrenn exchanged a glance with Kephic, then with Neyla. That was certainly a new complication.

Neyla stuck her Arbalest points first into the snow, and leaned on it. A casual display that seemed to upset several of the pack members, as if it galled them that she ostensibly no longer considered them a threat sufficient to keep her weapon trained on them as she spoke.

"How long have you been hunting this deserter?"

The Alpha fixed his gaze on her, "Fifteen cycles of the moon."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "A year and three months is a long time to hold a vendetta."

"It is a serious offence. What is your business with the Ruby Claws?"

Varan arrived quietly with IJ and Carradan just then. Once the pack got a handle on the instinct to attack, Kephic jerked his head at Fyrenn. As the one with the most experience with Earth matters, it fell to him to explain.

"We're dealing with a group of dangerous terrorists on the other side of the barrier. The PER."

The Alpha nodded, "I've heard rumors, now and again. More information passes across the barrier than you might imagine."

"They've been using members of the Ruby Claws as enforcers to protect their interests and harm innocents. We've never been able to get a handle on the PER's leadership, but it seems likely the Ruby Claws can lead us to their main sympathizers here in Equestria, who can in turn lead us to the top rung leadership Earthside."

The Alpha nodded, "A sound strategy. An agreement must be reached on the Ruby Claws."

Varan shook his head, "No need to overcomplicate it. We seek information. We take several alive, get what we want, and then you may do with them as you will as long as you don't allow them to go free."

The Alpha snorted, "The latter goes without being said. Their leader, he is ours. Exclusively."

Fyrenn shook his head vehemently, "No. If he's the one in charge, he could be the one we need to interrogate the most. We get a pass at all of them."

The Alpha glared, but Fyrenn kept going, "In this weather? We can outpace you. Significantly. We certainly don't need your help to track our quarry. We could bypass you altogether, and leave you nothing but corpses to pick through, if that would suit you better."

"Mind your tongue, or I'll remove it"

Fyrenn leaned forward, "You get close enough to try it, and you'll be too busy trying to screw your brain-case back in to notice the pain from your missing paw."

The Alpha growled sharply at Kephic, "Teach your underling manners."

Kephic tilted his head nonchalantly, "First of all, he is my brother as much as my subordinate, and the former is more important than the latter. Second, he *is* exhibiting manners by not removing your limbs one by one for insulting him with your petty threat display. Lastly, if you touch him, it won't matter whether *he* kills you or not, because if he doesn't *I* will."

"If it were not for my 'understanding' you would all be dead."

Neyla chuckled and patted her Arbalest, "Don't make your bets till you've seen under all the shells."

The Alpha stared at each of them in turn, taking longer with Carradan and IJ, as if making up for the fact that they were newcomers, before speaking, "I am Shroud, Alpha of the Steel Moon clan. We will allow you to hunt with us in the interest of efficiency."

From the way the pack fully un-tensed and fell to making camp, Fyrenn realized that Shroud's words were a formal declaration. He watched, fascinated, as the pack dug furiously, hollowing out two windbreaks, one large enough to fit the pack cozily, the other with enough space for himself and the rest of the group.

It occurred to him that, as much as he intensely disliked Shroud, part of the problem was his own Gryphic nature. "For every advantage..." He didn't realize he'd mumbled the words aloud until Neyla placed a claw on his shoulder.

The contact startled him, but he found it oddly reassuring as a platonic gesture. She smiled, "You were right. And wrong."

"Oh?"

"I would have sliced off his head. But I also would have been very upset if he sliced off yours."

Fyrenn snorted, "Oh come on."

She locked eyes with him, her gaze mournful, "I'm being serious. You are one of the very few friends I have."

Fyrenn smiled, and proffered her a quick hug with his wing, which she accepted as he spoke.

"Thanks. I'll admit; It's nice to have friends who can take care of themselves."

He unconsciously brushed his right claw against his sword hilt, and the inlay of Skye's cutie mark.

Neyla caught the gesture and raised her eyebrow. Fyrenn sighed, and allowed himself a sad smile, "I'll tell you *that* story later. I've had enough emotional turmoil for one day."

The group huddled down in their windbreak. All the potential awkwardness of being pressed cheek to cheek with Neyla, left by Fyrenn's Human upbringing, was drowned in the desire for warmth and protection. Outside, the wind began to lash with hurricane force, and the snow began falling at such a colossal rate, that whomever was on watch also inherited the duty of keeping an exit tunnel clear.

Unlike the previous camp, however, there was no separate space to go in order to keep watch, so it was something of a mild struggle to stay awake, and resist the temptation to allow the warm feathers, and slow breathing of the group to lull oneself to sleep.

Eventually, Varan took over for Fyrenn, and he shifted himself back into the small dugout, content to fall asleep almost instantly.

The head of the PER was out of the headquarters building for the first time in weeks.
He strode along the floor of the parking deck, Veritas by his side, watching intently as white armored troopers, and the occasional Diamond Dog, lugged industrial components off several flatbed trucks.

"Look at it! The weapons of the future Veritas! No bloodshed, no conflict, no strife... We have had this atomization technology so long... To think we could have turned to such enlightenment *years* ago!"

Veritas smiled coyly, "Is that not why we do this? To bring about enlightenment? Humans continue to repeatedly demonstrate an inability to evolve on the whole, societally, towards harmony. The only way it will ever really come to pass is if we give it to them."

The head of the PER stroked one of the Atomizers, as if it were alive, staring across the top of the boxy metallic device, out the side of the parking deck, and across the cityscape, "And we will. We will gift it to them. Whether they wish it or not. And in the end? They'll thank us."

Chapter 35

Morning was heralded by a surprising glimpse of the sun, and blue sky, on the southern horizon.
The clouds still covered the tundra, for the most part, but the storm had passed, and a small break in the distance allowed a few early rays of light to paint the lower surfaces of the suspended moisture clusters in shades of pearlescent white.

Fyrenn had not slept as well as he'd hoped.

In the temporary absence of other issues, the unidentifiable nagging worry of the previous afternoon had returned. As the night progressed, and the storm spent its fury on the land below, whipping snow into dunes and drifts, the feeling had gradually intensified to a dull internal roar.

As he waited for the rest of the group to gear up, Fyrenn fell to watching the Lupines.

They seemed capable of communicating precisely and instantly with each other, completely without the use of speech. It took him several moments of gazing at them to realize that they were using a complex well-honed combination of body language, and low or high throaty sounds that were just beyond the hearing range of most other creatures.

After another few moments of observing their co-ordination with rapt attention, a more important realization struck him. As if feeling his eyes on the back of her neck, one of the female Diamond Dogs cast a brief appraising glance over her shoulder.

And then Fyrenn realized; He had hit upon the source of his elusive nagging concern.
Now that he understood the instinct, he was more sure of it than ever.

He slowly walked a few hundred yards to the south, sweeping the horizon with his powerful eyes, desperately and meticulously searching for some indication to validate his concerns.

Varan and Carradan had to say his name several times to get his attention, given that he was so fixated on his task.

Fyrenn shook himself, and turned around to find his two companions looking at him with visible worry, "Sorry. I was...
Having a good look at the way we came."

Carradan shrugged, and eyed him suspiciously, "Whatever you say. 'S time to leave, Kephic and Shroud want to have a 'planning' session."

Fyrenn rolled his eyes, "Oh this will be ever so much fun. I'll be right there."
He turned back to the southern vista, and noted the crunch of Carradan's hoofsteps in the snow was unaccompanied.

Varan waited a good thirty seconds before speaking, "You sense it too."

Fyrenn nodded, "At first I thought it was battle instinct, or some subtle indication that we were finally getting close to our quarry... But now I'm sure."

He turned and locked eyes with the golden Gryphon, concern etched on his beak, "We're being *followed*."

Vocalizing the revelation was immensely disturbing. Presumably very few creatures could covertly observe a Gryphon undetected for so long, and anything both capable of such a feat, and intent on performing it, was doubtless malicious *and* deadly.

Varan gave the southern reaches of the tundra a quick sweep with his own eyes, "I've informed Kephic and Neyla, who seem to have been under a similar impression. Neyla has suggested we not inform our new 'friends.' If they pick up on it as well, then we can be doubly sure. If they do not, then it remains our issue to deal with alone."

"Are we going to tell IJ and Stan?"

Varan nodded, "But not in hearing range of the pack. Wait until we are in the air."

Fyrenn jerked his head towards the combined groups in the distance, "How far *can* they hear a sound at anyways?"

Varan raised an eyebrow, "If not for the wind? The would be able to hear every word we've said at more than twice this distance. If we had whispered them directly in each other's ears."

"We've been tracking them by scent..." Shroud trailed off as he circled a patch of snow on all fours, his nose pressed to the ground.

He stood and grunted, "The storm has weakened the trail. We will need to move now, and stop sparingly, if we intend to catch them."

Kephic pointed a single talon skyward, "We'll fly a search line, with one hanging back to use your pack as a direction finder. If we move forward in tandem like a dragnet we're more likely to hit on something. We have the sight to spot the prey at distance, but you have the better method for acquiring the general trail."

Fyrenn braced himself, sure that Shroud was going to react very poorly to Kephic's assertive plan. Amazingly, however, the hulking Lupine merely nodded, and turned to see to his pack.

Fyrenn chalked it up to a combination of Shroud's perception of Kephic as an equal, and his ability to accept a logical course... When it had been seasoned lightly with a compliment.

Amongst themselves, the Gryphons established a rotation for who would provide the aerial 'anchor' to the pack. The other three would spread out in a fan ahead, with the Gryphon at each end taking a Pony with them to act as a messenger.

Visually, the group was covering less ground than before, but in exchange they had the Pack to point the way and narrow the cone of uncertainty significantly.

During his stint as the 'anchor' Fyrenn spent a great many moments looking over his shoulder, sweeping the horizon. He was sure he could feel hidden eyes, their malicious gaze fixed on him with skill, and intent.

As the sun peaked behind the clouds, he decided that the Ruby Claws weren't the only thing they were going to be meeting in battle, before the week was out.

That was disconcerting indeed. What sort of skill and power might a creature have, if it was capable of eluding a Gryphon's gaze?

The JRSF was now a partially operational military unit. As such, several sections of Fort Hamilton had been reassigned to act as storage, barracks, armory, and operational command center for the new organization.

For the first time, the military facility was playing host to nonhumans as semi-permanent residents. Fellow warriors of two other species eating, sleeping, training, relaxing, and in general living alongside the long-time homo sapiens soldiers.

The atmosphere was charged with excitement for many reasons. The cohabitation of three species as a military unit wasn't just breaking ground culturally, it was also a tantalizing promise of future successes against the PER and HLF.

There, on display for the world to see and hopefully emulate, was an example of something neither terrorist faction had, or could ever hope to have; Actual harmony.

Certainly there had been, and still would be, the occasional rough spot. It was functionally impossible to put high strung, well trained soldiers who hadn't worked together before into a confined space, and expect there to be no fights, or arguments.

Still, nothing untoward had transpired that didn't also happen regularly enough on purely Human military bases and ships every so often. Hutch leaned back in his chair and smiled contentedly.

Lantry had been right; His position was *very much* going to be worth it.

Hutch then remembered why the board was meeting that morning, and his expression soured.
He rotated his chair to stare pensively out the window until the other members had all arrived.

The table they sat around was a dark gray granite, mounted on a central steel column.
It was a perfect circle, with no head or foot. Equal positions all around.
The connection to the Round Table of old was not lost on the human board members, and the few members of the other species who had studied Human legend more extensively.

The room, like the table, was a circle with one half being a window, the other half a padded beige wall with two screens flanking the door. Light came from a hidden strip that ran the perimeter of the room at floor level, and an identical strip around the circumference of the ceiling.

Sildinar, Seyal, and a third individual Hutch hadn't met served as the Gryphon liaisons, two of Celestia's Royal Guard commanders, and one of Luna's Night Guards served as the Pony liaisons, and Hutch himself was flanked by an up-and-coming two star general on his left, and the final, unfortunate member of the board on his right.

The final board member had been appointed at the firm insistence of the Populists on the Earthgov council, and he was a civilian. Worse. He was a politician.

Worst of all, and veritably damning, he was a 'legal terminology' and procedures expert. Government speak for the single worst scum plaguing the system. A Lawyer.

Even Celestia's Royal Guards, who were purportedly going to function as the counterbalance to the Gryphons, showed an immediate, but well suppressed, distaste for the man.

Lennik Einrig. The name even sounded slippery.

The meeting was, like all convenings of the Board, informal. Hutch decided to launch directly into the issue without any ado. He suspected Sildinar, and the other Gryphons, would appreciate that.

"Folks, we have a new break in our hunt for the PER, and as a result we also have a thorny problem."

Hutch thumbed a control, and data was automatically projected to both the wall screens, and the window behind him. "Our infiltration AI, lovingly named 'Chuck,' has uncovered some startling trends and patterns inside the Gavin/Schummel mainframe. To be perfectly blunt, there is strong evidence that the PER's connection to the company is far more than superficial manipulation. If it isn't full blown infiltration, its almost certainly collaboration."

The revelation was not particularly disturbing to the Ponies or Gryphons, who cared little for basic Human political issues. The Two Star to Hutch's left, Kara Sorven, looked a bit phased. Einrig didn't seem convinced.

Hutch leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table, "The information is solid. Independently verified by analysts from all three races just to be sure. Now it's *not* quite enough for a writ of search and seizure, but that's why we're here..."

Hutch took a deep breath and leaned back, "From a tactical standpoint, this info is attainable. From a geopolitical standpoint, it's a nightmare."

Einrig interrupted with something between a scoff and a snort, "Its a legal *minefield*"

Hutch glared, "Now supposedly that's why we're here isn't it? To be above the bureaucracy. We're not talking about marching in there on a rumor you know." He jerked his thumb at the data being projected onto the window, "This is real, hard evidence. So today, we're here to put it to a vote. According to the operational guidelines we've set for ourselves, a simple majority is all we need to go ahead with a seizure operation. I move for an immediate vote."

Sildinar raised a claw before Einrig could interrupt again to object, "I second."

Each Board member turned to their individual section of the table, activating a holoscreen customized for their species. The vote only took a few moments. Hutch was sure the Gryphons would vote for the operation; Luna's Night Guard, and Sorven he was slightly less sure of, but still confident. Einrig would obviously vote against, and lastly, Celestia's Royal Guards were something of an inscrutable mystery.

The computer quietly, without any preamble, reported the results.
Two against, Seven for.

Hutch was willing to bet one of Celestia's Guards had voted against, given the various expressions of approval coming from Sorven, and the Nightguard.

Einrig looked as though he had been force fed a raw halibut, "I must protest this action, under article thirty seven section---"

Seyal snorted, "What's the phrase? 'Objection noted' ? Shut up, sit down, stop whining."

If looks could kill, then the look the female Gryphon gave Lennik could have melted steel and titanium.

Hutch could barely suppress a smirk.

Sorven nodded, "Alright then. How do we play this? And before anyone suggests 'carefully,' do be aware that I haven't had my morning coffee, and I'd rather not mince pleasantries with a company that's funding terrorists."

Hutch decided he liked Sorven.
God forbid she and Aston ever meet.

He'd never survive the two of them together.

Fyrenn thought his gut was going to leap out of his beak and grab his sword for him.
Not only had Shroud informed them that he suspected they were less than a day's flight behind their prey, but he and two other members of the pack had also expressed the same tell-tale concern that they were all being followed.

The sun was setting, the clouds were preparing to dump more snow, albeit with less accompanying wind, the temperature had dropped another two degrees, and it was getting harder still to find food. The noses of the pack were, at that point, the only reason there was enough meat to go around.

Gryphons were more efficient and deadly hunters in warmer climes, and even arctic forests, but out here where the prey was almost always underground, the nose of the Diamond Dog was king of the food chain.

The Lupines, at first glance, didn't seem the digging sort. Varan had mentioned off-claw that they were less efficient and powerful at digging than the trolls, but their skills were still unmatched by any other species.

Fyrenn didn't think it possible at first, but the Lupines could find, collapse, and kill everything inside a rabbit burrow *before* the creature knew the predator was even there.

Fyrenn almost felt sorry for his meals. Almost.

The sheer level of inconvenience the small white beings had presented earlier, combined with the life-giving necessity of slaking his hunger, was enough to offset any lingering regret.

As he devoured his newly cleaned and filleted meal, he couldn't resist plumbing Shroud's knowledge of Diamond Dogs. His questions were mainly motivated by curiosity, but there was also a small desire to see how far he could push the enormous gray Lupine before he became irritable.

Fyrenn learned that there were four main species of Diamond Dog; Lupine, Vulpine, Hyanian, and Troll. The first, and last, he had met and had some experience with, from the description of the other two Fyrenn inferred that the former were much like Foxes, and the latter Hyenas.

Shroud's description of a Hyanian was not flattering; They were apparently well known for being a barely-sentient subspecies devoid of all compassion, restraint, and all but the most basic intelligence. A species truly ruled by instinct.

A uniting factor of all diamond Dogs seemed to be their pack instinct and mentality.

If Ponies were generally culturally friend-centric, and Gryphons nuclear-familial, then Diamond Dogs were masters of the pack; Or as Shroud would have put it, the pack was master of the Diamond Dogs.

Among Vulpines, the instinct ran closer to what a Gryphon might consider a workable construct. Nearly all Vulpine packs were small, and based around families. It was fairly conceivable to see lone Vulpines as well.

Trolls avidly respected the hierarchy of the pack the way Lupines did, but their barriers to entry and exit from the pack were much more permeable. Hyanians were purely animalistic.

Fyrenn interrupted a particularly long-winded story about a Hyanian invasion of Lupine clan territory to satisfy a sudden curiosity. He knew the question was provocative, but he wanted an answer, "Why *do* you get so... Tense, when other races won't respect your pack structure? We're not *you* after all."

Shroud looked a bit put off, but he did open his muzzle to answer, much to Fyrenn's surprise, "You Gryphons. Your greatest assets, and greatest weaknesses, are your emotions.
They can rule you if you let them, yes?"

Fyrenn nodded. Shroud gazed out across the tundra pensively, "Imagine if your emotions were ten thousand times more insistent, powerful, and strong. Imagine if they were always there, every second of every day. That is what our instincts are like for us. For you, instinct is a sixth sense; It is powerful, but it is controllable. For us, instinct is a force as sure and powerful as the winds and tides."

Shroud locked eyes with Fyrenn, "The pack structure exists to bring order to this chaos. To keep us from devolving into animals. To make us an honorable society. It is our single most important creed; It is our life and breath. Were it not for the strength with which it takes hold, we would be beasts, and nothing more."

Fyrenn shrugged, "I see why it matters so much to you, and rightly so. But that doesn't really justify your need for us to conform to fit into it. It explains it, sure, but it doesn't really *justify* it."

Shroud raised an eyebrow, "The pack is nature's way of bringing order to all things. You included."

Fyrenn snorted, "Heh. I don't need anything beyond my own nature, instincts, morals, faith, and brain to tell me how to fit into the way of things. Structures are something I choose to be a part of very selectively. Even before I became a Gryphon, I needed an emotional tie and a good reason before I could submit to authority. With Special Forces, it was the desire to serve that fulfilled both. With my kind, it's been my family ties, and the culture and ethics."

Fyrenn turned to stare at the horizon himself, "I don't have an emotional or logical tie to your pack. So I can't think of you as anything beyond equals, at best, including you."

Shroud growled, "Is that the Gryphon, the Human, or the person's soul underneath talking?"

"False Trichotomy. You incorrectly presume that there's a difference."

Fyrenn's blunt proclamation put an end to any further back-and-forth for several minutes.

He was about to open his beak to ask about the night's wind-breaks, when something caught his attention. Later, he couldn't recall if it was a scent, a sound, or something more paranormal. But whatever it was, it set his instincts on edge so harshly they might as well have been clashing, scraping swords.

Fyrenn had *just* enough time to note that all six Lupines, and the other members of his own group, had been seized by a similar premonition, before he came face to face with the source of his concern.

The creature was skeletal, in the most literal sense of the word. It was an actual bleached flesh-less Pony skeleton. But it was all wrong. Where the tail should have been, vertebrae from another skeleton had been grafted on to create a different kind of tail.

Fyrenn followed the arc of the limb with his eyes, noting that it came up and over the body, like a scorpion, to end in a deadly sharp, multi-tined, vicious looking bony barb. He also noted, with no small amount of consternation, that several shards of bone were nested under the barb, as if to be launched at an enemy.

The monster, whatever it was, should not have been able to move. The bones were connected, but there was no flesh, no cartilage, not even so much as a stray muscle fiber. Yet it had approached with absolute silence, and at such speed, that no one had noticed it until it was in-front of them.

Fyrenn could see that, whatever gave the being impetus, it was most likely magical. How else to explain the daunting red glow that filled the eye sockets, and the deep blue tinge covering the skeleton like St. Elmo's Fire, culminating in an almost transparent set of spectral, wispy wings that seemed to be made of a mixture of fog and starlight.

Fyrenn felt an intelligence behind the twin red pools that inhabited the long dead Pony skull's eye sockets. A fearful, malevolent, frighteningly powerful intelligence.

He noted, with mounting concern, that there were eleven more of the creatures now standing in a circle around the Gryphons, Lupines, and Ponies. The numbers lined up one to one, but Fyrenn doubted the battle would be short, or simple.

He was correct.

The very instant he went for his sword, the being facing off against him flicked its scorpion tail. Fyrenn had to twist with all his might to avoid the shard of bone, which whistled past his side a mere feather's breadth away with a speed he estimated to be roughly equal to a bullet flung from a firearm.

To his astonishment, by the time he was airborne and had his sword in his claws, the creature was practically in his face, borne aloft on its seemingly whimsical wings. The scorpion tail flicked towards him again, this time aiming to plunge the barb directly into his skull.

At the same time, the creature lashed out with its front hooves, which had been sharpened, as if against a rock, to give them protruding bone blades.

Fyrenn had to pivot, and bring up his sword to block the frenzied dual attack. The barb clanged off his blade with surprising force, and the sharpened hoof blades scraped against his leg graves with a sickening squeal as they passed.

Despite the intense concentration he was using, pushing his perception of time to its limits and beyond, the creature was matching him move for move. It made for an odd deadly dance; He and the spectral skeleton both had an eternity to consider and execute each move, but because their perceptions, and seemingly speeds, were equally matched, it was like a game of blitz chess. One wrong move would result in failure.

Failure would result in death. No time for recovery.

Fyrenn had no doubt the creature was capable of finding the open spots in the joints of his armor, and making good use of them.

He caught a glimpse of Kephic and Varan at the center of their own one-on-one tussles, whereas the Lupine pack seemed to be busy fighting the remainder of the creatures in an all out brawl of fur, claws, bones, and barbs.

As he contorted through a particularly tight pivot, Fyrenn saw that IJ was sprawled out on the snow, hooves clenched over her head, tears streaming out of her eyes as though she were in pain. Carradan was gallantly, but awkwardly, standing guard over her. The monsters did not seem especially concerned with the Ponies, doubtless having decided that they could deal with them once everyone else was dead.

Fyrenn returned his full concentration to his opponent. If he could defeat the being, then he could join Kephic, and help him overpower his enemy, and from there they would make short work of Varan's, and the tide would turn.

No matter what he did, he couldn't seem to gain an advantage. The creature wasn't just a match for him in terms of speed.
It was as though it could reasonably anticipate his moves. Not enough to gain an immediate advantage over his better armor, weapon, and vision, but more than enough to match him blow for blow. And wear him down.

Fyrenn decided to try a different tactic. He pumped his wings hard, and gained some altitude on the enemy, then went for his bow with all the speed he could muster. The creature was nearly on him by the time he nocked his arrow, but he managed to let the projectile loose right at the creature's skull.

Their dissimilar weaving movements, and evasive maneuvers meant nothing to Fyrenn's aim, and his arrow flew true, piercing the creature directly through the skull and embedding itself up to the fins.

The impact had no effect whatsoever.

The creature seemed to possess no vital organs, no sense of pain, and no fear of death.

Fyrenn flicked the hidden blades on his bow into action, hoping to catch the creature by surprise.
For a tenth of a second, the being slowed, but it didn't falter. To Fyrenn's mind, that meant it had known he was planning a surprise, but it didn't know *what.*

That was a piece of information he could use.

He spun the sword in his right claw, and the bow in his left. He re-engaged, and fought the creature for several more moments, their limbs and weapons dancing around each other at speeds so fast, the human eye couldn't have even begun to process the events.

The sharpened surfaces never touched. They were both reacting too quickly for that.
Move, and countermove, defense and offence, this creature was as much built for war as a Gryphon, and clearly well acquainted with combat.

Finally, Fyrenn gained the opportunity he was looking for. He parried a hoof with the bow-blades, feinted right with his sword, brought his wings down, and simultaneously lifted his back legs, flicking their hidden blades into action.

He rolled, and was rewarded with a satisfying 'clack' as his leg-blades severed the creature's barb, and one vertebra of its tail.

His victory was short lived.

The barb had only been grazed, and as he watched in disbelief it course corrected, re-attaching itself to the tail as if guided by a magnet. He also noted, with some relief, that the vertebra he had struck had been fully dislodged, and showed no signs of reattaching as it spiraled down through the snow.

That told him that while the creature's bones were being held together magically, it *was* possible to push the skeleton far enough apart that the field could not reassemble it.

Fyrenn continued to dodge the creature's vitriolic assaults. He was not yet tiring, but he could sense that if the battle continued long enough, he would make a mistake. That would be all the monster needed.

The creature also seemed vulnerable to energy deprivation, however.
Fyrenn could see a microscopic, but measurable decrease in its response time.

As the battle wore on, Fyrenn began to feel fear creeping in at the edges of his mind.
He began to doubt if he could outlast the monster.

Strangely, he noticed that the creature seemed to gain a second wind at around the same time.

It struck him that he was fighting something forged from magic. Given the way it could anticipate his intentions, but not his stratagems, and given the way it was reacting to his slowly mounting kernel of fear, it was possible that the beast was somehow sensing, and feeding off of, his emotions.

If Changelings could do it, couldn't other creatures?

Fyrenn fought to switch off his feelings, to operate based purely on training, instinct, and logic.
It wasn't easy.

Everything he knew and had learned told him to fight with a controllable mixture of emotions on top of his other mental forces and faculties, but his theory on the creature was perhaps his one single advantage.

When he felt he had a sufficient lock on his emotions, Fyrenn lunged forward in a wild last-ditch attempt at victory. He dropped his sword, and bow, and locked limbs with the monster.
The tail barb instantly came down, hammering at his back and wings with snake-like speed.

Fyrenn was able to use his backplate and wing-joint plates to absorb most of the assault, but several times the barb struck home on his right wing, leaving him with deep, ragged gashes that gave flow to rivulets of golden tinged red blood.

The pain, however, drove the last vestiges of emotion from Fyrenn's mind, and gave him clarity.
He grabbed the creature's skull in one claw, and it's torso in the other. Perhaps the main disadvantage the creature possessed was its Pony proportions. Fyrenn was much larger and had, overall, more limbs at his disposal.

Fyrenn ceased any efforts to remain aloft, forcing the creature to fall with him, as his significantly greater weight bore down on the monster.

Disregarding the cuts the creature's sharpened edges were giving his forelegs, he put all his might into rending its skull from its torso, and pushing the two bone structures as far apart as possible. Even when the head came undone, there was an almost elastic invisible force trying to pull it back.

Fyrenn redoubled his efforts, taking several hits from the tail so forceful, that they partially pierced his back plate, gashing the skin underneath. Finally, the head snapped off, like a magnet finally free of the field of its twin. The red glow of the eyes dissociated from the sockets of the skull as it spun away, hovering above the body where the head should have been.

The loss of the head unbalanced the creature, but didn't seem to pain it.
The distraction of fighting Fyrenn, however, had completely drawn its attention away from the ground.

The interlocked combatants hit the snow with so much force and speed, it may as well have been solid rock. Fyrenn's fall was broken by the creature, the mild shock absorbing properties of his armor, and then at last his own carefully timed impact roll, leaving him with relatively light bruising.

As for the creature, as he had hoped, the impact shattered its skeleton outright, scattering the pieces in the snow far and wide as if some demented child had dropped a lego set on a tiled kitchen floor.

The bones were again lifeless, but the blue haze that had bound them remained.
Free of its host, the translucent form resembled nothing so much as a Pegasus.
A demented, terrifying, yet strangely beautiful Pegasus, forged from the pure night sky.

The constellations, for there did seem to be formations of stars within the unfocused perimeter of the being, vaguely reminded Fyrenn of Skye's cutie mark.

He gazed into the red eyes of the wisp, and growled, through his labored breaths, "Who *are you* ?"

To his amazement, pain exploded in his head and chest. Not physical pain, but emotional pain.
The intensity was so incredible, that images of everything from the day he lost his eyes, to every time he had been shot, or taken shrapnel, to Skye's death flashed before him; His memory rendering them as if he were reliving them.

The images seemed to focus on the creature's eyes, which held Fyrenn's gaze with rapt attention. All at once, the onslaught ceased.

A voice, singular, alone, yet seemingly made up of several different voices speaking in dissonance, rang out, "We are the blacknessssss...."

With that, the creature spiraled skywards, vanishing into the clouds with an ear splitting shriek, apparently deprived of its ability to influence the corporeal world without a host, but lent speed as if it had been unshackled.

Fyrenn took a moment to collect himself. Several places in his armor had been scraped, dented, and even pierced, which to his reckoning meant the being's attacks had Thaumatic strength behind them.

He was bleeding. Not seriously enough to prevent him from fighting or flying, but if it hadn't been for his wing-joint plates, the creature would have doubtless broken his wings several times over.

The final attack was the most concerning of all, and it certainly seemed to prove his theory that the creature could feed off of, sense, and perhaps reflect emotion. If it was capable of directly affecting emotion, it would have simply done so and defeated him.

Tellingly, it only attacked him emotionally *after* he had thought of Skye.
It was only a hypothesis, but Fyrenn had to start somewhere.

He glanced up to see that his fight had carried him several hundred yards away from the main battle. Varan, even as he watched, managed to rend his own opponent in two. That didn't surprise Fyrenn, Varan was the most emotionally reserved of the group.

His brother locked eyes with him. Through a quick series of claw signals, he indicated he would help Kephic, and Fyrenn should assist Neyla.

As he approached the tan and blue Gryphoness, Fyrenn could see that she was faring the worst of them all, though not for lack of skill. Fyrenn spared a glance for the pack as he closed with Neyla and her opponent. They seemed to be holding their own, their instincts doubtless suppressed any emotion aside from bloodlust, making them far less vulnerable to the creatures' sensing or reflecting abilities.

As for IJ, she was still writhing, as if in pain. Fyrenn wondered with a small part of his brain, as he struck Neyla's foe in the side at full speed, if IJ's emotion sensing talent was making her especially vulnerable.

As the creature in Fyrenn's claws crumpled under his surprise assault, he added another weakness to their checklist. They did not have a good sense of their surroundings when fully engaged with a single equally fast opponent.

As he crushed the creature's dissociated skull in his right claw, and turned to tend to Neyla, he grinned with the madness of a warrior who has just dodged a bullet meant for his brain.

Gryphons were masters of surprise attacks.

Chapter 36

"The plan, is for a multi-pronged surprise attack."

Sildinar was briefing the division commanders who would be taking part in the seizure of the Gavin Schummel headquarters.

Under normal circumstances, despite their autonomy, JRSF might have sought validation from the Earthgov Council before going ahead with such a bold move, but in the wake of the stolen Atomizers the situation had been deemed too serious for political interference.

The Gryphon gestured to the screen occupying the wall behind him. He had the full attention of the assembled Gryphons and Humans. Timing was a critical factor in the operation.

"The operation will begin with strike teams flying onto the roof, and securing the VTOL pad as well as any fire escape systems. Simultaneously, technicians will cut all power and telecommunications access to the building. Ground teams will move in with the initial objective being to secure all exits, block stairways, and disable elevators. We want every single employee for questioning."

One of the Humans put up a hand, "What about off-shift employees, anyone who's home sick... Stuff like that?"

Sildinar inclined his head, "Any employees who we know for certain be absent from the building will be apprehended by Military Police for questioning. Any who are slated to be in the building, but are not accounted for, will have warrants issued for their arrest. The idea is to account for everyone, and go over the entire roster with... 'a fine toothed comb,' as you say, sorting out the innocents from collaborators."

The same Human, his nametag identified him as Michael Sellik, interrupted again, "Isn't this a bit extreme? 1984 and all that? We don't know for a fact these people have done anything."

Sildinar shook his head, "We do know the company is collaborating with the PER. That places anyone working for them, no matter how low or high in their hierarchy, under reasonable suspicion. At this stage, the danger of a major Potion attack is so imminent, that we can no longer afford legal pleasantries. We've been afforded access to Special Forces interrogators, and backup personnel from the Police to ensure everyone is processed civilly, quickly, fairly, but thoroughly. Any other questions?"

No one spoke.

"Good. See to your teams, final orders and action unit specific plans will arrive by encrypted Datab download three hours prior to mission start. Keep in mind, there may be undercover PER agents in the building so this mission will be carried out in hermetically sealed gear. Anyone who resists, or fails to cooperate, should be treated as hostile, but with as much mercy as can be afforded."

Sildinar swept his gaze across each division commander, "We have to keep our presence a secret until the VTOL pad and ground level exits are secure. After that, simple perimeter securing operations until everyone is rounded up. We'll be doing the questioning on-site to avoid logistical issues, so the key is to visually identify, and tag, all the people in the building. At the same time, we will be doing inventory of their entire stock, and a more complete scan of their computer systems. Mission start is in seven hours, see to your troops."

Fyrenn considered the glob of snow in his claw, before sucking in his breath, reaching over his shoulder, and mashing it into the largest of the gashes on his back. For a moment, the advent of the frozen water hurt so badly, that it threatened to overwhelm his pain tolerances.

But immediately after, the frigidity of the semi-solid mass put a strong damper on the pain, bringing a much needed measure of relief. Fyrenn had, like most warriors in battle, underestimated how badly his wounds would hurt once the adrenaline wore off.

It certainly didn't help that the group had been forging ahead at breakneck pace since the attack.
His wings would have been sore from effort alone, much less from the non-serious, but irritating wounds they also bore.

The punctures on his back from the creature's tail barb were by far the most painful of his cuts. Kephic, upon seeing them, remarked off-claw that they would leave quite deep scars.
Fortunately, Fyrenn's feathers and fur covered the lacerations, providing not only a permanent cosmetic barrier, but a protective layer to keep out debris in the short term.

The group had finally been forced to stop for a rest. Varan, and a member of the pack, were busy hunting for whatever meager meal could be scrounged. Carradan had fallen to eating his daily wheat ration, and IJ was in the same state she had been in all day; Nearly catatonic.

At first, the Gryphons had been forced to take turns carrying her. Fyrenn feared she would slip into a coma. Gradually, however, she had regained her faculties, if not her emotional stability.

Even Neyla seemed sympathetic. IJ had not fought in the battle, but had clearly suffered the worst wounds. Invisible wounds, but no less damaging.

Fyrenn had managed to find time during the flight to compare notes with Neyla and Kephic.
Both reported similar experiences and observations from their own battles, leading the three Gryphons to reaffirm Fyrenn's conclusion. The creatures, or 'Wisps' as he had taken to calling them, were strongly tied to emotion.

They seemed not only capable of feeding off it, and sensing it, but reflecting it.

That seemed to be the source of IJ's pain. She was much more sensitive to emotion than the rest of them by nature of her ability, meaning that for her, the experience of even being in proximity to the Wisps had been the equivalent of plunging a raw nerve into acid.

Fyrenn cast a glance at her, "Feeling better?"

She shook her head, "My head still hurts. That's not the worst part though."

Fyrenn's expression made it clear he wasn't going to let her lapse back into brooding, so she sighed and resigned herself to explaining, "Do you know what it's like to step from a dark room into a sunlit street? The way your eyes are momentarily blind?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "No, but sometimes my ocular implants would overload and shut off when a ship's sonar array changed frequency nearby."

IJ shrugged, "Well, it's like that. I can't sense any of you anymore. It's just a morasse of my own out of control feelings. It's fading, but it's taking its time. I'm not used to... Interacting.
Without it.
At all."

Neyla raised her head from her crossed forelegs and snorted, "Welcome to our world. We have to live like this all the time."

IJ shivered, "How do you even cope?"

Fyrenn shrugged, and immediately regretted the action, as it caused his wounds to flare up, "You learn, from the second you're born, to read people in a different way. Inflections, expressions, or in our case, a million other things like the tilt of ears, or the position of head feathers..."

"Sounds complicated. And imperfect."

Neyla nodded emphatically, "Which is why our kind is so appreciative of candor."

Fyrenn idly toyed with a few stray particles of snow, "Humans are a mixed bag. Some are the opposite. They constantly try to cloak their emotions, show false emotions, manipulate the emotions of others... Like switching masks every ten minutes. Some prefer candor, others have this unquantifiable skill; A way to walk the line between the extremes. They usually make fantastic diplomats, advisors, and mediators."

IJ shifted position, and shook the snow from her wings, "Where I grew up, we knew each other too well for anything *but* candor. You'd think that sounds nice, but we usually used our understanding to manipulate each other."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "I thought Ponies weren't that sort?"

IJ's expression was a confusing mixture of emotions, "Welll... Let's just say I came from a non-traditional herd. And leave it at that. Please."

Any further chance of conversation was cut off by the return of Varan, and his hunting partner.
Food was quickly divided, and the group went on the move again. The pack still had the scent of the Ruby Claws, but there was a strong added urgency to their movements.

Since the battle, more Wisps had been spotted. They never got closer than the absolute maximum visual range of the Gryphons, but Kephic alone had spotted five in the space of an hour. Fyrenn's hypothesis was that they were waiting for them to catch the Ruby Claws.

The Wisps could then use the conflict between the groups as an opportunity to attack.

It's what he would do in their position, and it seemed to match their deviously intelligent adaptive tactical modus operandi.

Even though he could see it all in his head, Fyrenn knew the forthcoming battle was inevitable.
The only chance for a successful resolution was, somehow, to subvert the Wisps' expectations.

"Ready... Three... Two... One... Breach."

Simultaneously, explosives not only immolated the security doors on the roof of the Gavin Schummel headquarters building, but pre-placed charges also cut a gaping hole in the VTOL landing pad, rendering it utterly useless.

The upper breach team was mostly composed of Gryphons, several of whom had carried Human technicians and Pony medics with them to the roof. The instant the first team gained access to the building, the lower breach teams sprang into action.

Light armored vehicles, equipped with small roof mounted railguns, sprang from side alleys, parking garages, and medians, swiftly closing off all road access to the entire block.

Breach teams, each lead by a Gryphon, worked their way into the building through every ground-accessible portal.

All the Humans, even the ones detailed to secure the exterior of the modern, angular mega-skyscraper, were clad in full hazmat battle armor.

The seizure of Gavin/Schummel had begun.

The group finally sighted their quarry a paltry hour before sundown. The Ruby Claws had, Fyrenn could immediately see, met up with the Wisps at some stage.

What had started as a flight from pursuing Gryphons, had swiftly become, for them, a flight from pursuing Wisps.

The group had come across two corpses along the Rubys' trail, but Fyrenn didn't entirely blame them for leaving behind their wounded. The Wisps were nothing if not relentless.

The remaining members of the Troll pack were, to a one, injured in some fashion.
Their armor was dented, gashed, and missing in many spots, except for the single massive black Lupine, who wore no armor at all.

The group had stopped briefly to discuss a plan of attack.

Shroud had warned them that the Ruby Claws' new Alpha, Kryn, was easily the most dangerous member of either pack. The admission of combat inferiority had stunned Fyrenn, but that quickly turned to concern; Shroud would not admit a shortcoming like that without good reason.

Which meant Kryn would be formidable.

The conundrum of the Wisps was hashed, and rehashed for several minutes. In the end, it was IJ who suggested the agreed upon course of action. As Fyrenn plowed forward through the renewed icy wind, he made a mental promise to give her the benefit of a clean slate if her sudden inspiration ultimately led to victory.

The key was going to be time. The group needed time enough to extract information from the Ruby Claws. Once that task was accomplished, they could retreat. Fyrenn didn't like it, but in a case like this, a situation of pure tactics with no ideals at stake, a retreat was the only acceptable closing move.

The group was cold, exhausted, wounded, and hungry. Throwing themselves against the Wisps would be senseless, and suicidal.

When Fyrenn broke through the cloud bank, his first impulse was to simply gawk.
And gawk he did.

The clouds had formed into a massive dome, dozens of miles wide, and high, leaving an open expanse of airspace that must have stretched to the stratosphere before it became ominous thunderheads once again.

Below, the Ruby Claws had made a one hundred twenty degree turn to the south east, and were running madly.

Fyrenn understood their reaction a moment later, as his brain finally began to make sense of what he was seeing.

Occupying the center of the calm-spot, now dead center of his vision, was something that could only be described as the architectural incarnation of menace and malice.

The structure was at least two hundred stories high, and wider at its base than the entire New World Trade Center complex. It rose from the ground as a series of claw-like spikes, arcing and twisting around each other in no discernible pattern, ending in sharp points that seemed to threaten the very storm clouds above.

The entire assembly was made of some kind of jet black rock, carved with myriads upon myriads of runes. The material seemed to absorb light, like a black hole, drawing the eye inexorably to its macabre curves. The architecture was not simply fear incarnate, it was *terror* given form. Pure, abject, illogical, source less, oppressive, terror.

Even the snow around the base had turned to ashen gray.

The runes upon its surface arced and pulsed with the same eerie blues, and occasional reds, of the Wisps. Suddenly, Fyrenn understood. The creatures were not monsters wandering the icy plains, or demons created to serve a purpose.

They were a civilization.

They had sentient intelligence, language, architecture... Resources.
Somehow, the revelation made them infinitely *more* disturbing, not less.

The more Fyrenn gazed at the megalithic construct, the more a feeling of mounting dread gripped him.

It was as if the structure was reaching out and clamping itself down on his heart.

If a single Wisp could be a powerful, but dim mirror for emotions, the structure was a blinding clear reflection so powerful, that Fyrenn's concerns, worries, and emotional fears ended up magnified, twisted, and overlapped to the point of becoming true nameless terror. An emotion almost alien to a Gryphon, if not to Fyrenn's human memories.

He wanted nothing more than to turn tail and fly until he was deep into the Southern Forests, without even so much as a look back.

It took him a solid half minute to force the gut-wrenching fear back down, and regain sight of the objective. As far as he knew, the plan was still in effect. The fortress showed no signs of disgorging any actual Wisps, and it was, according to what Fyrenn's eyes were telling him, several miles away.

Wisps could not fly quite as fast Gryphons in a straight line, and a Gryphon could endure continued flight for days at a time with a steady supply of food, an endurance unmatched by any save Dragons.

The possibility that the Wisps would cut off their escape did not worry Fyrenn. He was more concerned that they would slaughter the Ruby Claws before anything useful could be extracted from them.

Varan was the proverbial tip of the spear. Fyrenn watched, fascinated, as he stooped out of the cloudbank, and swept down to the tundra, flaring in front of the Ruby Claws, forcing them to grind to a halt.

Simultaneously, Kephic ambushed them from the rear in a similar fashion.
Just as it seemed the Trolls, led by Kryn, would break to the right or left, four members of the Steel Moon pack appeared, two to a flank, bounding over the snow to cut off their escape from the sides.

Fyrenn couldn't see what words were exchanged between Shroud and Kryn, but it swiftly lead to the expected conflict. Fyrenn and Neyla's part in the stratagem, however, had not yet come.

As if to punctuate the thought, the Wisps descended from their own hiding places in the clouds, falling upon the already chaotic battle, with a furor normally seen only in combatants fighting to the death over a vendetta.

Fyrenn could just make out Neyla, preparing to stoop down on the new attackers, and he readied himself to do the same. As if synchronized by a computer, they plummeted from the sky, wings tucked in, claws forward, talons splayed.

They each managed to net a kill on impact. Fyrenn wondered how long it would be before the Wisps learned to defend against that particular tactic.

From there, it was a mad fray.

This was nothing like the single combat of the night before. Fyrenn found his blade, gauntlets, and claws clashing with myriad opponents over the span of each minute. The combatants engaged and disengaged with each other, as if party to some pre-choreographed, but manic, dance routine.

For the Gryphons, the battle was truly three dimensional. Both they, and their opponents, were flighted, so no corner of the battlefield, no contortion, no maneuver was off limits.

As Fyrenn hacked, slashed, dodged, and bludgeoned his way through the morass, he noted that more Wisps were joining the conflict.

Apparently, the enemy had held a few of their own in reserve as well.
He spun to the left, dipped his wing to avoid a tail barb, lashed out with his back left claw to deter a sharpened hoof, and managed to score the removal of a tail with his sword on the back-stroke.

So far, so good.

"Everyone, please remain calm. The building is being secured by the JRSF, someone will be with you shortly to sort you into a group, and find you a place to wait."

The message was repeated by every breach team, every time they encountered a new group of employees.

Almost immediately, the operation went from 'simple' to 'SNAFU.'

In the lobby alone, there were two PER agents, who managed to detonate Ponification grenades.
The improvised weapons were not as effective as the dispersal cylinders, but between the two miniature purple liquid bombs, almost twenty other employees were affected, as well as the actual throwers.

Quietly, but firmly, the Gryphon in charge of the breach team saw to it that the ex-human agents were cordoned off in a separate holding area. Operational guidelines for the mission were to confine PER agents for questioning, regardless of species, despite any objection.

Having an AI within the building's mainframe was a major asset. It made switching off all internal utilities much simpler. Chuck even turned the internal security doors, hazardous containment systems, and security cameras to the JRSF's advantage, liaising with operation command to give the breach teams up-to-the-second data.

None of the PER agents bore armor, uniform, or insignia, but as the teams moved inexorably towards the center floors of the building, a pattern emerged. The PER had infiltrated every level of the corporation.

Scientists, to lab techs. Administrators, to janitors.

Chuck was estimating that nearly a fifth of the employees of the most respected biomedical corporation in the world, were terrorists.

And they were not keen on losing ground.

When the second group of reserve Wisps joined the battle, the tide took a definitive turn for the worse. The aggressors outnumbered Fyrenn and his allies two to one, and it was all they could do to fend off the vicious onslaught.

Interrogating the Ruby Claws was out of the question for the Gryphons. Shroud and Kryn were locked together in their own one-on-one battle to the death, even the Wisps seemed content to leave them be. The other three pack members were just as occupied as Fyrenn, Neyla, Kephic, and Varan. Sometimes they were engaged with Ruby Claws, sometimes with Wisps; who seemed hell bent on eradicating both groups indiscriminately.

It was time for IJ's double play.

In a violent spray of snow, permafrost, dirt, and flecks of rock, the two remaining Lupines burst from the ground directly under two of the Ruby Claws. With a surprised yelp, the pair of Trolls was sucked underground as if by quicksand, and the holes that had provided ingress were quickly backfilled.

Below, Fyrenn knew that IJ and Carradan would be busy plying the two captured Diamond Dogs for information. He only hoped their unique talents would yield fruit. Otherwise, the entire venture would have been for naught.

"All teams! Be advised, there are micro-Dispersion Cylinders in the building!"

The ante had been upped. As far as Chuck could tell, the cylinders were operating on a scrambled radio frequency. There was insufficient time to jam it, and the detonator was in no way tied to the building's mainframe. For all JRSF knew there could be dozens of the devices on site. The Human assault troopers were protected, and the Ponies and Gryphons were safe, but there were thousands of employees in the building, a majority innocent, and a significant plurality agents. And it was in the JRSF's best interest that they all remain human.

The micro-cylinders were smaller than the normal dispersion devices, and thus had far less yield, but their diminutive size also made them difficult to locate at best, impossible at worst. They were barely the size of a fist.

So far, the breach teams had found nothing to give them a clue as to the identity of the trigger holder for the cylinders, and time was running out. If they didn't set off the devices soon, the PER would almost certainly do so once the building was lost to them.

Time was running out for the Gryphons and Lupines. The last of the Ruby Claws, with the exception of Kryn and the abductees, had fallen. The full brunt of the Wisp's attack was suddenly falling on the assembled warriors.

The fighters had circled themselves back to back, forming an impenetrable omni-directional wall.
Their task was not to defeat the Wisps, but to buy time for the Ponies and Lupines in the tunnels below to finish their critical interrogations.

The plan's brilliance hinged on the Wisps' method of emotional prediction. As IJ had put it to Fyrenn 'If you wish you could be the one to interrogate the Trolls, then that's good. It will throw them off, they'll think that's what we intend to do.'

She had been right. The Wisps had not expected the Ponies and Lupines to carry out the interrogation, nor had they expected them to stage an abduction to spirit their prey away to a place the Wisps could not reach.

So far, while the seven warriors, four Gryphons and three Lupines, had only received minor injuries, Fyrenn knew it was only a matter of time before things would deteriorate.

The group had not scored more than three kills since the initial two he and Neyla had been fortunate enough to seize, and the enemy still outnumbered them. The only thing keeping them safe was their defensive formation, and unique personal skills.

The only other combatants were Shroud and Kryn, still locked in a bloody death struggle.

Fyrenn occasionally caught glimpses of the Lupines; They had cast aside weapons and were fighting tooth and claw, spilling inordinate amounts of each other's blood on themselves, and the snow.

Fyrenn parried a tail barb, and grimly noted that if the circumstances didn't change soon, there would end up being far more blood in the snow.

The Breach Teams discovered the final PER agent working furiously on the building's mainframe root access terminal. He had sealed the room manually and was, as Chuck informed them, trying to seize control of the building's security measures.

The gesture was futile. The AI had far more system resources at its disposal, and the agent did not seem particularly skilled when it came to the digital realm. Nonetheless, the Breach Teams had been forced to lug a plasma cutter to the outer doors, in order to gain entry.

The prevailing suspicion was that the nameless agent was the trigger man for the dispersion cylinders, only twelve of which had been discovered and disarmed so far. Evacuations of the building had begun, but it had taken precious time to commandeer and clear a nearby structure to act as a secure holding area; and as a result, only a quarter of the employees had yet been moved.

Everyone knew what was coming.
After a certain stage, it had become inevitable.

The Plasma cutter wasn't even halfway through the secure door, when the agent abandoned his hacking attempts, and turned to face the security cameras.

"Rebirth, in LIGHT!"
The sandy haired man withdrew a small Datab from his lab coat, and depressed a single button.

From outside, the view was spectacular.
In the same way an erupting volcano, or a raging hurricane could be spectacular.

Floor by floor, Cylinders all over the mega-skyscraper detonated, blanketing nearly half the floors in a purple mist that pressed up against the shiny glass of the windows, momentarily turning almost half the building purple.

The disarmed devices had created a sizeable hole in the distribution network, but catastrophic damage had still been done.

Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, Gavin/Schummel was in shambles.

Fyrenn still held out a glimmer of hope that Shroud wouldn't kill Kryn. He still believed that the traitorous Lupine was the group's best chance at learning truly detailed information on the PER's upper hierarchy.

Thankfully, Neyla seemed to have a better handle on her emotions, and was acquitting herself well against the swarm.

For his part, Fyrenn was making good use of the lessons he had learned when fighting the first Wisp. Unfortunately, they were adaptable, and were starting to learn the movement and reaction patterns of the group, as evidenced by several major injuries the Lupines had sustained.

The Diamond Dogs were fairly disadvantaged, in this instance, by their lack of wings given that they were engaging a flighted foe. One had very nearly lost a leg, the other now only had the use of a single eye. The Gryphons would have been in equally dire straits were it not for their wings, and their superior agility, which was incredibly important in such an instance.

The Wisps began to concentrate their sorties on the one-eyed Lupine, aiming to take it down, and Fyrenn spotted an opportunity. As a Wisp committed itself to a frenetic tail barb attack on the Diamond Dog, Fyrenn slid out from under his own current opponent, pivoted around, and severed the enemy's tail with sufficient force to keep it from re-attaching.

Neyla followed through by hacking off the creature's head while it was distracted with the loss of its tail, and the twin injuries seemed to be just enough to force the entity to dissociate from its corporeal host.

The triumph was bitterly cut short.

As he offered Neyla a quick congratulatory smile, Fyrenn happened to catch a glimpse of Shroud and Kryn over her shoulder.

Just in time to see Shroud make a fatal error.

The Alpha Lupine was clearly tiring faster than Kryn, a result of his smaller stature.
In a moment of abject exhaustion, he slipped, and Kryn moved in.

The hulking black Diamond Dog coldly ripped Shroud's throat directly out of his body, ending the Alpha's life with a cold immediacy that brought Fyrenn almost to a halt.

He wanted to pursue the offending Lupine; to do to him what he had done to Shroud, only infinitely more slowly. But he was cut off by half a dozen circling skeletal monsters. The group could only watch, as Kryn put his recently bloodied claws to work, tunneling into the permafrost as if it were no more than rich moist dirt. The Last they saw of the black Lupine was his tail, vanishing into his South-Eastbound tunnel.

The effect on the remaining pack members was akin to a toxin of the mind. Their grief, and rage were *palpable.* That seemed to give the Wisps nearly insurmountable strength, and the assault doubled in ferocity, instantly compacting the group into a smaller circle.

In Gryphon culture, it was known as 'The Circle of Dead Warriors,' but the concept was as old as conflict itself. There was no escape.

Fyrenn steeled himself against the pain of his injuries, and spared a last moment for a half-murmured prayer, and a quick glance at Kephic, Varan, and Neyla in turn.

The end had come.

Chapter 37

It was safe to say that Manhattan had not been under such strict lockdown since the September 11th attacks.

Military Police had shut down the entire street system and public transit in a ten block radius around Gavin/Schummel. Any undeployed JRSF forces had immediately been activated and sent in to secure the area, as well as to protect the Bureau and Fort Hamilton.

The only thing on global news was either the stunning footage of the Potion detonation, or reels upon reels of tanks and APCs rolling down Wall Street, accompanied by clips of Soldiers denying civilians entry to, or in some cases exit from, the cordoned off zone.

In reality the chaos was less devastating than it appeared. No friendly forces had been lost or adversely affected during the attack, and none of the Gavin/Schummel employees or PER agents had been able to escape in the confusion.

No other civilians had been affected by the Potion detonation, thanks to the building's negative pressure containment systems.

The terrifying military buildup was more a precaution than anything else.
One Hutch was grateful for.

He held out hope that perhaps the events of the day would shock Earthgov into more sweeping action to ensure that the purple-tinged scene wasn't repeated on a city-wide scale.

Despite the chaos introduced by the PER's hidden failsafe, questioning of the known agents as well as the other employees, was proceeding at a remarkable pace. Hutch had personally gone out of his way to ensure the Ponies went first.

It wasn't that he held any sort of specific grudge against the species, but he was all too aware of the activism surrounding acceptable Police and Military treatment of their kind, and he had a duty, first and foremost, to protect the innocent citizens under his care, irrespective of species.

That meant ensuring that the known, and unknown PER agents in the sizeable crowd of Potion-affected suspects did not use their condition to escape questioning.

Each interrogation was carried out by a team of three; A Human to ask the questions, a Unicorn to cast what small truth detection spells could be used reliably on Earth, and a Gryphon for their sheer observational skills.

If a suspect became hostile, or uncooperative, the Gryphon would engage in intimidation tactics, while the Pony would offer a hoof of friendship. Or as Hutch called it; Good Cop Bad Cop.

Prisoners who were known PER agents, whether due to their actions, or because their genetic profiles had come up in a terrorist database search, were being remanded to the few Gryphons still at Fort Hamilton. Hutch did not know what they were doing to the prisoners in there, nor did he want to. For once, he was angry enough to want results, no matter where they came from.

Human civilians who had been deemed 'clear' were being escorted to the edge of the cordoned zone, and held there until the entire questioning process was complete. There was no sense in giving the press any real information until the task was complete.

Cleared Ponies were being whisked away to the Bureau for the usual trauma counselling, psychological profiling, training, and other forms of aid that were generally provided to victims of forced Ponification. They too, however, were being prevented from speaking to the press by armed guards, who served the dual purpose of protecting them should a riot break out.

In the past, Ponification attacks had been known to trigger flash-riots of pro-humanists too caught up in their anger to stop and realize that their violent actions made them no better than the PER.

Hutch stood atop an APC and surveyed the busy back-and-forth march of suspects, cleared civilians, and troops. For a moment, he tried to imagine dealing with that sort of catastrophe without the multi-species talents of ConSec and the JRSF.

The mental image was too frightening, so he abandoned the pursuit, and instead went in search of a strong black coffee. He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

Fyrenn was not new to near-death experiences. Both in recent, and distant memory, there were several events that stood out as times when he had been sure of his own demise.

Despite that, he still felt a sense of regret, and a little fear. The concept of dying itself didn't bother him, so much as the knowledge that it was likely for naught. If IJ and Carradan weren't dead by Kryn's paw, then they had almost certainly failed to extract the information they had come all this way for. How else to explain the fact that they had been under for almost an hour.

With the deep sadness and anger of the pack, the Wisps had gone from equals, to a nearly unstoppable force. Fyrenn alone was bleeding from a dozen new cuts and gashes. There was not a single member of the party who wasn't sporting at least one fairly painful injury.

The combat had devolved from strategy to a mad attempt to ward off the incessant incoming strikes of the enemy. Fyrenn's skills were being taxed beyond their theoretical limits just to find a clear path through the razor sharp magically aided bony edges the Wisps were throwing at him.

A barb came whistling in from his left. He dodged and flipped to avoid a sharpened hoof, spinning to deflect an incoming assault with his sword.

He stole a look at Kephic between blows; His adoptive brother had an expression of resolve that bore a lethal finality. All four Gryphons exchanged quick glances. They didn't need words in this instance, they were in agreement. Better to die on the offensive, than on the enemy's terms.

The Wisps seemed to sense the change of tack as well, and surprisingly withdrew several feet, forming a circle *just* close enough that they could prevent the Gryphons from making a clean escape by flight.

Fyrenn had no intention of protecting himself anymore. His only consolation would be how many enemies he could take with him, and the fact that he was going to die in combat.

From the first day he had laid hand to a weapon, he had resolved never to pass away from infirmity, or age, or some freak accident. He had truly always wanted to go out with a bang, a literal explosive one, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

He raised his sword, and cast a final look at the hilt. Perhaps there were other benefits to the situation. He grinned, with the expression of a warrior immersing himself in his last grim recollections, "See you soon Skye," he murmured, as he lifted his weapon high, and braced himself for one final effort.

He never got the chance to swing.
The ground beneath the Wisps vanished.

To Fyrenn, it almost looked like a moment from the Looney Tunes. One second the circle of ground was there, the next the Wisps were falling down a donut shaped chasm that seemed to have magically appeared beneath their hooves.

From the ground on either side of the new moat-like chasm, four figures burst into the light in pairs; A Lupine and a Pony in each. Carradan grinned, a wolfish expression that gave him a passing resemblance to his larger escort, "Up and at em' boys and girls! It's GTFO Time!"

IJ stomped a hoof as she took to the air, "We don't have *time* for you to stop and stare! GO!"

Fyrenn didn't argue, given the fact that the stunned Wisps were already starting to recover. He expected them to issue forth from the makeshift trap in short order, and he planned to be long gone by then.

The Lupines took off in a mostly Southerly direction at considerable speed, and the Gryphons swiftly took to the sky to follow IJ and Carradan's example.

The Wisps tried to follow, but in vain.

The instant rekindling of hope brought on by the sudden rescue gave them all a second wind, and they quickly began to outpace both the Wisps, and the pack below, easily reaching small airplane speeds, even without the aid of the stiff tailwind.

The pack were more than outrunning the Wisps, the Gryphons were simply leaving both in the dust, and IJ was putting them all to shame, rocketing ahead with temporary bursts of speed so great that Mach-threshold moisture cones were forming on her wings.

Neyla found breath and time to shout across to Fyrenn, "What does 'GTFO' stand for anyways?"

Fyrenn laughed, with the ludicrous airy humor of one who has been spared the gallows, and put on a burst of speed, "It means we owe Carradan and IJ a round of drinks, is what it means."

"Enough information to shut down some low level operations, a plan to purchase another building downtown, a few design prototypes..."

Hutch tabbed through the data on the tabletop touchscreen, "Really, the biggest achievement was shutting down their access to us through Gavin/Schummel. The entire company was bought and paid for by the PER."

The board was briefing the Earthgov Council by videoconference. Some members of the Board were still in the field, and half the Council was a world away on business in Asia, but the marvel of modern communications made that a non-issue.

General Sorven gestured to Seyal, "I was present for the interrogation of Roland Gavin; He confessed to us under oath. About thirty years ago he had an illegitimate son. The company was in rough straits, and he covered up the incident to maintain public image. A few years ago the child apparently returned with proof of his ancestry, and used his unique position for leverage."

One of the Councilors shifted position and leaned towards the screen, "Did we get a name?"

Sildinar snorted, "He was too careful for that. Apparently he always communicated with Gavin remotely, and he never gave him anything that would be traceable."

"So we have nothing?"

Hutch shook his head, "It's true that we aren't exactly any closer to this guy, but at least we have *something* on him. More importantly, we just took a major asset off the board for him. Gavin/Schummel has been their main source of Potion manufacturing chemicals, and the specialty parts for their dispersion cylinders. With them out of play, the attacks should slow considerably, and decrease in scale."

Another counselor spoke up, "It would seem, then, that the operation was a success.
We'll arrange to have the Marine Special Forces stood down."

Hutch looked aghast, "Councilors! If nothing else this proves the PER has considerably more assets than you expected."

Sorven nodded, "I'm with him. I've seen enough to make me think we need to treat these guys with a little more respect, and proactive hostility."

Sildinar thumped his fisted claw lightly against the table, "They were running an entire company under your 'watchful' eyes. It took the intervention of your military to rectify this. Trust your warriors. Their instincts are *well* honed."

"This Council will not condone an act of Martial Law. Our word on this matter, is *final.*"

As the image on the screen faded, Sildinar shook his head, "I hate your human political structure."

Hutch sighed, "Join the club. The only ones who think it's worth anything are the ones who run it on a day to day basis."

Sorven started at the empty black screen, "Give them *some* credit. A single world government isn't the easiest thing to maintain."

Sildinar grunted, "True, but it won't mean a damn thing if they let their enemies tear it down before its time."

"Well? Did we get what we came for?" Fyrenn fired off the question all four Gryphons were dying to ask the instant the group landed. They knew they were being shadowed at a distance, but their exhaustion demanded they rest and eat. The Ponies, having less endurance, we in particularly bad shape.

Varan had spotted a formation of jagged rocks in the distance, slightly more east of their path, and preliminary exploration had yielded a cave large enough to fit the group.

In answer to Fyrenn's query, IJ nodded wordlessly, still trying to catch her breath.
Carradan managed to wheeze, "They sang like canaries. Three names. You shoulda seen her. It was like some kinda mental jujitsu. She knew where their emotional pressure points were and she just squeezed."

The white and blue Pony shook her head, and finally managed a few words, "I couldn't have managed it without him. He's a talented asker of leading questions, and infinitely more observant than he looks."

Everyone stared. IJ was not the complementary type.
She shrugged, "What?"

Kephic shook his head, "Nothing. I just didn't expect the two of you to ever have a good word to say about each other."

Carradan chuckled, "Hey, after what we've been through together? We're like an old married couple."

IJ glared, and shrugged off her helmet, but there was a hint of humor in her voice,
"Watch it. I know where you sleep."

Fyrenn grinned and whispered to Neyla, "Well, she's obviously not *too* much the worse for wear."

The group turned to making themselves temporarily at home.
Fyrenn and Varan were about to make a quick hunting and reconnaissance trip, when Neyla stopped them, "Ohhh no. You are staying here," she laid a firm claw on Fyrenn's shoulder, "You have three bone barbs embedded in your back right leg, and you can *not* just ignore them till they go away."

"I'll deal with them after we return."

Neyla shook her head, "Kephic can go. You let me take them out right now."

Varan nodded, "She has a point."
Kephic stepped up and added his own stern glare.

Fyrenn threw up his claws, "Sheesh. It's not as if they're bullets." Secretly, he was glad Neyla had offered to remove the offending bony spikes. They were causing him far more pain than he was willing to let on. Far more than a bullet would have. It would be a tremendous relief to have them out.

Kephic and Varan disappeared out into the night, as Neyla forced Fyrenn to lie down on the stone floor, and stretch out his back right leg. The barbs had hit home right between the joints of his greaves, and it hurt to even move his leg.

Neyla quickly unfastened the armor from his leg. Fyrenn set about removing the rest of his gear, noting that once they reached civilization he was going to have to work the matted blood from his fur, and give himself a good preen to clean his feathers.

Neyla carefully explored the offending barbs with a single talon, causing Fyrenn to wince.
She shook her head, "Don't watch. Look away while I take the first one out."

Fyrenn nodded, and stared intently at IJ and Carradan, who were busy breaking apart the tattered remains of their saddlebags to make a fire. They only had one meals' worth of wheat rations left in any case, once that was gone the only things left besides weapons and armor would be a few medical supplies, which the group was sure to expend before daybreak tending to wounds.

Neyla spoke again, "Hold very still, I'm taking out the first one. This won't hurt much."
She yanked, hard, and Fyrenn grunted in pain, gritting his beak until a few small tears escaped his eyes.

Neyla stood, and walked around to face him, "I lied. Sorry."
She dumped all three bone spikes on the floor at Fyrenn's claws.

He chuckled, "You're a lousy medic you know that?"

She smirked and raised an eyebrow, "I'd like to see *you* do better."

Carradan raised his head from looking over the fire preparations and laughed, "*Now* who's the old married couple?"

Fyrenn and Neyla both shouted, at the same time, "We are *not* a couple!"

Carradan sighed, "You two gonna just get it over with and kiss? Can you guys even kiss with those beaks?"

Neyla picked up one of the bone spikes, and menaced Carradan with it, "IJ may or may not have been jesting when she threatened to skewer you in your sleep, but *I* am serious."
Her tone was decidedly not playful, and for a moment Carradan looked a bit frightened.

"Ok ok... Good grief. You featherbrains play *rough* dontcha?"

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "Are you just dying to find out? Note the use of the word 'dying.' "
Carradan adopted a mocking pout, and went back to making the fire. IJ chuckled. It was low, and easy to miss, but Fyrenn caught it.

He decided to change the topic of conversation, as he stood and experimented with putting weight on his leg, which was now bleeding slowly but steadily, "Did you recognize any of the names you were given?"

The question was essentially directed at IJ, who nodded in response, "One. A Pony disturbingly highly placed in Celestia's court. The other two I *may* have heard of in passing, but don't really know anything about."

The conversation died away. As Carradan stoked the newly made fire, IJ baked improvised haycakes, and the two Gryphons tended to each other's cuts and gashes. Neyla turned out to be a half decent battlefield medic, but she wasn't much better trained than Fyrenn, with his Marine crash course in battlefield trauma procedures. None of them were passable substitutes for a real doctor.

Despite that, the stopgap bandages and poultices did wonders for the pain and bleeding, compared to attempting to ignore the wounds, or merely packing them with snow.

Fyrenn spent the remainder of the wait for his meal examining his armor.

Overall, it was still in good condition, but there were several nasty rends and punctures in the back plate that would need mending, and a deep dent in the right gauntlet. It could have been much worse.

Eventually, Varan and Kephic arrived with enough prey to constitute a decent meal.
As the Gryphons set too cooking the strips of meat, Neyla restarted the conversation, "Any sign of pursuit, or the Steel Moons?"

Fyrenn snorted, "Or Kryn?"

Varan nodded, "Yes to the first, and yes to the second. We did not see any Wisps, but they are there. Keeping a safe distance. I expect we will lose them once we leave the tundra. They will not push their luck once we're in more habitable climes where the terrain and weather advantage is ours."

Kephic swallowed a small strip of meat raw, "As for Kryn? No sign of him. But the Steel Moons are camped about an hour's flight to our east. I doubt if they want anything more to do with us. The time after losing an Alpha is difficult for Lupines, and they have their own methods of grieving and moving on."

Fyrenn shuddered, "I didn't like him, but I certainly wouldn't wish his fate on anyone I'd call ally."

Kephic growled, "I would give a great deal for just a few minutes with Kryn."

Neyla shrugged, "Perhaps you'll get a crack at him yet. I hope I'm around to see it if you do."

Once the meal was cooked, and some snow had been brought in for drinking, Fyrenn raised a clawfull of the white substance skyward, "It's not much to toast with, but I think IJ and Stanley deserve it. Without them? We would have died, and for no real reason."

Kephic nodded, "Aye"

Neyla inclined her head and smiled, Varan chimed in, "Hear hear."

Carradan blushed, "Awww shucks... It was mostly her idea."

Fyrenn smirked, "Very well, then I'll make sure we buy her the round of drinks.
You can just start a tab."

Carradan's eyes widened, "Hang on now! I *was* a critical part of the plan! Just ask her!"

That set the group, even IJ, to laughing. Fyrenn managed a few words through his mirth, "Oh come on, did you really think we'd leave you out?" He regained control of himself, and clapped Stanley on the back, "We couldn't have done this without you."

From there, the talk turned to jokes, and stories, and lighthearted banter.
Kephic and Varan even underwent some of Neyla's medical 'treatment' much to the amusement of Fyrenn and the Ponies.

The fire, the laughter, warm food, and bandages served to hold the chill, pain, and worry at bay, both literally and figuratively. A watch was agreed upon, but only Fyrenn and Neyla had to volunteer, as the group intended to set out before dawn, in order to be rid of the Wisps once and for all.

Fyrenn claimed he was volunteering to keep first watch because his leg hurt too much to sleep, but truthfully the Wisps still made him nervous. He had no desire to close his eyes until he was sure there wasn't a single one of the creatures for a hundred miles.

He spent a few minutes of lonely vigil at the mouth of the cave before he was, unexpectedly, joined by Kephic.

"Can't sleep?"

"Same reason as you. I don't mean the leg either."

"Mmmmhmmm."

The two spent the next few hours in familial silence, taking comfort merely from the presence of a brother. Too exhausted and emotionally spent to talk.

Eventually, Neyla silently joined them, but neither of the male Gryphons went back into the cave to rest. The three simply passed the few hours of the second watch in peace, and quiet.

Each silently envied Varan his ability to sleep under any circumstances, if not the noise of Carradan's snoring he was being forced to endure.

The head of the PER stared out his office window at the darkened spire of the Gavin/Schummel building. The loss of the company was a major, but not critical blow, metaphorically reflected by the tower's darkness, which stood in sharp contrast to the other night-time lights of the city.

If nothing else, it provided an excuse to accelerate his plan.

ConSec, and the new 'JRSF', were getting more and more bold.
But what he was planning to do to them would make their small victory look utterly insignificant.
No matter that they likely understood the oncoming threat. They didn't have the political clout to put a stop to it.

Once this glorious triumph was complete, the enemies of the PER would be crippled. Cut off at the knees. There would be no one, short of the HLF, to stop them from repeating the detonation in every major city worldwide.

As for the pro-humanists, the man was confident his many mercenary Diamond Dog packs could handle them. A Human, even an armed and armored one, was no match for a single of the canines, let alone a hunting pack.

His ruminations were interrupted as Veritas let herself into the office, accompanied by the telltale soft, comforting thuds of hoof upon carpet.

"They've finished installing it. Would you like to see?"

The man turned and grinned, "Yes. Yes I would."
Together, the couple left the office and entered the elevator.

The head of the PER had always enjoyed inspecting a well constructed bomb.

Chapter 38

The elder co-ruler of Equestria was bored.

One of the most insidious downsides to longevity was also one of the most unexpected, and unfortunately the most ubiquitous. The routine.

Boredom was one of the most tricky enemies Celestia had ever faced. On the one hoof, she wanted her kingdom to live in peace and harmony, on the other she craved something, *anything,* to break the monotony of carrying out the same governmental tasks; Day after day, week after week, century after century after century.

In the earlier days, the task of ruling had been fraught with exciting challenges, new ideas, and bold decisions. Leading a race out of something like the Reign of Chaos and into its next golden age was quite a task. But as the Equestrian civilization had settled into a too-comfortable status quo, the thrill of adventure had become less a daily companion, and more a yearly event to look forward to whenever some sort of singular threat, or fascinating puzzle eventually arose.

Celestia knew that the future would bring the promise of more excitement. Humans, whether in their own bodies, or the body of a newfoal, or a newfledge, had a mesmerizing, wonderful, terrible talent for upsetting status quo. But it would be another year or two before the colonization of the new frontier began in earnest, and until then things were looking increasingly, there was no other word for it - boring, on the Equestrian side of the barrier.

Visiting Earth was always an interesting experience, but so far Equestrian politics had remained preternaturally stable; A product of what Celestia privately called 'The law of governmental physics' which stated; 'A bureaucracy at rest tends to remain at rest until an outside force breaks down the door and bucks it six ways from Sunday.'

It wasn't that the law didn't apply to the Human government as well, but the Humans had something her little Ponies didn't; A natural penchant for creating that 'outside force' all on their own. Frequently.

They could upend a period of peace faster than the Gryphons, which was saying something.
Celestia was looking forward to a period of closer harmony with both races, and all the wonderful, deliciously interesting breaks in routine that such a period would bring.

For the moment Celestia would have to force herself, as usual, to accept the routine of the day. Watching Luna lower the Moon, Raising the Sun, and breakfast with her sister were the parts of the routine she enjoyed. Loved even. She took solace in the simple pleasures those moments brought.

But all too soon after that, the court of the day would go into session. That was the part she loathed. Most of her dukes, barons, duchesses and other sundry courtiers were good Ponies, or at the very least not the worst sorts, but they seemed to labor under the constant delusion that she was a necessary force in dealing with their incessant minutiae.

They lacked initiative and self-resolve, something she desperately hoped Humanity would bring to Equestrian civilization in full measure.

It was not so much that the issues they brought to her were unimportant, more that they were unimportant to *her.* She had appointed these Ponies to their positions in order to take the stress of the comparatively 'little' things off her withers. The idea, which they seemed to fail to grasp, was that she was entrusting them to make their own choices about the things they'd been given power over.

The white monarch sighed inwardly, as she took her seat on the throne.
As she had for so many millions of days before, she plastered a well practiced slight smile to her muzzle, and adopted a regal posture. It wouldn't do to unduly insult anyone with her true inner observations.

First up was Baron Vladimir DeOatso, with some sort of question on the finer points of grain storage protocols, and tariffs.
Thrilling.

The Baron, who looked far too clever to be burdening her with this issue, was about halfway through his long-winded introduction, and perfunctories, when one of her Royal Guards came bursting in through the main doors.

He wasn't rushing with the dignified air of one bearing news of an emergency, but he had interrupted Royal court, which meant that whatever news he bore, it was important.

Celestia had to exert a great deal of control to keep a genuine smirk from supplanting her demure polite smile. Thank the heavens. An excuse to break routine.

Celestia smelled trouble.

She would never admit it, to a single living soul, but Celestia *loved* trouble.

Canterlot. All Fyrenn had ever seen were models, rendered based on sketches, visual descriptions, and the occasional painting that made its way from Equestria to Earth.

The architecture was something completely new to him. The city had a whimsical, airy, yet sturdy feel that seemed to evoke some part of the three subspecies that made up Ponies, all at once.

The scale of the constructions was enormous; Spires, domes, and towers filling every part of the enormous settlement. A fact that was even more astonishing considering that the city was essentially hanging from a cliff face.

That *had* to have been the contribution of the Pegasi.

A waterfall, doubtless fed by some cool fresh spring at the peak of the mountain, had been redirected to feed a decorative moat, which in turn spilled over into ornamental pools that overflowed into each other, like the tiers of an enormous fountain.

The main building material seemed to be white marble, trimmed in gold, capped with roofs of deep purple tiling. Everywhere the eye turned the motif of the sun, moon, and stars was repeated; Worked into every conceivable surface and decoration.

Looking on from a distance, Fyrenn could see myriads of Ponies engaged in the day to day tasks of running a city. He was immediately struck by the contrast to Neighvada. The Ponies here were largely comprised of landed gentry, intellectuals, upper crust business ponies, and the industries that provided for their daily wants; Clothing stores, high class dining, and the like.

Neighvada had been a city of blue-collar workers, Canterlot was a city of white-collars, leaders, and thinkers.

Even the terrain evoked a different feel. Unlike the mountains of the Gryphon homelands, these peaks were curved, in seemingly impossible ways. The stone was more blue, and purple tinged, and snow seemed to occur at lower altitudes than it should have, likely a product of artificial Pegasus-driven weather patterns.

As they approached the spires of the city, Fyrenn noted the reactions of the other members in the group. Kephic and Varan seemed largely unfazed. While they showed a similar interest to Fyrenn's, the idea of going into a nearly-all-Pony environment didn't seem to especially perturb them either.

Carradan was by far the most bedazzled of the group, likely due to no small measure of newfound species pride. IJ and Neyla however both seemed nervous.

Fyrenn suspected Neyla's sense of worry stemmed from her heightened distrust of others.

IJ's reactions, however, were something of a mystery.

Over the past several days and night of travel, she had become increasingly withdrawn, and prickly; Snapping at even the smallest perceived offenses.

Fyrenn finally decided that her reactions likely stemmed from the potential career implications she faced because of the accusations they were about to level against three very powerful nobles in Celestia's court.

Taking on someone with political clout was an unnerving endeavour the first time around, as Fyrenn knew from his own experiences.

The Group aimed for the palace, which was immediately identifiable by the stream of nobility entering and leaving, under the watchful eye of a profusion of Royal Guards.

Fyrenn noted, with interest, that there were two other types of Royal Guard; Unicorns and Earth Ponies, both with slightly differing armor than the Pegasi, and dark gray coats accented by off-white manes. Likely a product of liberal dye application.

The arrival of four Gryphons, accompanied by another Royal Guard, and a salmon colored Pegasus in unadorned steely gray armor, sparked what could only be described as a commotion.
The group made its landing directly at the entrance to the palace, which promptly interrupted the incoming stream of nobility, and service Ponies.

Judging by the way all eyes suddenly gravitated to them, Fyrenn guessed that Canterlot did not see many Gryphon visitors, much less Gryphon visitors clad in battle damaged armor, carrying enough weapons to stock an armory, and bearing the wounds to prove that they had done their banner proud.

As the fashionably clad Ponies of the landed gentry looked on in shock, murmuring amongst themselves excitedly, IJ marched forward and snapped off a salute to the nearest guard.
"My Companions seek an audience with Princess Celestia. We are here on extremely urgent business that concerns the crown."

Fyrenn caught a hint of skepticism on the guard's normally implacable face, but upon inspecting the no-nonsense appearance of the resolute looking warriors before him, he appeared to have a swift change of heart.

"I will escort you."

He took up a position at the head of the group, and marched through the open double doors with practiced grace. A guard to his left sprang into action, barring the entrance politely, but firmly, after the group had passed through. Fyrenn also noted that another Pegasus went on ahead with considerably more alacrity, most likely to announce their arrival.

Normally he would feel slightly embarrassed at the fanfare, but in this case the importance of their mission justified it. On top of his slowly mounting exhaustion and hunger, the cumulative effect placed Fyrenn's concerns firmly in the 'shower, sleep, and food' category, leaving no room whatsoever for embarrassment.

The interior of the castle was no less extravagant and grand than the exterior. The spaces were high, and well lit, ending in vaulted ceilings. Virtually every surface was marble or gold, with luxuriant rugs to cover parts of the floors. Fyrenn found it all very admirable, but a little too opulent for his taste.

The sheer volume of art and wealth on display simply overwhelmed the subtler emotions architecture was capable of evoking.

The exception was a series of stained glass windows that the group passed, which appeared to depict events from the history of the Equestrian Nation.

Fyrenn had very little time to consider the images, as the group had at last reached the throne room. The entrance consisted of massive arched double doors, which were locked in an open position and flanked by guards in gleaming armor holding position, predictably, in their trademark 'at attention' stance.

The space was dominated by a highly placed golden throne, which instantly drew the eye upon entering the room. Fyrenn quickly realized it was unoccupied, and looked to the foot of the mammoth seat's staircase to see that Celestia was waiting for them on their level.

"Welcome friends! This is an unexpected, and pleasant interruption!"

Her expression and stance backed her words with sincerity. Fyrenn imagined her happiness would quickly give way to concern when the reason for their visit became apparent.

IJ bowed formally, with Carradan doing a sincere, but ultimately comedic imitation.

Fyrenn watched intently as Kephic, Varan, and Neyla all made a more informal inclination of their heads, which he in turn repeated. The Gryphon mentality of treating no one outside the species as much more than an equal seemed to hold true, even for a being like Celestia.

Unlike the Lupines, she took the genuinely polite, albeit unusual treatment in stride. She was used to dealing with Gryphons, and in fact always found it somewhat refreshing to discourse with someone who wasn't incessantly tripping over themselves to pay her homage, respect propriety, or observe protocol.

Secretly she felt as if she was being treated more like a living being, and less like some sort of icon, when talking to Gryphons. The fact that she preferred that feeling was something she would never dream of admitting to her subjects for fear of offending or saddening them.

She returned the slight bow, and then adopted a more quizzical demeanor, "What brings you here? I was under the impression that Inside Joke would be returning alone... That the rest of you would be too concerned with business elsewhere to visit... Has something changed?"

Kephic nodded, "I'm not sure how privy you are to the details of our mission, but I think it would be best if we discussed all this privately."

Fyrenn and Varan quickly nodded their agreement, much to Celestia's visible concern.
She whispered to one of her guards, her tone so low even the Gryphons couldn't make out the words. Fyrenn reasoned that if you lived in a society where super-hearing was nominal, you learned very quickly to whisper at a lower level.

The guard vanished through a side door, and swiftly returned bringing another familiar, and famous, face with him.

Fyrenn had never seen the Princess of the Night in person, but he was at least partly prepared for the shock. What he didn't expect was the unusual way in which the presence of a being of Celestia's level of power who he *wasn't* acquainted with automatically seemed to amplify the Sun Princess's aura of power.

Her more personal and friendly treatment of him, and his own tendency to treat authority figures less as unapproachable beings, more as equals, had brought her down to a mortal level in his eyes, subconsciously. Luna's presences, likewise, seemed to subconsciously counteract this effect, making the entire atmosphere of the room more formal and regal with her mere appearance.

The magnitude of the effect did not last, as Celestia graced her sibling with a warm smile, "Luna, would you be a dear and run the day court for me? Just until noon meal? There are things these friends of ours need to tell me that are not for the public ear."

The way she said it made it obvious her sister was first and foremost her *sister,* rather than her position or title. The way she said it also lowered the formality of the situation back to 'bearable' levels for the Gryphons.

Luna nodded, her expression remaining serious and firm, "We shall do thee this favor, But we are eager for a retelling of this news ourselves."

Her formal mode of speech came as something of a surprise. Fyrenn hadn't heard anything even remotely like it since the single instance in which he had attended a Renaissance Fair.

Celestia nodded emphatically, "Of Course. I'm sure you could even convince one of them to regale you with their adventures, if you're too curious to wait until I am free."

As swiftly as it had begun, the conversation was over.

Celestia personally escorted the group to a private room, where she had food and drink brought to quell appetites. There was no meat, so Fyrenn reasoned it would be left up to the Gryphons to go hunting for themselves somewhere away from the city at a later time.

At first glance it appeared callous, but upon further reflection Fyrenn found it unlikely that the high society Equines of Canterlot would adapt to seeing meat consumption quite so easily as Stanley Carradan had.

Celestia initially insisted they all received a hot bath, full meal, and treatment for their wounds before delving into more serious matters, but Varan had mercifully talked her out of it.
Fyrenn could easily see that his fellow Gryphons were just as eager as he was to have the entire width and breadth of the matter laid out before the Equine monarch.

Thus, over apple related delicacies, piping hot bread, and fizzy cider, the group recounted the entirety of their experiences; emphasizing the Wisps, and ending with the names of the known PER collaborators within Celestia's court.

On the former matter, she seemed perturbed.

On the latter, the Daytime Princess of Equestria looked quite ready to perpetrate acts of violence worthy of a Gryphon.
Fyrenn did not envy the three traitors their position.
In the slightest.

"And you're quite sure this will get where it needs to go? It's extremely significant to me, this isn't some sort of everyday envelope... And given the distances..."

The stocky male Pegasus cut Fyrenn off with a wave of his hoof, "We're the Pony Express. They trust us with Royal packages. Your armor, and everyone else's, will probably get to the Kingdoms quicker, and with less jostling, than you could get to the barrier. Don't worry about it! We've never lost a package before, we're not going to start today."

Whether he liked it or not, Fyrenn had to admit that his armor needed repair.
It was, Kephic had convinced him, better to have it sent back to Tih’ré Seli’hn for maintenance than to carry it in its damaged state, back to Earth, a place where Energy Diffusion was sometimes more desirable than kinetic protection in any case.

It was still mildly unnerving to see the pieces packed up and sent away, despite the consolation of retaining his sword, quiver, and bow. It occurred to him he was going to miss having those deployable blades too. He would have dearly liked to see a PER trooper try come up with a defensive reaction to *that* sort of surprise attack.

The Pegasus whizzed off down the hall, the box containing Fyrenn's armor in tow via a harness, making it look as though the package weighed no more than a small suitcase. To the Pegasus, Fyrenn reflected, it didn't.

The red Gryphon decided he was feeling the beginning pangs of hunger, so he opted, in lieu of any other pressing business, to embark on a short hunting trip. Celestia had been upset beyond describing upon learning of the traitors in her court, but despite the desire for swift resolution that she shared with the group, there was simply nothing to be done that day.

All three of the named, soon to be shamed Ponies were at least a day's journey from the capital.
Celestia had immediately requested that Luna dispatch her more aggressive, and more combat trained Night Guards to apprehend all three. A request the Lunar Princess seemed all too happy to grant.

Until the Guards returned, there was nothing to be done save tend wounds, rest, and roam the city. The group had already had some help with the former. Immediately after the recounting of their story, Celestia had seen to it that they all received rooms, baths, and much needed medical care.

Unicorn healing magic would not work on a Gryphon, due to the same defensive mechanism that made other forms of meddling impossible, so the task was accomplished the 'old fashioned way;' with herbs and poultices.

Despite the uselessness of magic in their particular case, the Gryphons had been well tended to. Earth Ponies and Pegasi had both learned much of non-magical medicine in the years before the Equestrian nation was founded, knowledge that had been painstakingly retained for situations such as this.

Fyrenn's lacerations were already feeling much better, and he was eager to test the limits of his body under its current, still-injured condition. He had never been the sort to recover in bed.

Celestia had kindly shown the Gryphons a quiet back exit from the castle to a small aerial takeoff platform, which would allow them to leave and return unseen, thus avoiding bringing consternation to the local Ponies with the gruesome nature of their mealtime activities.

Fyrenn found the exit easy to locate, but he had not expected to come upon Neyla, also headed in the same direction.
With a loaded Arbalest.

Pointed at IJ.

He watched, horrified, as Neyla squeezed the trigger, sending a quarrel through IJ's left wing and pinning her firmly to the wall. He dashed forward, "What the HELL are you DOING?!"

Neyla calmly reloaded the weapon, and leveled it at IJ's head. Incredibly, the white Pegasus didn't seem to be in any pain, she was merely squirming, as if to work herself free, despite the liberal amount of blood she was dispensing form her wing in the process.

Fyrenn also noted, with some curiosity, that the Pegasus Guard was unarmored, which was likely non-regulation on Palace grounds.

Neyla placed her weapon, deployed points and all, under IJ's throat, much to Fyrenn's consternation, "What does it look like. I'm killing a Changeling."

Celestia was angry, and disappointed, for the second time in a day's span.
Fyrenn morbidly wondered if that was some sort of record.

He had barely managed to convince Neyla to refrain from shooting IJ through the skull outright.
IJ had admitted that the charges were true. It was difficult to do otherwise, once they had seen her take a quarrel through her wing, yet feel no pain.

As Neyla summoned guards, IJ had explained, quite casually, that Changelings could simply shift away the nerve endings responsible for physical pain, making them effectively immune to it.

When he mentioned the blood pouring from her wing, she promptly shifted back to her natural state, delivering quite a shock to Fyrenn.

He had never seen a Changeling in its base form, not even an image or artist's conception.
The only word he could think of to describe IJ was 'insectoid.' It was jarring to hear her voice coming from the body of black chitin and green accents.

Fyrenn found her treatment of the situation peculiar. She put up no struggle, offered no complaint, and didn't even seem particularly angry at having been caught, and shot.

She explained that Neyla had found her leaving by the back exit, and put the pieces together when IJ attempted to flee.

For her part, when she returned, Neyla admitted that much of her evidence had been circumstantial until she had actually seen IJ attempting to escape. She had been content to ignore most of the warning signs after the ex-pegasus had come up with the strategy that saved their lives.

Now IJ seemed almost remorseful. Neyla, on the other claw, was furious.

Fyrenn understood; She had been burned once, and now she was being forced to relive highly unpleasant memories. He suspected that the *only* reason IJ was not a pile of chitin-dust was due to the fact that she *had* indeed saved their lives, and she had come quietly once incarcerated.

Now the entire group once again stood before Celestia in a private ante-chamber.
Fyrenn wondered exactly what sort of punishment the incredibly powerful Sovereign would mete out. Oddly, despite the sense of betrayal the situation presented, he found himself hoping for leniency.

IJ had, after all, saved their lives when it would have been far simpler, and cleaner, to let the Wisps bury them, and any evidence of her treachery, in the far North wastes.

Celestia shook her head, "I'm disturbed, to say the least. Your kind was strictly warned to never again cross our borders in disguise, with the intent to deceive us. How did you bypass the wards on the Castle?"

IJ sighed, "Your defenses have several significant flaws. You don't understand enough of our biology to yet block every means of ingress."

The Sun Princess towered over the Changeling, her voice carrying more steel than Fyrenn had ever imagined possible, "You do understand that you will not leave this Castle, ever again, until you explain to me precisely how to rectify these flaws?"

"Well I didn't expect the royal suite, if that's what you mean." The words weren't voiced as a sarcastic jab, but came more as an admission of defeat, laden with depression and regret.

Fyrenn was about to voice his thoughts, when Varan beat him to it, addressing his words to IJ, "So you have been in this royal guard position a long time?"

She nodded.

"And you received orders to acquire the assignment to work with us in order to gain access to a sample of our life code?"

Again, IJ nodded. A magical aura flared around her, causing Celestia to tense, and within the space of a half second, a fully grown female Gryphon, purest white, with cobalt crest, tail, and wingtips, stood before them.

She swiftly drew one of her own newly minted talons along the other claw, causing a stream of red blood, tinged with gold, to appear, "Nearly full transformation. I can't completely become one of you, or I would become stuck because of your immunity to magic. I lack some of your potential stamina, speed, and strength because of that.
But this is far better suited to deception than a mere visual disguise, and it is no small opponent in battle."

She once again dropped her magical form, returning to the slightly repulsive, and somewhat unnerving insectoid form. All the same, Fyrenn found it less unnerving than imagining her as one of his own kind. That just didn't sit well with him at all.

Kephic shot a glance at Celestia, "She is carrying what amounts to something that belongs to us. We have to ask that you either remand her to our custody, or strip her of our lifecode, if your magic is capable of such a feat."

Celestia nodded, "It is. And I shall. Before I pronounce judgement on you, little Changeling, I would hear the opinions of your companions on the severity to which that punishment should be taken."

Neyla hissed, "Kill her."

Fyrenn stepped between her and IJ, "Now hang on just a moment! She saved our lives, on some level we *owe* her." He shifted his gaze to IJ, "Would it not have been easier to just leave us to the Wisps? You couldn't escape earlier, you were always surrounded by one or more awake Gryphons... But during the battle, you could have easily cut and run. Why didn't you?"

She flicked her insectoid wings, thoughtfully, "Because, as revolting as I initially found you to be, after being forced to spend a great deal of time with you all, I discovered that neither Gryphons," She looked at Fyrenn, Neyla, Varan, and Kephic in turn, "Nor Ponies," She looked to Carradan, "Are anything like the tales the hive tells."

She shook her head, as if in wonderment, "We are told, from spawn, with a thousand whispering voices and images, that you are monsters."

Varan snorted, "But it is hard to sustain illusions about people when you share battle with them. Is it not?"

IJ nodded, "I'm not sure I'd call you my friends... I don't have friends. But you're... Better to me than my hive-mates..." She shot a glance at Neyla, "...Mostly."

Fyrenn turned to face the co-monarch of Equestria, "Is there some other way you can punish her? She has essentially betrayed her own kind, and hive, to keep our lives out of danger.
She didn't resist incarceration, and she is being co-operative."

He glanced to Kephic and Varan for support. Kephic nodded, Varan sighed, "I am not entirely sure I should be advocating leniency, but she has acted in a fashion so as to earn it."

Neyla shook her head violently, "I can begrudgingly agree, it would be wrong to execute her after she saved us, but I'd consider our debt repaid if she was imprisoned. For the rest of her life, however long that may be."

Celestia strode to the window, and stared out at the sun, which was quickly approaching the latter phase of its daily cycle. She would have to fulfill her most important royal duty soon.

After a long moment, which even the Gryphons were loathe to interrupt, she spoke slowly.

"I am faced with a perplexing problem. I believe, firmly, in mercy. Many of your companions have vouched for you, Inside Joke, and that stands in your favor. On the other hoof, Neyla is right. You have committed acts of espionage, treason, and treachery. You represent a threat to my kingdom, and the kingdom of an ally."

The Princess sighed deeply, and turned to face the group again, "I have a solution. It has its risks, and its restrictions. You may find it a far worse thing than prison at first."

Celestia straightened, and flared her wings, "My mind is made up." Her horn flared to life, creating a perceptible aura of energy that Fyrenn could feel rushing and crackling around him, yet not actually touching him.

"Inside Joke, I have determined your fate," The aura of Celestia's horn fully engulfed the terrified Changeling, whose face bore an expression of such horror that Fyrenn truly did feel sorry for her.

"I take from you the lifecodes of all the species you have acquired, save one," there was a visible discharge, and IJ winced, crying out in pain, "I place you in this form," As Fyrenn watched in morbid fascination, IJ's body began to change, without her intervention, resuming the familiar white curves and blue mane of her Pegasus shape.

Celestia's horn reached the peak of its brightness, and she spoke a final time, with words that bore the gravity of the world, "...Finally, I take from you your power to change form."

The room was split by a crack of thunder, and a visible white shock wave that rattled the glass in the windows, as the magic dissipated.

Fyrenn's crest feathers, the tufts of his ears, and the hackles at the back of his neck were standing on end, as if he had touched a Tesla coil.

IJ slumped to the floor, once again a Pegasus.
Permanently.

Fyrenn stared. For the first time, he was truly deeply grateful for his species' immunity to magical alteration. Though Celestia's solution had a certain elegance to it, he found himself inwardly horrified. It was true, IJ had brought this on herself, and gotten off easy, but the idea of being forced to become something else was as terrifying as the day the PER had begun doing it.

Fyrenn wondered how hard it was for Celestia to walk the thin bright line separating moral use of her powers, from abuse.

The Princess looked down upon IJ with a critical eye as she stood, wobbling, on her legs, "You will be taken to Cloudsdale, and placed in the advanced flight school there under close probationary supervision. Any appreciable infraction, or attempt to leave before your probation is finished, will result in you being delivered to the dungeons here. For life."

Celestia's expression softened slightly, "If... After three years' time, you can prove to me that you have learned lessons of friendship, trust, loyalty, and love, then I will restore your power to shapeshift, and you will be free to go on condition that you leave the nation of Equestria, and never return in any form but your own. If, at the end of this period, you wish to remain a Pegasus, then you will be granted citizenship."

The gestures were gracious, and IJ nodded meekly in acceptance, "Thank you. I have to admit... I wasn't expecting... Well... this. Any of it. To even be allowed to live."

Celestia allowed a very small smile to grace her lips, "I'm not in the habit of rewarding valorous action with unnecessary punishment. I do hope you will understand that you can't keep your armor."

IJ nodded again, "If nothing else, I suppose a prison of the body is better than a prison of stone."

Fyrenn wasn't entirely sure he agreed.

Chapter 39

After full meals, a complete night's rest, and another hot bath, Fyrenn was feeling almost normal.

Canterlot itself never really slept, so he wasn't surprised to find that there were plenty of Ponies out and about, despite the early hour.

By the light of the rising sun, he walked the streets idly, watching the Ponies and learning what he could of their routines and lifestyles from his observations. Early in the day there seemed to be more artists, service ponies, and middle-class citizens out and about.

Although he spotted a few more well dressed Stallions now and again, the morning otherwise seemed to belong to the less politically associated populace of Canterlot.

Some Ponies seemed relatively unfazed by the presences of a Gryphon, but others shot him wary looks, or made a point of avoiding his immediate vicinity.
He could have flown, observing the inhabitants from an isolated comfortable altitude, but he was interested in getting a feel for the atmosphere of the city.

Fyrenn knew the feel of a Human city well, and he had spent enough time in the Gryphon capital to begin to get acquainted with his future accommodations, but he had not yet had the chance to extensively see how Ponies lived, worked, and relaxed.

Canterlot was clean, bright, and well maintained. It suddenly occurred to Fyrenn that one contributing factor behind both Ponies' and Gryphons' seemingly universal penchant for clean, well maintained spaces was potentially their enhanced senses.

A Human could shut out the sight and smell of debris and dirtiness, to a certain point.
A creature with incredible eyes, or an incredible nose, could not. Thus it would be in their best interest to keep their living space as clean as possible. Clutter he had seen in places within both capitals, but filth, upon reflection, never once.

The streets were made of cobblestone, polished smooth by the passage of hooves until it shone like granite. Street lighting appeared to be mage-lamp based, but Fyrenn thought he spied a few gas powered lighting apparati in some of the shops he passed.

The influx of Earth technology had already begun, even here, where the populace was doubtless slow to adapt or adopt change.

After continuing his perambulations for a few more minutes, Fyrenn stumbled across a familiar face. Across a little square, mostly occupied by a small fountain, the Gryphon spotted Carradan looking more than a little downcast, munching pensively on an apple fritter.

Fyrenn set himself down on the bench beside Carradan with a sigh, "Where did you get the money for that Stan? Don't tell me you picked somebody's saddlebags..."

The words had their intended effect, bringing a small smile to the Pegasus's face, "Naah... Celestia lent me a few bits. She said to pass some on to any of you guys if I ran into you but after that grievous accusation of theft... I dunno... I'm tempted to see how many more of these," Stanley took a big bite out of the fritter, completing his sentence around the apple flavored mass, "Your money can buy."

Fyrenn snorted, "And when you get fat, slow, and lazy... I'll be waiting to swoop down and *splat.* No more nosy reporter."

Carradan laughed outright, "Me? Fat and lazy? After everything we've been through I'm at the *top* of my game. I deserve a little reward dontcha think?"

Fyrenn chuckled, "Note the use of the singular, and the modifier in that sentence. *A* reward. A *little* reward."

Carradan jerked his head down at the treat, "You and me? We have very different definitions of little. Which is kinda funny, because you're the big guy in this equation. I'm just a 'little' Pony."

Fyrenn smiled, and let Stanley finish his confection in peace. After he was done, the salmon Pegasus hoofed over a few bits, with mock anxiety worthy of a Shakespeare play.

As Fyrenn secreted the bits in his lower neck feathers, Carradan cocked his head, "How do you do that anyways?"

He gestured to his neck, "This? It's a trick I picked up watching the others. There's a little hollow created by the joining of the bones down in there. It's perfect for storing small things if you don't have a satchel, or don't want the items found. You get used to the feel of carrying lighter objects in there after a while. The feathers do a good job of making sure nothing falls out."

"Will you guys ever stop surprising me?"

"On the day *you* stop surprising *us.*"

"Touché."

Fyrenn shook his head, "No. in all seriousness. You've really come a long ways Stan. Its a little hard to believe; but when we met we really didn't like each other..."

Carradan smirked and rolled his eyes, "Perish the thought."

"...And you weren't exactly the type to walk into an active war zone. But you leapt head-first into Conversion. And you went right into the action out there," Fyrenn flicked his head in a vaguely northerly direction, "Without so much as a whimper. That takes brass Stanley, and I for one, am glad to call you my friend."

Carradan smiled and punched Fyrenn lightly to the side with a hoof, but the Gryphon saw the tears he was trying to hold back, "Awww shuddup. You beaks-for-brains did most of the fighting. But... Thanks."

Carradan paused and gazed up at Fyrenn, "Do you think she'll change? Do you think she'll be back?"

Fyrenn cocked his head, "Who? IJ?"

Stanley nodded wordlessly.

Fyrenn sighed and scratched his head, ruffling the feathers slightly, "I don't know if we will ever see her again in the normal course of events... But there's no reason we can't drop in on her one day. Will she change? I think she has already started to. Don't take what she did too hard. You and I, we have a coping mechanism the others lack..."

Carradan snorted, "Well I have this Pony 'love and tolerance' thing I guess.."

Fyrenn shook his head, "I'm talking about Human pragmatism. We may not physically be Humans anymore, but we can take a great many good, useful things from our Humanity besides memories and basic skills. *Trust* me, its a lot easier to forgive a certain blue and white Pegasus if you think about her actions from a Human perspective, especially as opposed to a Gryphon's."

Carradan inclined his head, "Anyone ever tell you that you should have been a psychologist?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "I've decided I'd rather have friends and family than doctors. Easier to relate to. Fewer bills."

Carradan burst out laughing, and for several seconds, Fyrenn joined him.
Their loud mirth even drew a bit of attention from other Ponies in the square.

When their guffaws finally died down, Carradan smiled, "Thanks. I guess going out for a lonely breakfast wasn't such a smart move after... well.. everything."

The Pegasus glanced around the square, then nudged Fyrenn, "You in the mood to do more cheering up? 'Cause I spy another headcase for you to take a crack at." He point with a hoof, and Fyrenn saw that Neyla was ambling slowly down one of the side streets, lost in thought, and judging by her expression recriminations.

Fyrenn swallowed, "I'm not sure that's a good idea. She has more reason than any of us to be upset."

Carradan scoffed, "Excuses excuses. Whether you wanna admit it or not, she's closer to you than the rest of us. Go on! Git!"

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "This had better not be you trying to play matchmaker, or so help me I will grind you up and send the pieces home in a match *box.*"

Carradan rolled his eyes, "Threats threats threats... I'm not worried. Go on now! Seriously. She needs someone, and it looks like it's either you or me. You don't wanna see me try to cheer somebody up. Besides, I can always hold hopes that you two will---"

As he started up the street, Fyrenn looked back over his shoulder, "You and I will have *words* about this later."
The Gryphon drilled Carradan with a death glare, and was rewarded by the slightest of nervous shivers from the Pony.

Neyla saw him coming, and moved to make space for him to fall into step beside her.
Fyrenn offered her a smile, "I have a few bits, if you want to get something to eat."

Neyla shook her head, "I'm not particularly hungry."
She glanced up, and caught sight of a bakery and Coffee house, "...But I could do with something hot to drink I suppose."

The eatery turned out to be called "Pony Joe's," which was apt considering the owner was named Pony Joe. It struck Fyrenn as an unusual name for someone who was presumably an Equestrian native, but he decided it was better not to further complicate his morning by asking Ponies awkward questions.

Aside from a Coffee so divine it threatened to make him forget the real reason he had brought Neyla to the bakery, there was also some sort of sweet baked good called a Donut.

Sugar-based synth foods were not easy to make palatable Earthside, and thus Fyrenn hadn't ever tasted anything on that level of sweetness before.

He bit into the baked, glazed ring with its peculiar trademark hole in the middle, and nearly dropped the coffee he was holding in his other talon.

Neyla chuckled softly, "What's the matter? First time eating sweet stuff?"

Fyrenn savored the bite for a few moments before swallowing and nodding, "Might as well be. Most of the synthetic stuff I had growing up was barely a *tenth* as sweet as this, and didn't really have good flavor or texture."

Fyrenn decided to order a whole box of the 'Donuts' and, as he had hoped, Neyla's curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she helped herself to a few of the treats.

She confessed that she had never had a donut before, but apparently Gryphons made sweet desserts as well, so it was less of a culinary revelation for her and more of a simple exercise in trying new foreign food.

Fyrenn spent a few uncomfortable minutes trying to decide how to start the conversation, and finally settled on a simple apology.

"I'm sorry."

Neyla cocked her head, genuinely baffled, "What for?"

"Siding with IJ. I know all this must bring back a lot of bad memories and feelings for you... Stuff you'd rather not dredge up. I've been there. By rights, she probably *should* be in prison. I guess, in a sense, she is---"

Neyla shook her head and cut the red Gryphon's increasingly rapid babblings short, "You have nothing to be sorry for. I'd be mad if you stood by her for no reason. But she gave you a reason, a relatively good one at that. I'm just..."

"...Not yet ready to be as forgiving."

She shook her head in wonder, "Sometimes I almost forget that you've been in almost the same place I have. How did you learn? You became part of a family. You put your fears aside. You are even trying to help me... Oh don't look so surprised, it was *painfully* obvious you were going to try and cheer me up."

She paused and sipped her own coffee pensively, before asking her question again, "How *did* you do it? How did you outrun yourself?"

Fyrenn sighed, and gazed down into his drink "It wasn't all me. Sure I had to reach a point where I was willing to take some risks again... All relationships bear risk... But Kephic and Varan also reached out to me. God only knows why."

He looked up at Neyla and grinned slightly, "Besides, I haven't put it all behind me. I'm still very *very* closed to the idea of... Well... A 'relationship' in the more aaah---"

Neyla shook her head and held up a claw, "I know what you mean."
She gazed out the windows morosely for several minutes. Fyrenn used the time to work up the courage to try a new tack.

He picked out four of his leftover bits, noting that one side of the gold coin bore a sun emblem, the other a moon. They would serve his purpose nicely.

He held up the four coins, "Ok tell me this... When was the last time you saw two Gryphons, excepting yourself and... Him... Lose a relationship? Or even a friendship?"

Neyla thought for a moment, then shook her head, "I can't recall an instance where it didn't all work out in the end."

Fyrenn grinned, "Alright. Now, I'm going to ask you to guess the odds that all four of these coins will land sun side up."

Neyla raised an eyebrow, "You know as well as I do that the chances are about one in sixteen occurrences on average."

Fyrenn smirked, and flicked each coin into the air in rapid succession. As they hung, spinning above his head, he reached out with all the speed he could muster, and slammed each to the table using his index talon. Sun side up.

Neyla glared, "That's cheating."

Fyrenn shook his head, "That's refusing to let chance dictate your future. There's plenty of things we can't control in life, but what I guess I've finally started to figure out, is that those 'chances,' if there is such a thing as luck, need not control *us*."

He swiftly gathered the coins into a pile, to leave as a tip, "As for me, I don't personally subscribe to coincidence, fate, luck, or chance at all. I believe there's a plan in everything. So my advice goes double for me, and anyone who thinks the same."

Neyla sighed again, "I agree... But I don't think my heart is ready to follow my head."

Fyrenn snorted, "The fact we're sitting here, having this conversation, proves that you're wrong. You think of me as a friend, or you wouldn't even think of discussing this with me. You're just afraid to admit you're slowly mending. I know. I've been there."

He rolled his eyes, "Well, really? I'm still there, I just pretend to be sage and wise because you needed a pep talk in the worst way, and you don't exactly have a gaggle of close friends."

Neyla giggled, " 'Pep talk?' "

"Human expression."

She grinned, "It sounds... A little funny."

Fyrenn smiled back, "It is. But you've just had one, so now you know and you don't have to take my word for it."

"I meant the word itself silly. Pep... peeeeepppppp..."

Fyrenn snorted, "Oh that's nothing. I'll show you a dictionary of Human colloquialisms sometime. You'd find it immensely amusing. Words like 'Head Honcho,' or 'lojack.' "

Neyla tried, with some success, to contain a full on outburst of laughter.
Fyrenn chuckled himself, "I know. Funny stuff right?"

The two Gryphons paid for their meal, and made their way back to the street, setting off in the general direction of the Palace. They spent most of the time discussing strange Human turns of phrase, much to Neyla's amusement.

It made Fyrenn happy to see her smile, and laugh. It reassured him that the damage done by IJ's revelation was neither permanent, nor severe.

As they neared the Palace, the red Gryphon stopped and turned to face his companion, "Look... I know you're going to be tempted to blame yourself for not figuring IJ out sooner. Then your head and heart will use that as an excuse to put up walls again. I'm going to tell you two things. First, I'm going to tell you what you already know; she fooled us *all.* It's not a reflection on *you.* No matter how much previous 'experience' you've had."

Neyla cocked her head and raised her eyebrow, "And second?"

Fyrenn gazed into her eyes, trying with all his might to impress his words upon her, "Second I'm going to tell you *exactly* verbatim what Kephic and Varan told me; 'You acted honorably, and as well as you knew how in both situations. You only indulge in self-deprecation now because you know the outcome. You didn’t then.' ”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his beak, "It's a little scary to say this; But take it as coming from a friend and a friend only. You are too smart, too beautiful, too kind, and too skilled to live your life alone."

Neyla smiled mischievously, "At least you're honest."

The pair resumed walking, passing the time in thoughtful silence until they reached a side entrance to the palace. As one of the Royal Guards unlocked the door for them to enter, Neyla turned to Fyrenn and smiled, "Thank you."

Fyrenn cocked his head, "For what?"

"For the Pep Talk."

Varan was perturbed. Neyla was angry. Kephic was frustrated.
Fyrenn was a feather's breadth away from being in a killing mood.

The four Gryphons and Celestia had been conducting 'interviews' with the first two names from Carradan and IJ's list for over three hours. Carradan himself had opted out of the proceedings early. Apparently the true anger of Gryphons still awoke some fear in him, even if that anger was directed elsewhere.

Fyrenn decided he was wise to worry. Even the presence of a sympathetic demigod had done very little to mitigate the harshness of the Gryphons' questionings.

The harshness of the proceedings made the results all the more frustrating. The only information the two courtiers, a Baron and a Duke, had been able to give them were the names of more Diamond Dog Troll pack Alphas who were working for the PER. And it had taken three hours to elicit those facts, despite the relative cooperation their interviewees had shown.

They both claimed to receive all their orders from the final name on the list, a statement Fyrenn believed was truthful, given just how badly they had frightened the two traitors.

At first, both candidates seemed to be more nervous under Celestia's stare, but after a few moments of aggressive posturing from the leo-avian predators in the room, the two Ponies had considered Celestia the least of their worries.

Fyrenn even thought the second one had seemed *relieved* when Celestia ordered him, like his predecessor, consigned to prison for five years without parole, and loss of title, rank, and assets thereafter, followed at last by mandatory 'reassignment' to work on the frontier for the rest of his life.

Fyrenn noted, with some interest, that Celestia seemed to like unusual, creative, and non-aggressive punishments, preferring to treat even acts such as treason with a soft, but very firm hoof. He knew that by contrast, in the Gryphon Kingdoms, fully convicted treason or treachery without mitigating factors was punishable only by instant, non-commutable death, with no right to appeal. Earthgov's uniform code of military justice was only slightly more merciful.

Fyrenn felt like dishing out some death himself. Shroud had died, and he along with the others had endured severe trials to gain access to the three names. If the third was as evasive, and inanely babbling, and useless as the first two, Fyrenn decided he would take more drastic action to secure the truth. Celestia's merciful nature be damned.

Fyrenn sighed and sagged back into his seat.

The room was laid out with a semi-circular table, behind which Celestia, Fyrenn, and Kephic would sit, framed by the windows at the far end of the room.

Celestia had even had Gryphon chairs brought in from storage for the occasion.

Neyla and Varan stood in the shadows near the doors, ready to close the way behind the 'interviewee.' The move was more for physical intimidation than anything. The unfortunate Pony in question was then, forcefully if necessary, seated in an unadorned, uncomfortable chair of their own, set considerably lower than the already tall beings at the semi-circular table.

Fyrenn had been surprised to learn that much of the layout was Celestia's idea. He would not have pegged her as the sort to devise intimidation tactics. The more he considered it, however, the more it made sense. Intimidation could sometimes preclude, and negate the necessity for violence.

As the Gryphons finished preparing themselves for the final unlucky Pony, a Night Guard poked her head through the door, "Your majesty, guests, your final detainee has arrived. He is proving... Most uncooperative."

Celestia sighed, "Send him in nonetheless." She turned to Fyrenn, and then Kephic, "I'm afraid I may as well apologize on behalf of our next... 'Guest' and get it out of the way."

Kephic raised an eyebrow, "Why?"

Fyrenn growled, "Apologies aside, I may *dismember* him if he doesn't cooperate."

Celestia shook her head, "I would not be entirely pleased if you did. He is my nephew."

Before Fyrenn or Kephic could form a response to the new, and startling piece of information, the doors burst open and a white Unicorn, with a flowing golden mane, wearing a slightly bedraggled looking suit strode in, an expression of arrogant fury stamped on his muzzle as if it had been chiseled there permanently with a pickaxe.

"Auntie! What is the *meaning* of this inconceivable charade! I demand to know why I, Prince Blueblood Archduke of---"

Fyrenn snorted, interrupting the prince mid-sentence, "Yeah. I'm gonna vote we go with dismemberment."

"No! I care not for your idle threats, Gryphon." The Unicorn spat the word, as if it were an epithet, "I will *not* give over the leader of a worthy cause to your bloody, violent, ill conceived ministrations. And I intend to contest, strongly, the vulgar idea that aiding a group dedicated to our species' interests is treason."

If Fyrenn had thought his patience was being taxed before, it had been pushed far beyond recommended tolerances by Blueblood. The Unicorn princeling was arrogant, narcissistic, and delusional. The only thing they had learned after forty five minutes of belaboring him with questions and threats, both subtle and forward, was that he hated Gryphons almost as much as he hated Humans.

The only time he had shown any concern at all was when Neyla had bruised his jaw after a particularly snide remark had momentarily pushed her beyond her own tolerances. Fyrenn knew she had still been mostly in control however, otherwise she would have likely broken the Prince's neck with the mere torsional force of impact.

Unfortunately the move had only served to heighten Blueblood's self confidence, assuring him, in his mind, that the Gryphons were well under his Aunt's control, and would stop short of truly harming him.

Fyrenn had remained behind the table with Celestia, while Varan, Kephic, and Neyla constantly circled Blueblood, peppering him with questions. Fyrenn had elected to remain separate in order to maintain control of his own impulses, which were screaming at him to do things to Blueblood that would likely make him a permanent enemy of the Equestrian state.

He had been trained to extract information from targets with maximum efficiency, in the minimum amount of time, and then dispose of them violently. That Special Forces training was teaming up with his Gryphon instincts to set up quite the racket in his subconscious.

To distract himself, Fyrenn tried to imagine how far removed Blueblood must be from Celestia's bloodline, and tutelage, to have turned out so badly. If the other two courtiers had shown mild anti-humanist sentiment, then Blueblood was a full blown misanthropist.

The other Ponies on the list had little to no knowledge of the PER's terrorist actions, but Fyrenn ventured to hypothesize that Blueblood did, given his demeanor.

Fyrenn wondered how long one had to bask in one's own arrogance in order to be comfortable facing down four Gryphons, and the co-monarch of a nation imbued with enough magical capability to raise and lower the sun, or force a shape change in a species dedicated to shapeshifting.

Kephic leaned in close to Blueblood's face and growled, "One way or another, you're going to give us the name of the head of the PER. The red Gryphon beside your 'Auntie?' He's my brother.
And he's not the sort to follow the rules if you take my meaning. Now, your uncooperativeness is *upsetting* him. The last time he was upset, he beat one creature to death with his bare claws, then killed two more who were more heavily armed and armored than he, without picking up a weapon. Upsetting him is, as you can infer, unwise."

Kephic jerked his head at Varan, "My other sibling. Varan. He once killed a dire bear by hitting it so hard with a blunt slab of granite, that they never found the head. Neyla there? She has a bigger body count to her name than your 'Auntie's' entire Royal Guard."

Kephic leaned in even closer, "As for me? The last person who irritated me as much as you do had his personal weapon shoved so far through his chest cavity, that it came out the other side, after it pushed his spine aside. So when we tell you we will do whatever we have to in order to get this information out of you, we *mean* it."

Blueblood spat, missing Kephic by a wide margin thanks in no small part to his Gryphic reflexes, "You feathered abominations are all the same. Arrogant to a fault..."

Varan chuckled, "You're one to talk."

"...Constantly violent, uncivilized, stupid... Much like those filthy ape creatures you're trying so desperately to shield. Auntie? Please dispense with this ridiculous charade. Surely you agree? You are always the one championing Conversion...
Isn't your disdain for the PER merely an act? A necessary diplomatic machination to fool the humans?"

The mixed look of pity and disgust on Celestia's face was more than enough to answer the question. Blueblood stood, "I will not sit here idly, while you all advocate actions that are in the *worst* interest of my species! And to think we veritably *worshiped* you Celestia... I can see now that the company you keep has rubbed off on you in the worst way! You act like nothing more than a mere commoner. Well, *I* for one will not let this foolishness come to pass! If you can not do what is necessary..."

As the Prince babbled on, Fyrenn stood and began walking towards him. The actions appeared almost casual, and unhurried. Blueblood didn't see the danger, but the other Gryphons knew the signs, and they hurriedly stood back to give Fyrenn room.

Celestia, meanwhile, visibly tensed. She was no fool, and she knew Fyrenn had just snapped, even though it didn't look that way. Yet.

Blueblood continued blathering as Fyrenn stood over him. Finally, the red Gryphon shook his head, "We're finished here."

He stepped around Blueblood, as if to leave, then with speed that would have blinded a rattlesnake he snatched the princeling with his left claw, by the front of his suit, talons digging into flesh, fur, and clothing indiscriminately.

As Fyrenn began to drag the full grown male Unicorn across the floor, small rivulets of blood trickling from the gashes his claws were making, Blueblood yelped, and fired off a spell. Whatever the intended effect, it must have been tailored to alter Fyrenn in some way, because the bolt had no effect whatsoever.

Fyrenn continued to drag the struggling Prince, as if his contortions and weight were no more annoying than a gnat, until he had reached the window. Casually, Fyrenn slammed his fisted right claw into one of the panes, shattering every piece of glass in the entire bank of windows with the reverberation of the force.

Apparently, the unadorned windows weren't intended to be opened. That was of approximately as much concern to Fyrenn as Blueblood's shouted threats and insults, of which there seemed to be a great many.

With a swift flick of his wrist, and some exertion via his shoulder, Fyrenn forced the yammering royal out of the window, before anyone could even think of reacting.

Celestia's nephew was, consequently, hung by his tail, which was firmly clasped in one of Fyrenn's claws. There was no balcony, no ledge, and no railing, given that the windows were never meant to open. Merely a two hundred fifty foot drop.

Fyrenn chuckled, "Now, I'm no *expert,* but I happen to know from painful experience that Unicorns can't fly. But I'm willing to give that hypothesis a re-test if you don't tell me what I want to know right now."

Blueblood's only response was to scream, "Auntie! HELP!"

Celestia stepped forward, flaring her wings, "Fyrenn! Pull him back up this instant! I will *not* have you harming my nephew."

Fyrenn glanced over his shoulder with a look that startled even Kephic, he hissed at Celestia, "Keep your politics, pacifism, and family issues the hell out of my way. I did *not* lose a friend, get shot and stabbed, cross a frozen waste, battle terrifying creatures, lose an ally, and get betrayed by one of *your* own Guards after coming all this way, only to be stopped by his bloodlines. Stay out of this."

At that exact moment, Fyrenn didn't care that he had just told off a being who could likely kill him even with his immunity to direct magical interaction. All he could see was the clear line; A to B to C. Scare Blueblood, get answers, crush the PER.

He turned back to the dangling Prince, "Now you answer me, or I'm going to make a red white and blue flapjack out of 'Mighty Prince Blueblood.' " To lend his words weight, Fyrenn allowed the Unicorn's tail to slip a little through his talons, eliciting a cry of genuine panic at last.

"Alright! Alright! His name is Tiro! Tiro Vanberg!"

Fyrenn smiled, "Now was that really so hard? Give the pavement my regards."
He opened his claw, and stepped away from the window. Fyrenn didn't even need to see Blueblood fall, his screams of terror were music to his tufted ears.

Celestia rushed forward and her horn flared to life. A moment later a whimpering disheveled Blueblood was levitated carefully through the window, and deposited on the floor.

The sobbing Prince jerked a hoof in Fyrenn's direction, "He *dropped* me! He was going to *kill* me!"

Celestia glowered, "Blueblood, as much as I disagree with Fyrenn's methods, I think I despise what you have done more. You will be stripped of rank, title, honor, family name, and assets."

The prince winced at each word, moving closer to outright tears all the while.

Celestia glowered, "For acts of treason, sedition, treachery, and collaboration with terrorists, you are sentenced to ten years prison and hard labor, followed by indentured permanent servitude on the frontiers... To Converts. Your social status will be fixed by contract, you will never again occupy any position of leadership or wealth regardless of future work or merits."

Luna's Night Guards had to physically carry the wailing screaming ex-prince from the room.
Fyrenn had never seen an adult temper tantrum, and he never wanted to again.

For a moment, the room was silent, then Fyrenn gestured to the door, "I think the Princess and I need a moment. Please." The other Gryphons dutifully filed out. Neyla shot him an encouraging smile. Varan was too busy shaking his head and trying to contain his mirth to say anything. Kephic simply winked mischievously.

Once they were gone, Fyrenn held up a talon, "First, let me apologize for not letting you know what I was about to do, it would have saved a lot of trouble and worry on your part. Second, I meant nothing disparaging by my remarks, merely that I wanted a moment without interference. I needed to shake his belief that you could save him."

Celestia nodded, "I appreciate your apology. So you did not in fact mean to kill him?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "No. It wouldn't be my place, and he's not worth the effort. I knew you would catch him, and I much preferred watching you strip him of title and lands anyhow. I just wanted to see him truly scared."

Celestia sighed and hung her head, "He has been... Problematic for many years, but he's never crossed a line like this before. Do you know that, before you arrived yesterday, I wanted some excitement around here? I never imagined that would lead to exiling an extended member of my family."

Fyrenn chuckled, "Cheer up. Its not like you had to kill him."

Celestia nodded, "True enough. I must apologize as well. I very nearly did interfere with your... Interrogation. I should have trusted that you would do the right thing. I'd like to think I know your character better than that."

Fyrenn shrugged, "No apology needed. I'm a violent killer, from a violent race, born into a violent race. He wasn't wrong about that."

Celestia nodded, "True, but you can *always* trust a Gryphon's honor. Do not take it as an insult that worry for a subject eclipsed that fact in my mind temporarily."

Fyrenn nodded, "Naturally."

"So I presume you and your companions will be departing tomorrow?"

The Gryphon nodded, "Hopefully, with this information, we can cripple the PER."

Celestia smiled, "You know, I suppose I should thank you."

"For?"

"For not asking me if I *do* secretly support them."

Fyrenn smiled and shook his head.

"I know your character better than that."

Fyrenn was ready to sleep. The day had been long and tiring, and the next day loomed large with the promise of a long flight back to New York.

He was on the verge of collapsing into the bed that had been provided as part of his guest suite, when there was a knock at his door. It bore the distinct bass thump of a hoof, rather than the harder rap of a fisted claw.

When he opened the door, he was deeply surprised to behold Princess Luna waiting.

"Prithee may we enter?"

Fyrenn stood back and nodded.

Luna stepped in and shook her head, "I am sorry; I am not quite used to this new form of casual speaking, formal greetings are a force of habit for me."

Fyrenn wasn't sure how to respond to that. He knew the rumors. Supposedly Luna had once been possessed by a malevolent power, and banished to Equestria's moon. For a millennium.

A thousand years away doubtless meant a lot of catching up. It only made sense that language had changed, like everything else.

"What brings you here Princess?"

Luna continued walking, letting herself out onto the balcony.
Fyrenn followed, curious as to why the Princess of the Night had seemingly taken an interest in him.

He joined her on the balcony to find her staring down at the lights of Canterlot.
She spoke first, "Tell me what you see."

Fyrenn took the city in with a sweeping glance, "A wealthy, powerful, harmonious kingdom. Happy citizens leading peaceful lives. On Earth, this is thought of as an impossible paradise."

Luna shook her head, "You are only looking at the surface. If you dig deeper, you will find less savory things. Things my sister and I know well, but she is sometimes loathe to admit to others."

Fyrenn cocked his head quizzically, "Such as?"

"Stagnation. Do you know, Fyrenn, that this city has barely changed by so much as a brick in nearly eight hundred years? No expansion, no renewal, mere maintenance of the existing.
The Equestrian nation has not founded a new settlement since the very creation of this city.
We have made no effort to expand, or colonize, in a millennium."

Fyrenn whistled through his beak, "That's a long time for a society to be at a standstill."

Luna nodded once curtly, "Many things changed while I was away... But I was shocked to find that the sciences, magic, concepts of literature and art, our borders... None of it had changed in the slightest."

She cast an appraising glance at Fyrenn with her icy blue eyes, "Conversion is often seen as an avenue to the saving of Human lives, culture, art, literature, and knowledge. But what many do not yet understand is that we, and also your kind, are in as much need of salvation as they."

Fyrenn's eyes widened, "You... *need* this melding as much as we do... You're even hoping to improve both races through it... Aren't you."

Luna nodded again, "I think my sister has intimated all this to you before, but it is rarely spoken outright. The Human body is weak. Human morals are too flexible, and Human society often lacks harmony..."

Fyrenn saw where she was going, "All issues that are less of a problem, or even eliminated entirely, in Gryphons and Ponies."

Luna nodded, "But by the same token, we are slow to change. Inflexible in our society, sometimes uncreative in our art and culture, and often too complacent. While your species does not suffer the latter, you show significant signs of the former. Humans, on the other hoof, are supremely adaptable, creative, flexible, and artistic. Attributes that Conversion does not tamper with."

Fyrenn stared out at the city again, "So... What you're hoping to see are the results of melding the best qualities of each? Is *that* why Conversion is tailored to alter people on at least some level?"

Luna inclined her head, "A reasonable hypothesis, but no. It is rare, if not impossible, to create a Pony that is not inclined to harmony, or a Gryphon without morals. If the potion did not instill those qualities in the soul, along with proper instincts, the Convert would die a most terrible death as their body rejected them for lacking... Essence."

Fyrenn snorted, "Try telling that to the HLF."

Luna gazed up at the stars, then turned back to the Gryphon, "My sister informed me of the so called 'Wisps' you encountered."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject.

Luna continued, "I bear a warning, and a plea. I fear these creatures are more powerful, and numerous, than any of you expect. For reasons I am not willing to divulge yet, I am certain we will one day be forced to face them in war."

The azure Alicorn sighed and looked out over the city once more, "As for my plea, noble Gryphon, I would ask that you do me a favor. I am quite sure my sister has encouraged you to help along the friendship between our races. She is right, we will need each other all too soon.
But I wish to add to her request."

Luna sighed, "Celestia has always been the voice of peace, and harmony.
I am the voice of war, and guardianship. I would ask that, as in the old days, your people help train mine in the arts of violence. Weapons, tactics... Things we will soon need to defend our forthcoming expansion."

Fyrenn gaped, "I... Well I'd like to accept but... I'm not precisely in a position of authority..."

Luna smiled ever so slightly, "You have, I believe, more influence than you credit yourself with. Please, for both our sakes, use it. Diversity, and unity, are strength. We will need strength.
Of this I am sure. My sister means well in her peaceful ways, but sometimes war seeks us out whether we wish it or no."

Fyrenn inclined his head, "I'd be honored to try."

Luna returned the gesture, "Thank you. That is all I ask. That... And if you ever find yourself here again, share a hunt with me. So few truly appreciate the night the way a predator does."

Fyrenn continued gazing out at the starry expanse of Luna's sky, even after her hoofsteps faded away, "True..." he murmured, "True."

Chapter 40

Morning came early for Fyrenn and his companions. Kephic suggested that the Gryphons eat on the wing, a proposal that met with universal agreement. It would be faster and simpler than breakfast in the castle, and they would be free to hunt live prey. The group waited to depart only long enough to secure food for Carradan, and bid the Royal Sisters farewell.

Carradan was now the only member of the group with a pack and armor; Given that his gear had suffered minimal abrasions it hadn't been sent for repairs. Stanley had offered to discard it, since it was essentially a Royal Guard issue uniform, but Celestia insisted he keep it as a token of appreciation for his service.

Once a suitable stash of grain had been fetched for Carradan's saddlebags, the group assembled on a large balcony and made ready to leave. Celestia and Luna were present to say farewell.

The Princess of the sun was in a surprisingly good mood given the trials of the previous day, but Fyrenn could see tell tale signs of stress. Interestingly, she seemed more avid, and awake as a result of that stress.

"Farewell my friends. You have done the Equestrian Nation a great service by bringing news of the Wisps, and revealing traitors in our midst. We will not soon forget these actions."

Luna nodded her assent, "We hope that this is a sign of things to come. A deeper co-operation between us. We bid thee return again soon to our halls."

Fyrenn smiled, "I hope we can take you up on that offer."

Kephic inclined his head, "I second that. You have a wonderful city here. Shame we didn't have much time to get to know the people in it."

Varan smiled slightly, "I expect we'll find a time to remedy that."

Carradan needled him in the side with his hoof, "You had better! I'm not making the flight alone, and I'm not letting you drag me all over creation for too long without bringing me back here. I spend too long with you guys, and I'll start smelling like you. Then no one here will have me within a thousand yards of em."

Neyla glared, and hissed quietly, "We do not smell."

Fyrenn shook his head and rolled his eyes dismissively before offering the Royal Sisters a respectful inclination of his head, "Thank you, for aiding us in the search for our enemies. I hope we didn't cause too much of a stir."

Luna smiled, the first time she had displayed the expression so completely, "You did not stir anything beyond what was already in need of stirring."

Kephic chuckled, "Well when you put it like *that...* "

After a few more short farewells were exchanged, and the group set off by the light of the newly risen sun.

Their departure brought about mixed emotions for Fyrenn. He wanted to see the PER threat ended, but at the same time it was going to be a harsh transition, returning to a dying world with a dead sky.

The drab gray van was the identical sibling of many other service vehicles on Manhattan's bustling roadways. It dodged and weaved its way through traffic like any number of other vehicles, both piloted and automated.

This particular van was being driven by a live operator, unlike most of the shipping, waste removal, and logistical vehicles on the world's roadways, which were mostly AI controlled.

While the gray van was carrying cargo, it was also carrying a large passenger complement. Another irregularity given that most public transportation was train based within large cities.
The gray van's passengers were anything *but* civilians looking for public transit, however. A fact evidenced by the high power assault pistols they carried just out of sight in shoulder holsters.

The van ended its journey on the curb in front of the New York Hilton. The back and side doors flew open, and the Van's occupants, with a single exception, began unloading large unmarked black crates from the vehicle's rear compartment.

The front seat passenger, a man with graying hair and an expensive suit, made his way up the front steps and into the upscale hotel. At the reception desk, he calmly and deliberately bypassed the small line of guests waiting to check in, and placed a small black credslate on the counter.

Most people paid for goods and services using thumbprint biometric identification, or rarely using cash withdrawn from a bank when travelling to a less urbanized area. Even the barter system was once again seeing use in poorer countryside communities.

A credslate was an even rarer form of payment. Its only real purpose was to be able to make a payment with the same convenience of thumbprint, but the equivalent anonymity of cash. Due to the extreme expense of backing the relatively exploitable card with security and insurance, while maintaining the customer's anonymity in the face of financial regulations, a credslate was an expensive and inefficient venture employed only by the powerfully wealthy.

The credslate was, in its own way, a soft bribe. It was the promise of a guest with deep pockets and a desire to expend a great deal of currency. The hotel clerk didn't even offer the guests the suited man had cut off so much as a sympathetic glance.

The clerk merely snatched up the small, obsidian-like black rectangle, and pressed it to a sensor pad, "Will you be rooming alone sir?"

The suited man shook his head, willfully ignoring the glares of the guests he had displaced, "I need three adjoining suites."

"Luggage?" Even as the clerk posed the question, the other passengers from the van burst through the front doors, lugging the black crates between them.

The suited man shook his head, "We will handle our own bags. Suite keys."

It was not phrased as a question, or a request. The clerk was not about to argue or ask questions. The rate for three interconnected suites, housing so many guests, booked last-minute, would equate out to a second a Christmas bonus for every employee on the register.

What did it matter to him if the men looked less than savory? Or if their behavior was at all suspicious?

The clerk pressed several buttons on his touchscreen terminal and finalized the arrangements.
He selected three suite keycards, and bumped them against a magnetizer, "Here are your keys sir. Rooms 2903, 04, and 05. Enjoy your stay. Ah and sir?"

The Clerk appended a final warning as the suited man withdrew a small box from his suit, "No smoking please. It tends to upset other guests."

The suited man grimaced, withdrew a cigarette, and ignited it with a touch from a pocket lighter, "Tell them to buy an air freshener."

Approaching the Barrier from the Equestrian side, Fyrenn noticed a peculiar phenomena. From the Earth side the bubble had seemed to be just that; A massive bubble with a slight but perceptible curve.

From the Equestrian side however, it appeared more as a massive wall extending in a straight line both horizontally and vertically. Furthermore, the view of Earth through it was distorted in a subtle but strange fashion. If one was to fly along the Equestrian side of the barrier the view on the Earth side would seem to pass unusually slowly, in defiance of normal parallax effect.

The unique effects were a mind bending result of the fact that Equestria's space-time was physically magnitudes of order larger than the size of the bubble it was creating and propagating in Earth's space-time.

The view was mesmerizing for all, but Neyla was especially entranced, having never even been near the phenomenon before. She angled her trajectory to pass closer to Fyrenn, "Do you have any understanding of how it works?"

Fyrenn shook his head, "Not especially. That's a problem for the physics majors."

Neyla whistled softly, "It is beautiful. And terrible."

Kephic nodded, "And a sign that we still have a long way to go. We should indulge in a meal now, there are no native fish in Earth waters, and the risk of carrying ingested food from here to there is considerably less than from there to here."

Neyla shook her head, "How does Humanity survive in an environment that offers nothing to them?"

Carradan snorted, "You ever see a construction crew throw up a hydroponic cylinder? They can turn three acres of nothing into a giant steel container for synth plants inside a week. One of those will produce enough food for thousands of people per week using nothing but water hookups, solar power, and automated chemical deliveries."

"Astonishing" Neyla marveled.

"And Disgusting," Fyrenn added, "I can stomach synth-meat, and synth bread, but the rest of that plant matter is despicable. Tastes like kelp."

Carradan chuckled, "It *is* kelp. Every last lick of it. Unless you believe all those silly stories about ground-up old people."

Carradan and Fyrenn received quizzical glances from the other three Gryphons.
Fyrenn shrugged, "Human fiction gets... Strange. Sometimes. And dark."

The Gryphons caught a large fish each, and ate their fill before proceeding to the barrier.
Neyla hovered in-front of the shimmering quantum membrane, and reached out a talon hesitantly, "What does it feel like?"

Varan shook his head, "Little more than passing through a soap bubble."

Kephic jerked his head at the barrier, "Just be sure to exhale before you cross."

"Why?"

Carradan smiled knowingly, "Hiccups." With that, he, Kephic, and Varan made their crossing.

Fyrenn smirked, "From what I can tell they're not kidding. I'm right behind you."
He cast a glance at the gray storm-tossed sea on the other side, "I'd brace for bad weather if I was you. It looks like monsoon season finally arrived."

Neyla paused after placing a claw through the membrane, "How long does monsoon season last in that part of the world?"

Fyrenn shrugged, "I've been told it used to only be a few months. Now it lasts about nine."

Neyla exhaled and plunged through into the driving rain, Fyrenn followed suit.

His visual estimation had been spot on. It was indeed monsoon season.
The rain was pouring in driving sheets, and the wind was whipping along at what Fyrenn guessed was around thirty knots.

Neither the rain nor wind could put up any kind of fight versus the powerful wings and piercing eyes of a Gryphon, but some of the relentless moisture was going to eventually work its way past the water-resistant coating of their feathers and fur, making the flight miserable.

Kephic had to shout to make himself heard, "This will be *fun!*"

Varan grimaced, "These winds are going to add another hour to the trip!"

Fyrenn caught sight of something in the bank of clouds to the group's left, and shook his head, "Nope. Someone called us a cab."

Like a monster rising from the deep, a gray and tan form burst through a layer of cloud and rose to meet the group, producing the distinctive whine of a jet turbine that could be heard even over the wind.

The red and green flashing navigation lights on the craft's wingtips produced an eerie pulsing glow against the rain and clouds. Together with the twin beams of the VTOL's forward high power arc-lights, it produced the mental image of a strange creature come to devour its enemies.

Fyrenn waved, and squeezed off several hand signals with his right claw. The VTOL pilot responded in kind with standard signal gestures, and swung the craft around, opening the side door for the group to enter.

The wind was causing the craft to pitch and sway as the pilot attempted to keep it in a level hover, but the Gryphons were easily able to compensate.

Fyrenn was last in, and extended a foreleg to snag Carradan, who was having slightly more trouble given that he had no experience with weather manipulation, and was not nearly as strong a flier in such a magic deprived environment.

When they were all in, Fyrenn yanked the side door shut, and banged his fisted claw twice on the cockpit door to signal all clear. The VTOL switched from hover to lateral flight configuration, and took off like a round from a gun, its speed allowing it to cut through the turbulence and gain a modicum of stability.

Fyrenn smiled, and shook the layer of rainwater from his feathers, "Someone definitely called ahead. How else would they have known to send a *heavy* VTOL to accommodate all of us?"

Varan nodded, "It would not surprise me if Celestia had something relayed by yesterday's messenger."

Neyla was gazing around the rear cabin in open-beaked awe, "You were not exaggerating when you described these all-metal airships. How fast are we going?"

Fyrenn shrugged, "About three quarters the speed of sound. Point seven five Mach is relatively slow for a Human aircraft, but in exchange this one can land and take off vertically."

Neyla looked breathless, "Extraordinary! How much does it weigh?"

"I'm not entirely sure what the analogous Gryphic measurement is, but it weighs a very very *very* great deal by your standards, and not much at all by turbine driven aircraft standards."

He paused and thought for a moment, "I'll show you how it works."

Fyrenn deftly twisted the handle on the cockpit door. He reached in to the relatively small space, and tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder. The man rose, and moved into the rear cabin, watching the Gryphons with a mixture of awe and concern.

Fyrenn set the co-pilot seat to its lowest and widest settings, and gestured for Neyla to move into the vacated space. It was a squeeze, but she could just manage to fit, if somewhat uncomfortably, eliciting a nervous glance from the pilot as she did so.

Fyrenn stood behind her, limited to all-fours by the low ceiling. He gestured to the controls with a talon in turn, briefly explaining each, "Stick, for basic control. Pull up to raise the nose, push to lower, left and right for roll, twist for computer-controlled collective. Rudder pedals for yaw. There you've got a hat switch for swapping the engine modes and directions, throttle for power, spoilers for braking, landing skid and wheel up/down controls..."

Neyla shook her head trying to take it all in. Fyrenn gestured to the instrument panels in front of her, to each side, and above her head embedded in the canopy's support beams, "LADAR system, Identify friend-foe tagging, radio and sat comms, terrain sensors, weapon master arm, HUD controls..." he reached out and flicked the final switch, bringing up a holographic display before Neyla, and eliciting a gasp of surprise.

"Incredible! How is the illusion generated?"

"Light tricks. I understand the basics, but I'd be a poor explainer compared to what you can find online."

She glanced back at him, "How do you know all this?"

Fyrenn hung his head slightly, "It was a stupid pipe dream... But I hoped they'd find a way to adapt genetic therapy to treat my eye injuries in my lifetime."

He shifted uncomfortably, "I kept up to date on the flight manuals for everything Earthgov Air Corps has. Hoped I'd be able to get the post I really wanted as a pilot one day."

Neyla shook her head, "It's all so very complex. How do Humans ever keep track without an eidetic memory?"

"Lots of practice. It becomes instinctual after enough training. To a Human, a vehicle becomes a partial extension of the body in the same way as a weapon or tool."

"Fascinating... I can see the allure. Especially if some of the other aircraft are even more graceful and swift."

Fyrenn nodded, "Gotta say though; Having my own wings is better by far..."
He cast a sidelong look at the pilot, "No offense."

Mr. Utah watched with relative apathy as his soldiers screamed. The small squad he was personally overseeing had been divided into three groups. The first group, the lucky ones, were technicians overseeing the second and third. They had spread out the equipment from the black crates, covering the three posh suites in a bevy of wires, thick cables, movable terminal stands, miscellaneous equipment, and two small portable fusion generators.

Of the remaining men, half were immersed inside Sepulchers, writhing in a viscous mixture of gray goo as it forcefully rearranged their genetic and molecular structure.

The other half were strapped into Lovecraftian bed-like aparati that resembled some devil-spawn's re-conception of a dentist's chair, done up in chrome and white biophobic plastic finish.

Wires and hoses were plugged directly into their skin, forcing nanoprobes and synthetic materials into their bloodstream, while small robotic armatures welded metal and carbon fiber plating directly to their epidermal layers.

As with the operatives going through the HLF's butchered version of Ponification, the soldiers who would soon be Augments were not given sedatives during their operation.

The lack of painkilling medication sped the process, in both cases, and Mr. Utah was not in the mood to be patient.

The man's appreciation for the macabre scientific prowess on display was cut short by a knock on the door to the end suite. Mr. Utah stepped to the aperture and peeked through the viewing hole to see a member of the hotel staff, "Go away. We're not to be disturbed."

The bellhop, however, knocked again, "I'm sorry sir, but I need to speak with you. Several guests are complaining about noise, and the smell of cigarettes."

"Get out while you still have a head."

"Sir I'm going to have to---"

Mr. Utah sighed in exasperation, and opened the door.

The disgruntled employee had less than a second to witness the unfolding biological horrors in-front of him before Mr. Utah casually put two shots from a Laser Pistol through the unlucky man's torso, spearing his heart dead center with the focused, searing light.

The weapon was an assassin's tool; Its beam was extremely low focus, and the mechanics were all insulated, producing no sound whatsoever, not even a trigger click. The weapon had vastly limited range, very few shots per cell, and extremely limited power against any armor with energy diffusion, but it was accurate to within a nanometer at close range, untraceable, and utterly silent.

Like clockwork, two technicians sprang to their feet and caught the body, dragging the corpse into the suite and hurriedly closing the door, before returning to work.

There was no time for petty delays.

The PER would be ready to make their move soon.
Mr. Utah was determined to be ready.

Neyla had insisted on remaining in the co-pilot's seat. She was eager to see Manhattan from a decent vantage point, rather than the fist sized flak resistant windows of the rear compartment.

As the city came into view through the rain, she gaped in wonderment, her beak hanging open.
"That.. Is a single *city*?!"

Fyrenn chuckled, "Yes. Granted it's one of the biggest."

"It is vast... And all those lights are powered by electricity? How do they generate it all?!"

"Atomic fusion mostly. There's still one or two fission generators kicking around, and some solar and wind farms leftover from when clean energy came from comparatively less efficient natural sources. They thought about orbital solar once, but scalable fusion came along first."

The pilot held up a hand for silence, "Hamilton tower, Military India Golf eight five one, requesting instrument vectors to a pad."

The fact that they were headed to Fort Hamilton, instead of the Bureau, puzzled Fyrenn. But he was sure there was a good reason.

"Roger India Golf eight five one. Crosswinds of thirteen knots, proceed east to vector seven and down to pad five. Spot-set guidebeams are on. Call it."

"Understood vector seven, for pad five. Spot-set. Guidebeams locked."

Neyla raised an eyebrow, and Fyrenn quietly explained, "Landing systems are mostly run on infrared beams now. They're called spot-set because you can acquire them directly 'on the spot' with a sufficiently advanced instrument setup. He is expected to make verbal confirmation just to be sure we're receiving the beams. They strike sensors embedded under the skin of the nose and wings, and that lets him have a point of fixed reference even in bad weather, or if other instruments have been damaged."

Varan poked his head into the cockpit over Fyrenn's shoulder, "Ingenious."

The group, Neyla included, pulled back to the rear compartment as the disgruntled co-pilot resumed his seat. Fyrenn 'mouthed' a quick 'sorry' to him before realizing that beak-reading wasn't a viable means of communication, since the edges of the yellow material were not moving the way lips would be. All he was doing was silently moving his beak open and closed in subtly different ways that weren't unique enough to evoke words.

Musing on the oddity of this occupied the rest of the short descent. A tell tale bump told them all that the craft had come to a rest, accompanied by the crescendo of a whine as the VTOL's turbines spun down.

Fyrenn smacked the release lever for the side door. It was still raining, so the group dashed towards the nearest door, with Varan holding out a wing over Carradan to offer him the benefit of his water resistance.

Central Military Command must have updated Fyrenn's biometric access credentials, because when he touched his fisted claw to the exterior door's denial pad, it chirruped an acceptance tone, and displayed the words "Welcome Lt. Cdr. Wrenn."

Fyrenn made a mental note to file his change of name with the military. He saw no reason to bother with civilian records, or past military service documents, but it would make it easier for him to adjust if everyone knew him by his new name.

The door slid open, and the Gryphons filed inside, along with Carradan, who had still been lashed by a few wind driven sheets of rain despite Varan's best efforts.

The group barely had time to shake off the water, before a cadre of soldiers approached, flanking two very familiar figures.

Hutch and Sildinar stepped forward, and Fyrenn noted with no small amount of shock that both were wearing uniforms, or in Sildinar's case a sash, with the words JRSF. More amazing still, Hutch's shoulder pins identified him as a Brigadier General.

The man smiled warmly, "Well! About time you sorry, tardy, bedraggled lunks showed up. I was sure I'd miss my bedtime waiting up for you. Good to see you Isaac! You too my feathered friends."

Kephic smiled, "It's Fyrenn now, actually."

Hutch coughed, "And you got yourself a lady too? What'd I miss?"

Fyrenn chuckled, "She's just a friend." He shifted the subject as quickly as he could, "Brigadier general? JRSF? What in the hell have I missed?"

Hutch shrugged, "Ah... Not much. We formed the Joint Reconnaissance and Strike Force, The PER were puppeting the Bureau's biggest biomedical provider, we put Manhattan on lockdown for a day... And I feel like I'm leaving out something..."

Sildinar snorted grimly, "And the PER are planning to set off a Potion attack that will affect the entire greater New York area."

Varan shook his head, "Ah. So we have not missed very much at all then."

No one paid any mind to the twelve identical white trash trucks. Why would they? Every Manhattanite knew the sight of the ubiquitous remotely AI driven sanitation vehicles all too well.

Since the vehicles had no windows and no doors, no one could have suspected that each of the twelve craft carried five men, and an industrial Atomizer in the compartment normally used for trash. The vehicles had been programmed to bypass their regular instructions, and instead drive to twelve equidistant locations citywide.

Once at each location, the vehicles' RFID authorization chips would gain them, and by extension their illicit passengers, access to the maintenance areas of the twelve destination skyscrapers.

The five men in each truck had a simple task. The atomizers were already pre-loaded with enough Potion for the job, in concentrations so high that it would be deadly if ingested in such an undispersed state.

All the sixty PER agents had to do was carry the covered and boxed machines to the roof of each building, and activate their interlinked timer release sequences. All were equipped with the uniform of the maintenance, or janitorial staff of the specific buildings they were targeting.

No one paid any mind to the sixty maintenance men across twelve buildings, each carrying identical crated packages. Even the few JRSF and Military Police troopers on duty didn't spare a second glance for the technicians.

Why would they? After all, the men were simply the friendly neighborhood janitors.
The friendly neighborhood janitors laden down with enough Potion to re-write the DNA of every human living in greater New York.

Chapter 41

"Listen up people because I'm only gonna say his name *once.* Tiro Vanberg."

Hutch placed his hands on the JRSF situation room table. The slick, cool surface sapped some of the moisture from his hands, "That name is the only shot we have at putting a quick and happy ending to this screwed up little fairy tale, so I want you all at the *top* of your game. No stone unturned, no instinct unfollowed, no intuition discarded. No idea is too stupid. Find him. Yesterday."

The Human and Pony technicians clumped around the table dispersed, pairing off, and grouping together in small gaggles to trade ideas, and discuss search strategies.

Earthgov didn't consider the name that the group had brought back to be 'actionable intelligence,' but Hutch had called in favors, and the JRSF support staff were being augmented by ConSec personnel called in from the Conversion Bureaus in Manhattan, and several other nearby cities.

The dispersal of personnel left Hutch, Fyrenn, Kephic, Varan, Neyla, Carradan, Sildinar, General Sorven, and three other Gryphons, including Seyal, standing at the table.

Sildinar nodded curtly, "Very well then. This is the final push. I shouldn't have to remind anyone what is at stake. We all have unique skills to bring to bear... Shall we put an end to this menace?"

Fyrenn nodded his assent. He was tired, having only slept three hours the night before, but he was ready to work. He could see the same cold, unyielding determination in the faces of his compatriots; Human, Gryphon, and Pony alike.

There was an atmosphere of tension, a peculiar static charge akin to the sensation one might feel when a summer storm was brewing. The stakes were potentially the highest anyone in the group had faced before. The tantalizing potential reward was also the greatest chance at striking a blow for peace that had been seen in decades.

Fyrenn found himself holed up in a small ante-room working with Kephic and Chuck.
The hope was that their two varied and unique perspectives would allow them to make creative use of the exceptionally powerful AI, which was rehomed to Fort Hamilton's server complex as a military seek-and-attack tactical asset.

For the first few hours, the brothers only spoke to collaborate on their task.
They quickly exhausted several unconventional leads that had occurred to Fyrenn, much to their mutual disappointment.

After a time, they settled into a dismally repetitive pattern of thinking up a task for Chuck, setting the AI loose, then quietly dreaming up the next inconceivably complicated, twisted avenue of questioning.

During a particularly long processing lag, Fyrenn sighed and shook his head, showing the first signs of fatigue he had consciously allowed himself to display in days, "What do we do? If it *was* all for nothing in the end?"

Kephic shrugged, his wings nearly filling half the space in the room during the motion, "We find another way. War with a dishonorable opponent is not like Chess. When you dislike the lay of the board, you don't acquiesce. You change the rules. You cheat, you lie, you steal, you poison, and backstab, and deceive, and you do *whatever* else you must to win. So long as you leave the non-combatants out of it, and remember who your friends are. Nothing else matters."

Fyrenn snorted, "Some code of conduct."

"There is only one code. Respect the innocent, defend your kind, your honor, those under your protection, and your family. There are no other rules in unbound war. And the PER do not strike me as the type to agree to honor-bound rules of strife..."

"No no... I get it... And I agree. It's just a surprising and not unwelcome change from the combat rulebooks I was trained with. A lot of people call Earthgov's operating procedures 'loose,' but in the end anything beyond what you described really is overly binding."

Fyrenn paused and glanced at his brother, "I just want to make their deaths worth it."
He didn't have to elaborate. They both understood he was referring to Skye and Shroud, and more so the former.

Kephic nodded, "I understand the urge. But you have already made their deaths worthwhile simply by learning from the events that transpired. Varan always likes to say, 'Pain is one of the mortars that holds the stones of our lives together.' That has been universally true, from my experience. Regrets are foolish, but the pain of an event should stay with you on some level. Pain is one of the only sure ways to not simply remember something conceptually, but emotionally. And that is how we learn. How any living thing learns. By remembering things emotionally."

Fyrenn shook his head thoughtfully, "I never did believe in chance, or fate, or luck. God gives everything a purpose, pain included. There is a plan to it all... Not that we can always see it. Sometimes it's just taxing to remember that.
Emotionally."

Kephic leaned over, and encircled his adopted brother with one wing, "Well, if nothing else, when you're having trouble remembering, keep in mind that without the pain of past ills we wouldn't be here. You and I. Family."

Fyrenn placed a foreleg around Kephic's shoulders and squeezed once affectionately, "I think I missed out... Not having any siblings when I was younger. Thanks."

Kephic released his wing, and folded the limb away, "That's what I'm here for."

As if on cue, the terminal before them warbled to indicate that Chuck had completed the latest insane task the pair had managed to devise. Fyrenn could see, even from a relaxed position leaning back in his chair, that the results were less than favorable.

He sighed, "Enough processing power to run half a city, and we're still coming up short.
Any more bright ideas?"

Beyond the plexiglass windows of the Fort Hamilton mess hall, the rain was still coming down at a breakneck pace. Fyrenn had a momentary flash of memory. He recalled the day after the maglev bombing, how he had stared out a similar window and traced the patterns of the water droplets idly, and morosely.

He had been more or less without sight then. Dead eyes, no wings, and no living friends or family to speak of.

The contrast between that grim evening, and the current windswept stormy day boggled his mind. Danger aside; He had eyes. Wings. Friends. Even a family.

The realization brought him a welcome momentary sense of peace and comfort.
Kephic, Varan, and Sildinar had all taken breaks to eat hours before, Fyrenn had been the stubborn holdout.

Finally, Kephic had threatened to put him in a headlock if he didn't take an hour off to rest his mind, and fill his stomach. Secretly, Fyrenn was happy to oblige. He was starving, and his head was spinning, despite his not inconsequential brain power and memory skills.

As a team, he and Kephic had used Chuck to process several hundred gigaquads of information over the past hours. A dizzying amount of data by anyone's standards.

And still, Tiro Vanberg was nothing more than a name. An elusive dead end unassociated name with no history, not even so much as a minor traffic violation.

As he gathered a massive portion of synth-meat, Fyrenn wondered what kind of genius it would take to erase one's own digital footprint so utterly in an age that was interconnected to the point that even the average child of age four, even one who had by some miracle never touched an internet integrated device, cast a multi-gigabyte data shadow.

His ruminations were abruptly cut short, as he discovered Neyla at the end of the buffet, picking apart a synthetic gelatin dessert. She was trying to peel away the layers with her talons, but the digits of her claw were so sharp, that each layer only yielded more underneath.

He chuckled, "You know that's not how you eat it. Gelatin is nasty anyways."

Neyla glanced up, "Well that what would you suggest?"

"For one thing? Don't eat here. Military rations are packaged synthetic nutrition, and about zip-else short of unpalatable bonding agents to keep it all together in a colored chewable mass."

"Where are we going to go at this hour, in this weather?"

Fyrenn laughed, drawing the attention of a few off-duty soldiers with the volume of his mirth, "What do you mean' at this hour'? This is New York. They call it the city that never sleeps.
You could find better food, and drink, on almost every street corner at any hour of the day or night, rain or shine. I don't doubt Times Square will be open for business right up until the nanosecond the Bubble hits and the military kicks everyone who is left out, at gunpoint."

Neyla smirked, "Well then. Show me the city that never sleeps. Sildinar threatened to club me if I came back before my break hour was complete. I imagine Kephic threatened you similarly."

"Yeah. Headlock."

"Aaah. Well for our own good then, we should seek out a decent meal."

Fyrenn grimaced down at his synth-meat, then upended the plate into the recycler bin, "Yecch. Yeah you got that right. I'm actually ok with most synth-meats. But this stuff looks more akin to ten year old camshaft lubricant."

He grinned at Neyla mischievously, "Let's go hunting. Manhattanite style."

The rain had partially abated by the time Neyla and Fyrenn managed to check out of the military complex, and reach the street. They could have simply flown out, but Fyrenn felt it was prudent to leave information on their plans with the officer of the watch, and pick up a secure DaTab in case someone should need to reach them.

The two Gryphons opted to walk, at Neyla's behest. She wanted to see New York first from a Human's Earth-centric perspective, then from above again afterwards. It was still raining in a fine mist, but it wasn't steady enough to penetrate the pair's water-resistant feathers and fur.

Fyrenn didn't think it would be advisable to cram the two of them into a metal can buried underground, so he decided on a small eatery that was close enough that it wouldn't force them to fly or use the subway.

For the first few minutes, Neyla simply took in the sights. She didn't speak, but Fyrenn could see she was entranced with the architecture first, then shifted her gaze to the signs, clothing, and electronics on display, both within storefronts and on the populace.

Fyrenn finally broke the silence, "Would you believe that only a few centuries ago, almost none of this existed? The city was barely a fifth this size, if that. None of this technology was even a gleam in the eyes of inventors and scientists. It wasn't that long ago Humanity was fighting with non-rifled weapons, and sailing in wooden ships..."

Neyla shook her head, "And now; Achievements that seem almost unsurpassable. These towering structures... The way data is sent and received so innocuously... Is this to be our future?"

Fyrenn shrugged, "Anything is possible. Just ask any of these people. None of them are even remotely used to the idea of Gryphons walking down fifth avenue... And they've been cohabitating with Ponies already for years."

He snorted and grinned, "Look at *me* for crying out loud... I never would have thought any of..." he gestured to his wings, "...This, was possible. Yet here we are. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if we end up using repeating weapons, and Thaumatic computers well before the end of the century. All thanks to that spark of Human ingenuity."

Neyla paused, and scratched at the concrete beneath her talons, "You know I always assumed that those who told tales of the Human capacity for invention were exaggerating."
She looked up at Fyrenn, her expression disconcertingly serious, "Truth is? Those tales didn't tell the half of it. I'm a little frightened... Change is good, but it's a balancing act. We have to keep sight of the difference between being *able* to change something, and whether or not it is *wise* to do so."

Fyrenn inclined his head, "We'll manage it. I have no doubt. I've seen what we are; The traditions, and morals, and beliefs, and customs we are steeped in... We're a race well suited to Converts of a certain disposition. I think we're going to live to see something incredible."

Neyla smiled, "Ever the optimist?"

"Always. Though for a few years there it was hard to see."

The pair resumed walking, Neyla raised an eyebrow, "You? Depressed? Cynical? I don't believe it for a moment."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Believe it. I've been a near-suicidal wreck several times in my life, mostly thanks to a serious penchant for misjudging people, or missing warning signs."

"I know how that feels. Believe me."

The two Gryphons lapsed into silence, until Neyla began sniffing, "What *is* that smell?"

Fyrenn chuckled, "That is an eclectic mix of electronic cigarette, machinery coolant, cleaning solvent, rubber, hot steel, and twenty different kinds of food from street vendors, restaurants, and surrounding kitchens. The smell of a city."

"Are we actually going to hunt down any of that food you promised?"

Fyrenn chuckled, "We could have just flown, you know. If you were *that* hungry. It's only another two blocks."

The Gryphons reached a crosswalk blocked by a stream of oncoming traffic.
Fyrenn grinned, "I've always wanted to do this." He launched himself into the air, and casually glided over the stream of vehicles, touching down effortlessly on the opposite side of the intersection. Neyla followed suit.

The action drew a fair amount of attention from passers by, all entranced by the image of a supposedly mythical creature reveling in an oft fantasized simple solution to an everyday problem.

Neyla grinned, and leaned in close, whispering, "You'd think we just performed some sort of incredible feat given their reactions."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, "This is incredible to *me* still. How much more to them? Humanity has always wondered if we were alone in the universe. Seeing that question answered by a creature from myth and legend is a transcendent experience. It changes *everything.*"

Finally, the pair arrived at their destination; A small combination bistro, bar, and grill tucked away in an alley, part of one of the oldest buildings still standing in New York. The establishment was a tribute to the so called '90s,' referring to the decade of the 1990s.

Fyrenn loved every inch of it.

Posters for classic TV series covered the walls. A lit glass case above the bar prominently displayed a vast collection of plastic figurines. Superheroes, action heroes, spies, shape-shifting robots... Fyrenn even thought he spotted a set of ironically and familiarly proportioned pastel equines.

The crown jewel was a vintage 1995 era computer tucked into a corner booth, complete with a period ergonomic keyboard, CRT monitor, and zip drive.

Fyrenn found it hard to believe that anyone had ever eked out an existence with purely Turing-complete systems, and hard drives so limited you could barely fit any data onto their spinning rust in the first place.

Neyla spent a moment taking in her new surroundings, "What *is* all of this?"

Fyrenn smiled and sighed deeply in enjoyment, "Pop culture. Easily one of the best things Humanity ever invented."

Neyla stepped over to one of the glass-encased posters on the wall, "Why would a human dress up as a Bat and swing from rooftops suspended on a thin cable?"

"Because it makes damn good television."

Fyrenn guided Neyla to the bar, where he dropped the height on two stools to accommodate them. The stools made the best choice of seating, being easy to perch on by sitting on their haunches.

The bartender looked largely unfazed at the presence of two Gryphons in his restaurant.
"What can I get you and your lady friend here?"

Fyrenn and Neyla both shook their heads adamantly, speaking over each other in broken sentence fragments, "We're not---"
"He's just a---"
"Well you see it's more of a sibling---"

The bartender grinned mischievously, "Oh I see. 'S like that is it? Well all the same, what'll it be? It's mostly synth, but the Burgers have Equestrian cheese and bread now, so they're palatable."

Neyla raised an eyebrow, "Burger?"

Fyrenn smiled, "We'll take two. And a pair of root beers, and..." He glanced back at the menu again, "You have *real* french fries?!"

The bartender nodded, "Benefits of Equestrian potatoes and oils. They ain't cheap, but they're real."

Fyrenn grinned like a five year old at Christmas, "We'll have two of the biggest baskets of those you can possibly make."

As the man moved back into the kitchen to prepare their orders, Neyla turned to Fyrenn and cocked her head, "So french fries are... Fried potatoes in oils?"

"You make it sound so dull. It's a revelation of taste."

"You've had real ones before?"

Fyrenn nodded, "Once and only once. Shortly after Equestrian food started coming in over here, I treated myself. Not a lot of places make em though; They're tough to get just right, and very very unhealthy."

Neyla chuckled, "Then why in the world would anyone eat them?"

Fyrenn smirked, "The unhealthier a fried food is, the better it tastes. But hey... I doubt you and I are going to put on any extra pounds, no matter how much grease, salt, and fat we ingest.
Not with our metabolisms."

When the sodas arrived, Fyrenn showed Neyla how to use a straw. Soda had always been a mostly synthetic product, so modern versions of the drink had a high level of fidelity.

Neyla threaded one end of the straw through her beak, and took a tentative sip.
Her expression, upon encountering her first taste of carbonation, drove Fyrenn to fits of laughter.

"You should see your face! I wish I had a picture!" Fyrenn continued to indulge in his mirth, while Neyla glared with mock disdain.

"You could have warned me."

He wiped a tear from his eyes, "Oh but this way was so much better."

The meal progressed well. The bartender had been right; The Equestrian cheese and bread almost managed to mask the fact that the Burger meat was synthetic.

The French Fries swiftly became Neyla's favorite Earth food, a fact she avidly declared as she pined for a second basket.

Fyrenn was happy to oblige. The salty treat was even better than he had remembered.

The conversation mostly lingered on the history of Human technology, culture, and politics.

Neyla was familiar with the more recent major events in Human history, but she was eager to hear more about the race's technological accomplishments since the destruction of the sky, and the way things had been before that event culturally.

Fyrenn was happy to relate answers to as many questions as he could.
He kept an eye to the clock, however, and was sorry when it came time to return to Fort Hamilton.
For once in his life, a personal interaction seemed more important than a critical mission task.

The realization troubled him, and he was silent for the entire flight back to the fort, a fact Neyla failed to comment on, as she was too busy examining the city from above.

When they arrived, they discovered Carradan taking a Coffee break in the situation room.
Fyrenn queried, "Found anything?" Carradan's negative response was a foregone conclusion; the DaTab Fyrenn had checked out had never rung, and Carradan had seemed more than a little depressed when they entered the room. Asking was more of a formality than anything.

Fyrenn shrugged, "Oh well. On we go. Trying to beat the clock."

Neyla snorted, "I'd be happier if we *had* a clock to beat. At least then we'd have some idea of when the PER are going to make their move."

Carradan nodded, "Amen to that."

The group continued to beat their heads against the considerable problem of locating Tiro Vanberg. They tried switching partners, switching tasks, brainstorming as a group, and any other tactic they could dream up.

Another nine hours passed that way, with only the occasional snack and Coffee to keep everyone awake and moving.

Most of the Gryphons, Carradan, and Hutch had ended up gathered around the JRSF situation room table, batting ideas back and forth periodically, and pursuing ultimately pointless leads individually, using terminal interfaces projected onto the table.

Fyrenn sighed and closed yet another application window, consigning another false lead to digital oblivion, "I'm beginning to think that Vanberg is an entirely fake identity. A Construct designed for precisely this eventuality, and highly limited uses to preserve maximum opsec."

Hutch grimaced, "Makes sense. But that'd leave us deep in the hole with no time left to climb out. We couldn't evacuate this city even if we could convince the government as a whole to acknowledge the severity of the threat---"

General Sorven interrupted Hutch's train of thought, letting herself in with a short knock as an afterthought, "How goes the infowar?"

Sildinar threw a DaTab to the table, rose, and began pacing.

"Badly."

Sorven stood with crossed arms, watching the group. Sildinar was pacing, Hutch was clutching his head in his hands. Carradan seemed busy staring out the window, Fyrenn was drawing relationship lines between events and evidence in an older case, and Neyla had fallen to toying with holographic models of mega-skyscrapers, trying futilely to guess where the PER might place its atomizers.

Sorven came over and stood behind Neyla, staring intently at each monochromatic blue wireframe mesh, in turn, as they winked in and out of existence at the insistence of Neyla's swift claws.

The General stiffened, and clutched a hand to her head, running it through her hair.
Her face was contorted with such exertion, that it drew everyone's attention.

Fyrenn cocked his head, "General? are you?"

"NO! Don't *anybody* say *anything!* I'm thinking..."
She stood that way just long enough that Fyrenn had begun to worry for her safety.
Then she finally burst out, "I have it!"

The general rushed from the room, leaving the group to exchange universally befuddled looks.
She returned a few minutes later with a physical file folder. The paper documents were rare, but not unheard of, most commonly appearing as physical backups of digital business transactions.

Sorven crowed triumphantly, "I *KNEW* I had seen this asshat's name SOMEwhere before..."
She threw the folder onto the table, causing the papers inside to slide out, revealing some sort of contractual document, and architectural blueprints for a mega-skyscraper.

Fyrenn could see the contents of the document, with his sharp eyes.
His beak hung open in shock, "Well I'll be damned."

Hutch snatched up the contractual document and skimmed it.

"Son of a bitch. This guy has been sitting right under our noses."

He threw the paper back onto the table, "In the Gavin/Schummel raid we found documents indicating they planned to purchase another building in Manhattan, ostensibly for PER operations. Guess who the original owner of the building is?"

Carradan and Varan spoke in unison, "Tiro Vanberg."

Neyla cocked her head, "Wait... That makes no sense. I understand why they might wish to 'purchase' a building they already own, to consolidate assets in some way... But why do so right before they plan to cause a major disaster in the area?"

Fyrenn snorted, "Oh psssh. Even *I* know that."

Carradan nodded, "Insurance fraud. GS corp has a way bigger policy on its assets than Vanberg could ever hope to have with whatever shell corporation he uses to keep ownership of the other skyscraper. if GS buys it outright before the big attack, the PER makes a *mint* in insurance on a huge new asset that they never had to pay premiums on. They turn a whopping profit---"

Kephic slammed his fist on the table, "A profit they could use to create a great deal more potion. Maybe even manage more big attacks."

Fyrenn strode to the window, and tapped the glass with a talon, "So you're telling me... This guy is right here?" He gestured to the building in question, "Right *there*? in full view? The PER is maintaining a headquarters in FULL VIEW of everyone in midtown Manhattan... And we missed it?"

Hutch chuckled dryly, "I guarantee you... Regardless of whatever else happens... Heads are gonna roll for *this.*"

"Satellite imaging confirms it. The PER have built themselves a thermobaric dispersal warhead."

A murmur swept the situation room. The heads of every JRSF platoon, as well as a bevy of volunteers from Fort Hamilton's reserve troops, had packed the space to its capacity.

General Sorven tapped the wall screen, zooming in on an artificially colored model of the PER tower as she spoke.

"They've housed the device in a hollowed out space inside twenty five of the upper floors of the building, in the second most quarter down from the top. When that bomb goes off, it's going to do damage to the upper floors, but more importantly..."

The General tapped a small arrow icon, and a simulation began to play out, "The shock front the detonation generates will act as a dispersing force. We're assuming this is where the Atomizers factor into the plan. Turning them on alone would eventually do the job, but it would take hours of time. Time they won't have. The central detonation will ensure that the potion gas is spread to the entire city almost instantaneously as a thick fog. Everyone outside will be affected immediately, and most buildings will quickly ingest it through their ventilation intakes. Nineteen MILLION people. Those are the stakes. No room for errors here."

Sorven vacated her position by the screen, turning the floor over to Sildinar.
The roan Gryphon gestured to the city map around the PER building, "We've begun extrapolating the most viable locations for the Atomizers, now that we know where the central detonation will be. Two thirds of you will be heading up teams investigating these sites. If we can take the Atomizers offline, it doesn't matter if the central warhead detonates. Worst comes to worst, a great many of the windows will need replacing in Manhattan."

The tepid joke drew a few half hearted chuckles. Sildinar continued, "Unfortunately, there are likely to be too many sites, and too little time. There is a good chance they intend to detonate the device shortly, so we have to assume we're working against the clock. The remaining one third of you, therefore, will be infiltrating and assaulting the tower itself, with the objective of rendering the Thermobaric warhead useless."

Hutch joined the Gryphon at his post beside the screen, "Normally, we'd have more time to prepare for an op this size, but since we're assuming time is on the enemy's side; We roll out in exactly one hour."

Sildinar nodded, "Brief and equip your squads. One more notice; This mission is exclusively threat-level red. No prisoners are to be taken. Human, Pony, or otherwise. *Anyone* on-site at the tower is to be considered an extreme threat, and is to be killed without quarter. For teams seeking out the Atomizers, any resistance, however mild, is to be met with deadly force, no warning required."

The revelation produced an uneasy murmur amongst the Humans and Ponies in the room.
Never before had a legitimate military agency endorsed treating Ponies as hostile targets.

Fyrenn shot a glance at Kephic and Varan, as the various section commanders dispersed, "Well... Now we've gone and put our claws in the soup."

Kephic grinned, "Oh I don't know... I'm looking forward to knocking these despicable people back to the, as they are so fond of calling it, 'stone age.' "

Varan growled, "I am merely looking forward to acquainting them with my grenade launcher."

Fyrenn glanced between his brothers, "First to the finish buys the drinks?"

Varan and Kephic answered in unison, "Deal."

Chapter 42

Gryphons possessed a particularly deadly tactical advantage over the soldiers of almost any other race in terms of infiltration in a modern environ.

They had almost no LADAR cross section.

A Gryphon was even harder to spot than a micro-drone, given that their organic makeup was far lower in visibility on a LADAR scope than the titanium and steel construction of a robotic aircraft.

Fyrenn found himself sincerely hoping that advantage held true. He, Kephic, Varan, and Neyla were circling just inside a bank of clouds, waiting for a microburst radio transmission. The attack signal.

Far below, the Gryphons' eyes could make out their target in startling detail.

It was dusk, so Manhattan was well lit by the glow of millions of exterior halon, and interior fluorescent lights.

In theory, the strategy was simple. The four Gryphons would land on the tower several floors above the warhead chamber, break in, and make their way down to the device. It would have been easier still to simply infiltrate the chamber directly, or destroy the tower from afar, but closer examination had revealed that the 'windows' on the floors in question were actually false glass over highly reinforced armor plating.

Any attempt to infiltrate the chamber directly would be foiled by the plating, and any attempt to destroy the tower would require use of weapons so powerful that the collateral damage, and innocent death toll, would be completely unconscionable.

Trying to evacuate surrounding buildings in preparation for a railgun strike was a non-option. The PER would notice, no matter how carefully it was done.

Considering all the variables, it had been decided that Fyrenn, Neyla, Kephic, and Varan would infiltrate the building from the top, disable the warhead, and then begin working their way down.

Once the warhead was rendered inoperable, the need for stealth would have passed. At that stage, JRSF assault teams would breach the tower on the ground, and begin working their way up.

In theory, the two groups would meet in the middle, and the building would be clear of enemies.

Fyrenn, however, was a firm believer in the old maxim 'no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.' He was fully expecting something to go wrong. It almost invariably did on missions with so little preparation time.

His concerned musings were interrupted by a soft, short, staccato tone in his earpiece.
The operation had begun.

The four Gryphons formed up, tucked in their wings, and dropped like missiles towards the PER tower. Kephic and Fyrenn were the leading edge of the delta formation, with Neyla and Varan to each side and several meters behind.

All four Gryphons, including Neyla, were encased in newly minted JRSF armor.

While the female Gryphon had been appreciative of the new equipment loan, she had opted to forgo a RAC and stick with her crossbow. Nonetheless, Sildinar and Fyrenn had insisted she take a laser pistol and several fragmentation grenades to augment her small arsenal.

Varan had, true to his word, brought his grenade launcher to the fray. Kephic and Fyrenn had decided to hold to more traditional, and precise, RAC-8s.

As the four Gryphons approached the two hundred mile an hour mark, Fyrenn began scoping out their target impact zone. Now that he was looking for it, he could see the slight discontinuity between the floors that made up the warhead chamber, and the rest of the building.

The group was aiming to land one floor above the chamber.

In the interest of stealth, the plan was to pick one window each, impact, roll inside, and attempt to make the first kills without firing any weapons.

Fyrenn could see that the floor they were going to land on was mostly occupied by a perimeter hallway, rather than offices. He could also see that there were several PER troopers, done up in their characteristic unmarked white armor.

Most of them were preoccupied with the interior of the building; Checking doors, looking down stairwell access hatches...
None of them even suspected the possibility of an external attack.
This oversight was their death sentence.

The air was whipping by so fast it was pinning Fyrenn's ears completely flat.
The tower loomed in his vision at what seemed like uncontrollable speeds.
He focused, and decelerated his perceptions accordingly.

An interesting side effect of his bid to control his descent more precisely was that as he hit the window, fisted talons first, he got a chance to see the results of a hard object impacting glass at over two hundred miles an hour.

Like most mega-skyscraper windows, the PER tower was equipped with thick safety-plexiglass.
The reinforced material could offer no resistance whatsoever to the immense forces it was being so mercilessly subjected to.

The panes went from spotless solid transparent wafers, to a multimillion piece jigsaw puzzles instantaneously, even to Fyrenn's vastly accelerated perceptions. He watched, fascinated, as they each acquired their own trajectory based on the impact angle of his fists, spiraling away on a thousand disparate paths, like flecks of ice from a glacier.

Fyrenn quickly switched focus to the PER trooper nearest him, who had reflexively begun to duck as his senses told him he was under assault. Fyrenn carefully timed his rolling action to come up right in front of the surprised man.

Before the enemy soldier could even finish lowering his hands, Fyrenn put the last of his momentum behind his claws, splaying them out. The razor sharp talons pierced the man's helmet, and forced the entire assembly, head and all, away from his shoulders.

By the time Fyrenn finished extricating his claws from the shattered mess, the other three Gryphons had already dealt with their own targets in similarly forceful ways.

Fyrenn spared a moment to evaluate his surroundings. The hallway the group was now firmly ensconced in wrapped around two thirds of the floor in a vaguely horseshoe shape, with periodically placed doors to access inner offices and a central chamber.

According to the layouts they had studied, the elevator access on their floor would be in the central atrium.

Kephic pointed a claw and nodded at a door which would let out onto the atrium via a hallway.
He moved to the left side, Varan to the right. Fyrenn took dead center of the door, with Neyla directly behind him, resting her crossbow on his shoulder to provide cover fire.

Varan gave Kephic a thumbs up, Kephic tapped Neyla on the shoulder, she in turn did the same to Fyrenn.

The red Gryphon lent the door a kick that would have shattered it wholesale, were it not for the carbon fiber bracings along its inner surface. While the door itself was fairly sturdy, the frame was flimsy. The whole apparatus flew inward, clearing the first few feet of the hallway with its sheer weight and momentum.

Fyrenn heard the telltale 'click and snick' of Neyla's crossbow, and watched as a bolt flew past his head, hitting the first enemy with such force that he staggered back several paces.
Their new opponents were, however, Diamond Dogs.

Fyrenn had time to empty a RAC clip into the second one, just barely managing a kill, before the third one and the first, who had managed to extract the crossbow bolt from his right eye, and was now charging one-eyed and streaming blood, were upon them.

Fyrenn drew his sword with his left claw, while using the stock of the RAC, still clutched in his right, as a bludgeon. The momentary distraction worked, and he was able to use his blade to clear enough space to let Kephic and Varan into the hallway.

The Gryphons were disadvantaged by the tight space, but they outnumbered the Diamond Dogs two to one. Consequently, it was a short fight. Fyrenn and Kephic forced the two enemy warriors back, while Neyla kept them dodging with her crossbow.

When they had reached the end of the hall, Kephic and Fyrenn beat a hasty retreat, much to their enemies' surprise. By the time the two Trolls figured out why their Gryphon adversaries had been so eager to exit the conflict, it was too late.

Varan's grenade launcher made a dull 'thud' followed by a cacophonous 'BANG' as the round impacted, sending chips of roast-Diamond-Dog no bigger than the size of Fyrenn's talons all over the end of the hall.

The other three Gryphons stared appreciatively as Varan cycled the weapon.
He allowed himself a small smirk, "Jealous?"

Fyrenn smiled, "Only a little."

The group pressed on, reaching the floor's main atrium with very little trouble.
It looked as if the PER had no idea an assault was coming.

The atrium seemed to be an antechamber and workspace, with a hallway on the opposite end leading back to the outer ring, a door in one wall for the elevator, and a door in the other leading to the main office suite on the floor.

The central floor of the atrium was mostly filled with workstations, all dark and unoccupied.
Structural pillars stood in a ring around the workspace, with ensconced lights, toggled to low power after-hours settings.

The group carefully worked its way across the room.
Fyrenn was beginning to wonder if the PER had run short of personnel, or perhaps evacuated the building in preparation for the bomb detonation.

Suddenly, without warning or preclude, the lights in the atrium snapped up to full brightness.
At the same moment, a low crackling hum filled the chamber, and a bluish purplish hued cylinder of energy snapped into existence between the lighting pillars.

Kephic, Fyrenn, and Varan immediately lowered their weapons and engaged the safeties.
A ricochet from any of the powerful guns would have the potential to injure or kill one or more of them if the barrier was as solid as it looked.

Neyla cautiously tapped the energy field with a talon, "It looks magical... But not quite..."

Varan nodded, "It looks artificial."

Fyrenn looked up, then pointed to the roof, "It also runs between us and the ceiling. I'm willing to bet it runs under the floor as well."

The group's observations, and deductive reasoning were interrupted by the slow, steady sound of clapping.

A voice followed the sound, emanating from the shadows at the end of the second access hallway, "Very good. Very observant. You are of course, correct all of you. The field is an artificial Thaumatic shield. It is encasing you in a perfect cylinder, at the cost of magical energy drained from no less than seven Thaumatic batteries. Which is excessive, but worth it to contain all of you so perfectly."

Kephic growled, "You are Tiro Vanberg?"

The voice, accompanied by a shadowy figure, moved closer, down the hallway, "Yes. That is one of my many false names. I have to admit though, when I received word that Prince Blueblood had been compromised, I never expected the nom de guerre I had used to speak with him to ever be traced back to this tower. You all did a fine, if predictable, job."

Fyrenn cocked his head. The voice was disturbing, as if from a dream. It tripped some instinctual nerve that brought on a deep seated sense of impending worry.

"You said fake name... So you feel it's important to protect your real one? The only conceivable reason for someone like you to maintain their legal name at all is that it affords them some use.
So, while I wasn't present for the GS Corp sting, I have read the file. And I'm guessing *you* are the illegitimate son of Roland Gavin. Hence the need to maintain proof of your name to manipulate Mr. Gavin, and the need to protect that information so you couldn't be traced."

There was a moment of silence, then the voice's tone changed to one of subtly mixed emotion; Respect, and perhaps a little edgy disdain, "Very good Isaac. I'm impressed you deduced that. But it's disappointing that this information, in conjunction with your memory, has not served to reveal the *whole* truth to you."

Neyla hissed, "Speak plainly. I'm losing patience, and I have no doubt this barrier has a time limit on it. When it comes down, I will test the flight characteristics of Human beings by pitching you out one of your own windows."

The voice resumed a more jovial nonchalance, as the figure continued to advance, "Tsk tsk, where are my manners? One can't expect guests to behave well if the host does not. Very well, masks off at last. Welcome to my humble abode."

The figure finally stepped forward into the light, and Fyrenn froze, his brain unable and unwilling to process the information his eyes were giving it.

The now-illumined figure, Roland Gavin's illegitimate son, the man known as Tiro Vanberg, spoke once more.

"I think the name best used for this occasion is the one that one of you already knows me by.
Please allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Robert Gilchrist."

Sildinar raced across the rooftop a mere few inches from the insulated gravelly material of the surface, ground effect between his wings and the asphalt lending him unearthly speed.

He was being followed by a large squad of Human JRSF troopers, a Pony medic, and two Ordnance Disposal technicians.

He could see the numbers on the large white cylinder ahead, and he knew there was no time to wait for the technicians. It was all on his shoulders.

The large roan Gryphon skidded to a stop, in a spray of pebbles, and ripped the faceplate off the timer assembly without any preamble. Sildinar wasn't intimately familiar with Human detonator assemblies, but he had memorized a basic EOD guide.

"DOWN! NOW!" He shouted with all the might his lungs could muster, and took off in the opposite direction, returning the way he had come at an impressive lope.

He continued to yell until he reached his now confused squad, even pushing one man to the ground forcefully, before pinning himself to the roof, as flat as he possibly could.

Sildinar watched as understanding finally dawned on the members of the squad, and they unanimously scrambled for cover. He just barely had time to cover a Pony, and another human, with his armored wings, before the bomb went off.

The blast wave sent several human members of the squad flying into standing vents and stanchions, and tore a five yard by six yard hole in the building's roof, raining fiery debris down over the entire area.

When the last of the shrapnel had fallen, Sildinar dared to raise his head and survey the damage.
His ears were still ringing from the detonation, but he could tell the medtech was shouting by the way her muzzle was moving. He swept his gaze further afield, and grimly noted the presence of several other fireballs in the distance.

He murmured to himself as he rushed to the side of a fallen squadmate, "Well played you sorry fools. But I'm not done *yet.*"

Fyrenn gaped, "You... I put a bullet in your *brain!* You can NOT be alive, they told me you were dead on arrival!"

Gilchrist nodded, and glowered, "Oh yes Isaac. Your round did indeed go directly into my occipital lobe, causing instant death. It was, I believe, a nine millimeter sabot jacketed hollowpoint anti-personnel round. Designed to shred inside my body and do maximum collateral damage. Well... Celestia protected me. The shell did not shred, as it was supposed to."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Doesn't matter. That level of trauma should have put you in a pine box. Permanently."

"You would think so. Luckily, despite your treachery, despite the fact that the med techs declared me dead... I was not entirely abandoned. I had a savior."

A new, distinctly feminine, voice echoed from behind the group, causing all the Gryphons, with the exception of Fyrenn, to turn and verify its source, "It was a near thing too. Your macabre Human weapons do a great deal of damage. I was nearly unable to repair his brain tissue, and jumpstart his vital functions again. It didn't help that I couldn't access him for several hours after the incident. But I prevailed."

Fyrenn continued to stare down Robert, "Ahh Veritas. So nice to see your influence on his life hasn't diminished at all. Tell me, how bad has his psychosis become under your 'ministrations?' Do you have him swallowing the Celestia worship yet? It certainly sounds like it. Has he started in on a messiah complex?"

Veritas walked around the perimeter of the field to stand demurely beside Gilchrist, the deep violet unicorn tossed her sparkling mane dismissively, "I see your Human sarcasm has only been aggravated by your change of species Wrenn. Such a shame."

Fyrenn chuckled darkly, "Its Fyrenn now actually. I felt the change in name was a worthy commemoration of my adoption."

Gilchrist stiffened, Fyrenn smirked, "Oh you didn't know? I have real brothers now.
My only regret is how deluded I was when I first knew you... Perhaps earlier intervention could have lead to a better ending. Still, I'll settle for the way this ends. I came to terms with your death a long time back... It shouldn't be *too* hard to repeat history. For good this time."

Fyrenn strode up to the edge of the field, pressing his beak close, "And if it makes you feel better, you can keep calling me Isaac, if you like. I don't mind the old name, its my grandfather's and I'll wear it just as proudly as the new one.
It is after all often prudent to humor delusional psychopaths, and allow them some feeling of power.
It makes their passing more painless."

Gilchrist glowered, "You know I don't regret what I did to you either. You endorsed that cowardly worm Korvan's positions by refusing to help me stop him... *My* only regret is that I can't see you reborn into Light, finally shown the error of your ways, because you finally made as much a physical monster of yourself as you are mentally. So I'll settle for the way this ends. I am going to do to you what you did to me. I'll leave you for dead."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Rob... You can't just go off half cocked with an act of terrorism because a *fairly* elected government, representing the *people* did something you didn't like!
That's why we have courts, and elections, and votes for! Someone with your IQ should know better! Anarchy and terrorism aren't 'rebirth.' They're a power trip; You claiming you know how best to run things for eight billion people."

"And what if I do? I think my intelligence alone qualifies me. Clearly none of you can match me, you even failed to notice my little prank. Tiro Vanberg?"

Neyla sighed, "Of course. It's an anagram, for---"

Gilchrist nodded, "Yes. Robert Gavin. My true name, if my bastard father were ever courageous enough to admit to siring me. So yes, in short, I feel I am not only capable of wielding power, I am owed it."

Varan snorted, "Humans have a wise saying; Power Corrupts. You have become living proof."

Kephic growled, "I once told Fyrenn I would kill you if I got the chance. You may as well sign and seal your will, because now I'm going to make good on that."

Neyla shook her head, "Not if I get to him first you won't. I guarantee you an Arbalest bolt will do the job properly."

Veritas chuckled, "Such *loyalty* to each other. It's sad that it's all so misplaced."

Fyrenn shrugged, "Lower the field, and I'll demonstrate misplaced. I'll misplace some of you over here, some of you over there, and some of you waaaay out there through the window."

Veritas's horn glowed faintly, "I doubt you could, even if we gave you the chance."

"You'll never know if you're too afraid to try."

Gilchrist patted Veritas on the head and smirked, "You're trying to switch 'common sense' for 'fear.' There is no sense in risking you harming us, even if we are confident in our other defensive mechanisms. I'm not the sort who's easily baited."

Fyrenn chuckled dryly, "I see... So a guy who walks into a governmental chamber with a grenade, and throws it at an elected official and his one true friend, because a law was passed that didn't sit well with him... Isn't easily baited? You're very astute in your self analysis Rob. As ever. Veritas help you reason all that out?"

Gilchrist glared, "I'm tired of your vapid deprecations. You leave her out of this, understand?"

Fyrenn scoffed, "I think I'll do away with *her* first. She was always the force behind your problems, maybe there's some hope for you yet once I've spattered her pretty purple Pony guts all over the---"

Gilchrist lunged at the field, the impact of his fists sending sparks up from its surface, "SHE is my one, true friend, and my beloved. SHE saved me, when YOU abandoned me. SHE showed me the true path to joy, SHE has supported me all these years, and SHE is a worthwhile reason to throw a grenade at two low life scumbag Humans with no sense of morals or direction."

Varan raised an eyebrow, and shot a glance at Fyrenn, "I see what you mean about him being hard to bait. He is very reserved. Very much in control. The picture of resilient silence. Do you think he would be willing to offer me some pointers?"

Veritas shook her head adamantly, "Enough of this nonsense. We are on a schedule. It is time to arm the device."

Gilchrist nodded, "I agree." He spared a last glance for Fyrenn, "Enjoy these last minutes Isaac. Savor them. When the warhead goes off, the entire top of this tower is going to pancake like a dropped jenga set, taking you and your new 'family' with it. Turnabout is fair play, after all."

With that, Robert Gilchrist, the head of the PER, turned his back and marched towards the lift doors ensconced in the back wall.

Once Gilchrist and Veritas had entered the elevator, metal plates began to iris down around the Thaumatic shield, including plating that stretched over the top of the artificial energy cylinder.
Judging by the noise, plating was also being deployed under the floor.

Once the plates were all in place, the Thaumatic field winked out, leaving the group encased in overlapping, tightly bound, three foot thick alloy plating, with only a clawfull of minutes to escape, and prevent the largest disaster in the history of New York.

Chapter 43

Stanley Carradan was beginning to regret his decision. The salmon Pegasus had insisted that he not be left out of the attack, and had consequently been assigned as a supporting scout for Hutch's battalion. The Brigadier General had grinned, and pointed out that he didn't think Carradan was suited to the no-holds-barred bloody combat the Gryphons were likely headed into, and that he didn't trust the reporter to be anywhere but firmly within his gaze and close to hand.

When Carradan had opted in on the mission, he hadn't counted on being in the middle of an IED detonation.

One second he was watching a bomb disposal technician try to deactivate a white cylinder that was supposed to be a chemical Atomizer. The next thing he knew, he was offering a hoof to help Hutch up from where the shock wave had thrown him against a concrete wall.

Stanley's ears were still completely useless; His higher aural sensitivity meant the sheer proximity of the bomb had left him temporarily crippled in that respect.

Amazingly, he could still make out what Hutch was saying.
Lip reading was, after all, an incredibly useful skill for a nosy, much maligned, investigative reporter.

"What the HELL?!"

Carradan shook his head, and spoke, his voice reverberating through his head in a disconcertingly muffled fashion, "The Atomizer was a dupe. That, or it was the real thing, and still rigged with a charge. But I don't see any potion."

Hutch staggered fully to his feet, and shook his head, slapping the side of his helmet repeatedly, "Sonofa..."

Carradan missed the last part, as Hutch turned his back to him, but he could well imagine the forthcoming stream of invectives. They mirrored his own thoughts.

Stanley staggered to the edge of the roof, and peered out at the rest of the city.
Several large plumes of smoke were rising from distant skyscrapers in the rough shape of a circle.

The Pegasus jammed a hoof into one ear, and worked it until a modicum of hearing returned.
Hutch was in the middle of a diatribe directed at Military Command, his hand pressed to his own head, holding his half-shattered earpiece in place, "NO! The bombs are NOT the problem, the ATOMIZERS that they are covering for are the PROBLEM! Look can you put someone with a BRAIN on the comm? Yes I'm implying you're an idiot! GET ME A GODAMN HARDLINE TO FORWARD COMMAND OR I SWEAR WITH GOD AS MY WITNESS---"

Hutch yanked the radio from his ear, threw it to the pavement, and ground his boot into it.
Carradan snorted, "You know, reporters get a bad rap, but we ain't nearly so bad as the bureaucrats."

Hutch bent down and retrieved his rail-pistol from where it had been knocked out of his holster.
He cycled the weapon, the magnetic coils producing a momentary whine that reassured him they were still functional, "At least you're out here doing your darndest."

The Brigadier general leapt onto a small steel vent cover, and fired his weapon once into the air, instantly garnering the attention of the slowly recovering members of his squad, "Ok listen up! Plan A is now a complete FUBAR. We don't know how badly the other teams were affected, and I'm having trouble raising them on the comm. That could mean they got their equipment knocked out, or we're being jammed, or they're KIA. In any case, we have to assume that *we* are *it.* Split into twelve groups of two, at least one Human or Gryphon per group. Commandeer whatever vehicles you have to for those of you without wings, start hitting up the alternate sites. Caution aside, protocol aside. Move in fast, do not hesitate to shoot."

Hutch leapt off the stanchion, and tapped Carradan firmly on the shoulder, "You, Stan, with me."

Despite the fact that the JRSF general was bleeding liberally from a head wound, he nearly beat Carradan back to street level. The battalion's APCs and Humvees were still parked on the curb, emergency lights running, and engines warm.

A single Pony had been left to watch over the vehicles. Hutch barked out a command, "Keys. Now." The unicorn levitated a set of digital cardkeys over, and Hutch snagged one right out of the magical field, making a beeline for one of the more heavily armed and armored Humvees.

He practically ripped open the driver side door, and rammed the digital rod home into the ignition so hard, Carradan thought the carbon fiber dashboard might crack. The Hydrogen fuel cell, liquid cooled, twelve cylinder equivalent, seven hundred twenty horsepower engine roared to life with a ground shaking rumble.

Carradan doubled checked the passenger door lock, and gingerly clicked his seat belt into place.
With that, Hutch floored the throttle pedal, ramming both their heads back into the synthetic fabric headrests with almost two Gs of relative force.

The gray digital camouflage patterned vehicle, with its distinctive red JRSF hood stripe, accelerated with such alacrity and force that Carradan figured it may as well have been a jet fighter launched from a magnetic catapult.

The roar of the engine was so loud it nearly drowned out the Humvee's blaring compressed-air fueled siren. Hutch was maneuvering like a possessed maniac, weaving in and out of traffic with no regard for safety or other drivers.

Just when Carradan thought it couldn't possibly get worse, there was an ear-splitting crash, and the Humvee skewed sideways as if God himself, in the form of a sociopathic child playing action hero with matchbox cars, had reached down and swatted them across the road.

Hutch slammed both feet into the brake pedal, and spun the wheel a full ninety degrees with one hand, using the other to pump the parking brake furiously.

The Humvee twirled on its military issue triple thickness vulcanized-synth-alloy deep-tread tires, producing a highly unpleasant squeal as the artificial rubber and pavement failed to get along on a particulate level.

The nature of the problem swung into view over the dash. A large white civilian SUV, with added armor plating riveted to its exterior in a sleek, well patterned design. A human in concerningly familiar white armor, with a matte black visor, occupied the driver's seat.

The passenger seat had been removed entirely, and in its place a hulking Diamond Dog troll crouched, holding a repeating anti-vehicle assault railgun in the crook of his arms.

Carradan snorted, his nostrils flaring. He tried to speak with a modicum of bravado, but it came out more as a terrified squeak, "Oh *great!* Company! Does my mane look alright? I'd hate for my obituary picture to be a mess."

Hutch rapidly shifted his right hand to the steering wheel, cross drawing his pistol with his left.
He propped the gun on the driver side wing-mirror, and with no preamble or warning, began emptying his clip into the windshield of the offending PER SUV.

Traffic had already screeched to a halt around the accident, but as the weapon's reports echoed around the intersection, several vehicles began a mad scramble to escape.

Hutch slammed his right foot into the accelerator once again, the Humvee's all-wheel-drive leaving deep black streaks of rubber in the pavement as the hulking military armored vehicle embarked on a collision course with the PER truck.

Carradan thought that he could actually see panic on the driver's face, despite his opaque helmet, as he threw his own vehicle into reverse, barely avoiding being shot by Hutch's pistol, or rammed by the JRSF Humvee.

As Hutch continued to accelerate, crossing a median into oncoming traffic, the PER SUV took off in pursuit. The initial vehicle, with its now bullet damaged windshield, was swiftly joined by a second white interloper, containing another Human and another Diamond Dog.

Carradan gulped, "What are we gonna do?"

Hutch kicked the central gear shift into park temporarily, using the braking force to round a ninety degree corner and bypass a stopped city bus, "Ever heard of offensive driving?"

Fyrenn clutched his head in his claws. For all his bravado, seeing Gilchrist alive had given birth to emotions so painful, it felt as though a million small knives were worming their way through his veins to his heart.

Kephic sat down next to him on the floor, and placed a foreleg around his shoulders, "That took courage. I'm not sure I could have kept my head in your position."

Fyrenn sighed, "Thanks. If I'm going to die, I suppose it's nice to be surrounded by people who care."

Varan called back, from his position by the metal barrier, "We are not dead yet."

Neyla chimed in, "And if you keep talking that way, I'll beat you silly until the optimist I know and like comes back."

Fyrenn chuckled wryly, "I still don't see how you think we can defeat the shield"

The group had quickly discovered that the Thaumatic shield was not gone, merely in a power saving mode. Whenever any object, regardless of size, shape, or animacy, approached the titanium alloy walls, the field would wink into existence in that section alone, and remain as long as the object was there.

The four Gryphons had tried everything, from beating at the field mercilessly, and trying to slip reflective surfaces from the office tables under it, to attacking it at multiple points simultaneously.

They had even tried, at Fyrenn and Neyla's insistence, to lean objects against the wall and allow the field to drain its batteries. But the system must have been controlled by an adaptive AI, because any time an object remained still and in contact with the field, it deactivated again, only to reactivate at the slightest hint of movement.

The group had debated trying to constantly rattle objects against the shield, but determined that it would take too much time and effort. By the time they managed to drain it, assuming it didn't adapt to their stratagem, it would be far too late.

Fyrenn got to his paws again, and began slowly ambling around the perimeter of the wall, eyeing the titanium plates. Even if the field were not there, he doubted they had the strength, even between the four of them, to damage even an edge of the metal alloy armor.

It was just strong enough to stop them, but not quite strong enough to resist the close proximity detonation of a warhead, and subsequent collapse of a building.

Fyrenn sighed and shook his head, "You know... while most of me wishes that bullet had done its job properly... Some of me is almost glad to see him alive again. And it hurts all the more for that because deep down, I hate him just as much as I still care for him."

Varan nodded, as he tried taking another swing at the field with a bedraggled office chair, "Understandable. Loyalty is easy to *break*, but almost impossible to completely *annihilate.*"

Neyla gritted her beak, "I think you're right. That little violet twit is more than half the problem."

Fyrenn snorted, "More than, indeed. He was always a bit unhinged... I think it's a sign of genius, but she was the thing that pushed him over the edge. He thought... Still thinks... He's in love with her.
I've never seen a more manipulative, ill intentioned, mentally unstable Equine before, and that's counting IJ. Veritas is bad news, I don't care if the species is supposed to be more or less 'good.' We saw one possible extreme with Blueblood didn't we? I'd be willing to bet credits to gold chits that she's worse."

Kephic smirked, "Well there are two consolations; He seemed very upset over your change of species, and family status."

Fyrenn grinned, "I'm gonna chew on that mental image at the end, if this is to be our tomb.
We always thought of each other as family, right up until he flipped out at my lack of militant opposition for Korvan's initiative. Truth be told, part of the reason I didn't really object to it was in the hopes it would break him away from Veritas. The second she came into his life... It was like she had him in some kind of haze."

The red Gryphon shook his head sadly, "Rob was always big on the 'Ponies good, Humans bad' thing. In retrospect it makes a lot of sense that he ended up where he did, given his mental predilections, and the influences in his life. I feel responsible... Actually... My bullet probably acted as a galvanizing force. Helped set him on this course---"

Kephic growled, "Stop it."

"Right. Sorry. I suppose he's upset not just because he feels, rightly so, as if I replaced him in my life... But his big dream of vengeance was probably Ponifying me personally. The feathers kinda rained on *that* parade."

Varan tapped at the field experimentally with a talon, "That makes this the second instance in which I have been grateful for that trait in a week's time."

Kephic nodded, "You and I both. I was genuinely nervous when Celestia pulled that stunt of hers."

The group fell into silence, individually toying with the magical barrier.

Fyrenn reflected that such a display of artificially harnessed Thaumatics was a sign the PER had taken another quantum technological leap forward

Earth had very little magic within the sphere of local space, and Gilchrist had mentioned Thaumatic Batteries. If he was being truthful, it meant a whole new world of technology, as well as magical spell casting on Earth, was possible. Presuming the batteries could be reverse engineered. If they existed at all.

Fyrenn fell to tapping slowly, rhythmically on the field, using the patterns to help him control his breathing and squelch the rising sense of claustrophobia that was threatening to choke out his other emotional barriers.

The last thing he needed was to suffer a full on break down over Robert. There would be time enough for that later, either when the battle was won. Or when he was dead.

Fyrenn was so deep into his meditative routine, that it took him almost ten seconds to realize that every time he paused in his tapping rhythm, there was a repeat response from the other side of the wall.

He stiffened, and tapped twice in rapid succession.

After several seconds, the pattern was repeated. The sounds coming from outside were much louder, since whoever was tapping on the cylinder could touch the metal directly.

The tapping started again, this time catching the attention of the whole group.

Neyla cocked her head, "What is that?"

Varan squinted at the wall, "It sounds like code... A pattern of some kind..."

Fyrenn practically shouted, "Yes! YES! it's Morse code!"

Kephic's eyes widened, "Do you know it?"

Fyrenn nodded, "Well enough. It's still required military training."
He pressed one tufted red ear to the field, the crackle of the energy causing the fur to stand on end.

He translated aloud.

"S... T... A... N... D... That's the end of the word."

Varan raised an eyebrow, "Stand?"

Fyrenn put up a claw for silence, and the tapping resumed.

"B... A... C... K?"

Kephic cocked his head, "Back. Stand... Back?"

Fyrenn turned to his brother, and the two repeated the message in unison, "Stand back!"

Fyrenn and Kephic hurriedly removed themselves from the barrier, pushing Neyla and Varan along with them to the other side of the cylinder. And not a moment too soon.

The Thaumatic shield panel for the section of wall in question winked on of its own accord.
As the group watched in fascination, the energy matrix wrapped itself around the titanium panel, and began to intensify, glowing and arcing with electrical sparks, heating the panel beneath until it was little more than a pure white slab of light.

All at once, with an accompanying roar and bang, the panel immolated at a molecular level, overloading the Thaumatic field simultaneously and shutting it down once and for all.

As the smoke cleared, a feminine Equine figure stepped into the breach, framed by the still glowing edges of the neighboring armor plates.

A familiar tan, and cobalt-blue Equine figure.

Fyrenn's beak hung open in astonishment.

Skye smirked, "Hello ladies and gents. Didja Miss me?"

Sildinar tipped up on one wing, cutting a tight-corner turn around a relatively short tower and turning on to Wall Street. Below, a white SUV full of similarly white armored Humans, and a Diamond Dog, was pursuing a scattered squad of JRSF troopers.

The Gryphon knew he was the squad's best hope for rescue, but he also knew he was too far away to prevent the thugs in the SUV from mowing the fleeing Humans down with automatic railgun fire, or potion rifles.

Just as the passenger side trooper was about to open fire with his potion rifle, two Pegasi from Sildinar's squad came rocketing over the left side of the street, dragging a sonic boom in their wake that shattered car windows as far away as the stock exchange.

The two Equines dipped and pulled into a tight turn, the streetlights producing a fearsome glint on the edges of their armor as they swooped in over the SUV.

Before the PER occupants even knew what had happened, the two Royal Guards had snagged the entire vehicle in their hooves, and lifted it over a foot off the pavement.

In such a magic deprived environ, the Pegasi were already hard pressed to maintain their incredible speed, much less such an incredible feat of lifting strength, so they were forced to drop the SUV almost immediately. But their intervention was more than enough.

The two foot drop allowed the SUV to tilt just enough to send it into a death spin. The vehicle flipped over on itself no less than six times before it crashed to rest on the steps of the main branch of the Central Earthgov Bank.

Sildinar arrived just in time to join the fray, as the bloodied and bewildered PER insurgents tried to fight their way out of their overturned vehicle. The troopers who didn't run afoul of the Gryphon's razor talons, quickly discovered that Pegasi, while no match for Earth Ponies, could still buck a grown man hard enough to shatter a ribcage.

It took less than a minute for the two Pegasi, and their beaked commanding officer, to finish off the remnants of the PER squad. By that time, the fleeing JRSF troopers had rallied to their position on the bank's steps.

Sildinar surveyed the tattered squad, and made a quick judgement call, "Half of you, get a vehicle and form up on me. The rest of you accompany these Royal Guards to rally point seven and assist anyone you find there."

One of the Humans pulled the shattered remains of his helmet off, as he descended the steps, "Where are we going?"

Sildinar grimaced, "There will be more of these dogs harrying the other squads. We are going hunting."

Fyrenn could not stop babbling, "How?! You... But I saw... And the coroners..."

Skye marched over, with her typical swagger, and tapped Fyrenn on the head with a hoof, "Think for a second you adorable feathery jarhead. What did you *really* see? I mean... Isn't it obvious? Why scramble med techs for a dead chick?"

Fyrenn's eyes widened. She was right. That day, so many weeks ago... He had seen medical technicians carting her body away at breakneck pace. Not coroners, not military troops.
Medical technicians. He had missed the crucial detail, it had become buried in his attempts to stop reliving the scene in his nightmares.

Kephic shook his head in wonderment, "But why weren't we *told* ?!"

Skye grinned, "Aaaah well that's the rub isn't it? You remember General Lantry... Tall, salt and pepper hair?" She broke out into a ridiculous attempt at mimicking his inflection, "Deeeep no nonsense voiiiice..."

Varan, Fyrenn, and Kephic nodded in unison.

Skye shrugged, "Well, after I came back around, he stopped by. Told me he had kept what had happened a big fat dirty secret. Even Commander Hutch didn't know I'd been revived. He said that we needed a guy, or in my case gal, on the inside with the PER. Intelligence said something big was being geared up for, and that was something up with which he would not put. Long story short, my unique skills looked really good to him when they crossed his desk.
The accident was just a fortuitous way to kill off 'Skye' and let me go in for a deep cover."

For a few moments, Fyrenn simply gawked in astonishment. Then, as if he were afraid she would blink out of existence, like a phantasm or a dream, he snatched Skye up in his forelegs, circling her with his wings and cradling her under his neck.

Skye sniffed, doing her best to hold back tears. Fyrenn had already failed in that endeavour, and salty water was streaming from his eyes.

Skye chuckled, "All right big guy. Its ok. Its real, I'm here. It's me. Not that I don't feel the same way, but we are *majorly* on the clock here and uh..."

Fyrenn dropped her swiftly, ""Right... Sorry."

Skye winked, "Hey. I'm glad to see you too bro. And you guys? How have you been? Come on. Walk and talk people. Let's go."

Kephic smiled and sighed, "You know, I don't know *how* you survived the fall Fyrenn described, but I'm so glad to see you in one piece." He gave the spunky little unicorn an affectionate pat as he passed, and Fyrenn even caught Varan giving her a short sharp hug with his wing.

As the group exited the metal cylinder, Skye explained her masterful escape, "Well, Unicorns can't use a direct kinesthetic magic field on themselves. Bummer right? But last I checked that Sir Isaac Newton guy was one smart cookie. I just reached out and pulled on the window ledge with my field. Action, reaction, slowed me down *just* enough.
Why? Because; Physics bitches. That's why."

Neyla raised an eyebrow, and cast a wary glance in Skye's direction, "I don't understand... If we had you in place here the whole time, why didn't you contact the JRSF sooner?"

Skye shook her head, "I am in *deep* here. Whenever I blew the lid, they were gonna come for me. At very best, the first piece of intel I got out would be the last. At worst, they'd send me home in a match box. I had to wait till everything was committed before I could help you guys nail 'em to the wall. I was on my way to transmit the data, when I discovered you guys here."

Fyrenn reached the elevator doors first, quickly discovering that power to the shaft had been cut.
He jammed a claw into the doors, and with Varan's help, forced them open unceremoniously.
He turned back to Skye, "Wait... Do you know where the atomizers are?!"

She nodded, "Heck I even have measurements describing where they put them on the rooftops."
Fyrenn snatched at his throat mic, before tossing it to her.
She deftly caught the small device in her magical field.

Fyrenn smiled, "I know some folks who are gonna be real happy to hear what you have to say."

"Breaker breaker... Ah screw it... Anyone out there? HeloooOOOO?"

Carradan reached up and jammed his hoof into the talk button of his throat mic, "Who is this? What..." he paused to brace himself as Hutch dodged around an oncoming automated shipping truck, to avoid a hail of railgun fire from their pursuers, "...What are you doing on this channel lady?"

"Listen, I have a *majorly* important message for Commander Hutchinson, I need you to put me on with him, or tell me how to get in touch with him *right* now bucko."

Carradan raised an eyebrow, and turned to shoot a glance at Hutch, who's eyes were glued to the road, narrowed in what seemed like a permanent expression of deeply hostile determination, "What?"

Carradan shook his head, "Darndest thing, but there's some dame on the radio, says she has a 'majorly' important message for you."

Hutch reached out with his right hand, without taking his eyes from the road, and unceremoniously yanked Carradan's entire radio assembly off his head, pushing it to his own ear, "You have precisely five seconds to make your problem more important than the two trucks chasing me with railguns, or I throw this radio out the window."

"Nice to hear from you too Hutch. Shame you never write."

The Brigadier general nearly dropped the radio, and had to swerve dangerously close to the sidewalk to avoid hitting a stopped car, "SKYE?!"

"In the flesh. I got somethin' Wrenn... err... Fyrenn here tells me you're gonna wanna hear, so listen close."

Carradan watched, in confusion, as Hutch listened intently, nearly getting into two more collisions as his focus shifted from the road, to the information he was receiving.

Finally, he spoke a final sentence into the microphone, "Good to hear from you, but I'm not in the best position to catch up. You get those Gryphons out of there safely. See you soon."

The general tossed the radio back to Carradan, who fumbled frantically to reattach it to his head with the slick surfaces of his hooves, "Who the heck was *she*?"

Hutch gritted his teeth, "The ghost of Christmas past. And she brought presents. She just told me all the locations of the PER's Atomizers. Turn the radio back on, and start broadcasting the addresses as I pass them to you."

For the next five minutes, Carradan frantically stammered into the radio, as Hutch calmly and articulately delivered the addresses from memory, over the sound of the engine, and the staccato rat-a-tat-tat of railgun fire.

As he relayed the final series of numbers, a round penetrated the already distressed back window, burying itself in the headrest mere inches from Hutch's skull.

The Brigadier General growled, "I've had enough of these two bit chihuahuas in their broke-ass clown cars. Drive."

With no further instructions, or preparation, Hutch clambered over Carradan, forcing the shocked Pegasus to snag the wheel between his hooves, and swerve sharply to avoid a pedestrian.

As Carradan stretched out his back hooves, Hutch flicked a control and jammed the driver's seat as far forward as it would go, allowing Stanley to access the pedals.

The Humvee rocketed into a sub-street tunnel, the PER SUVs still in close pursuit.
Carradan was biting his lower lip in order to suppress the urge to scream.
Hutch grunted, "You remember the closest address?"

Carradan nodded dumbly, doing a surprisingly deft job of avoiding slower traffic despite the almost comically ridiculous nature of the situation.

Hutch nodded, "Good. Don't slow down. For anything. Get us there STAT."

Carradan spared a half-second glance for the general, "What are you doing?"

Hutch smirked, "Opening the sunroof."

With that, he forced the roof hatch open, and seized the handles of the Humvee's main weapon.

JRSF Humvees were essentially standard MCRC-80 armored force recon jeeps, painted in red and gray JRSF colors, kitted out with urban warfare gear, and retrofitted with the latest in electronics.

As such, they were armed with fifty caliber, self repeating, roof mounted, six-round-per-second 'trashcan' armor piercing rail-gatling-guns.

When Hutch squeezed the triggers, the elephantine roar of the cylindrical gun was heard all the way at the other end of the tunnel. The fifty caliber, eighty gram, tungsten jacketed shards of metal spewed forth from the six rotating barrels, illuminating the tunnel with a fiery glow as their passage superheated the air in front of them into plasma.

Hutch's first shots went wide, but he quickly corrected for barrel pull, and the weapon chewed apart the first SUV in a glut of flame that scorched both the ceiling and floor of the tunnel for a solid thirty yards, as the enemy vehicle's momentum combined with the rounds to shred itself, and its occupants, into igneous pulp.

Carradan was forced to swerve around a road construction crew, preventing Hutch from taking his next shots for several seconds, but the second white SUV also had to swerve to avoid the wreck of the first.

As Carradan frantically straightened out, he fortuitously brought the second enemy vehicle directly into Hutch's sight picture. The ensuing stream of rounds penetrated the engine compartment, forcing the hydrogen fuel cell to go critical with the heat of their passage. The resulting detonation compacted the remaining SUV into a flaming ball of metal roughly half the size it had been several seconds earlier.

The conflagrated mass rolled down the tunnel, and skidded to a stop in a hail of sparks.

Hutch nodded once in curt approval, then rotated the turret to face forward, "Alright Stan. Lets get the lead out! Hustle! This ain't the Coney Island bumper cars! Let's go!"

On twelve different rooftops across Manhattan, twelve different boxy white machines sprang to life.
The neon blue digital timers on their control panels simultaneously reached zero, setting into motion a terrifying chain of events.

Like clockwork, valves on each Atomizer began to cycle with an ominous whirr, and pumps began to hum.

Slowly, but surely, a purple fog began to billow forth from the vents on top of the devices, sending up visible magenta plumes at twelve spots in a circle around midtown.

The endgame had begun.

Fyrenn held Sky close under one wing, shielding her from the sparks his talons were creating as he used the digits like brakes.

The four Gryphons were sliding down the elevator cable, one after the other, with enough space between them to allow for any unforeseen circumstances.

Skye had adamantly refused to evacuate the tower, despite Fyrenn's repeated insistence.
She even went so far as to rub it in his beak that they had needed her to escape Gilchrist's trap.
What she said was incontrovertible. Without her they would shortly have become a messy smashed sandwich of corpses.

Nonetheless, Fyrenn had no desire to lose his friend so quickly after re-discovering her well being, and living presence.

Skye had tried to reassure him, "I'm a big girl featherbrain. I can handle myself."
But he was still nervous.

Kephic reached the Chamber doors first, and took up a position clinging to the wall on the right side. Neyla took the spot on the opposite side, and it was left up to Varan to breach.

Fyrenn held out one of his pistols, and Skye snagged it in her magical field.
The Gryphon raised an eyebrow, "Think you can work up enough gumption to use it?"

Skye grimaced, "You have *no* idea what it was like listening to that stuck up purple jackass spout her ridiculous crap for hours on end. We're waaahaahaaay past passivity here Rambo."

Fyrenn shrugged, and pulled out his own RAC, holding it in his free claw so as to cover the door.

He glanced at Varan, "Ready?"

"Ready."

Varan tensed, and readied his fisted claws, "Knock knock."

Chapter 44

The Humvee finally, mercifully, and ungracefully, skidded to a stop on the sidewalk.

Carradan had to breathe deeply for several seconds before he gained the modicum of control needed to reach out and flick the engine kill switch with one hoof.

He let out a deep sigh of relief and relaxed, finally letting his hoof off the brake.

Only one other PER vehicle had tried to impede their progress along the way. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Carradan had frozen with his hoof all the way down on the accelerator, causing the JRSF vehicle to ram the PER SUV, smooshing the lighter vehicle like a tin can on the maglev tracks.

The Pegasus leaned his head out the window, and looked up the side of the building whose curb they had so unceremoniously assaulted with their arrival.

Sure enough, there was a telltale purple plume wending its way skyward, slowly but surely.

"This is definitely the place boss..." Carradan shakily exited the vehicle, collapsing back onto four hooves, "How do you wanna play it?"

Hutch was already busy extracting full hazmat gear for himself from the Humvee's well apportioned stores, "They will have likely knocked out the elevator by now. How do you feel about stairs?"

Carradan snapped open his wings, "Stairs? Stairs are for old men like you."

Hutch chuckled darkly, "You gonna be ok taking point?"

Carradan nodded, "Ah sure. I bet I'll have the whole dang PER hog tied and strung out to dry by the time *you* finish getting up there."

Hutch grinned ever so slightly, "Just watch yourself. I won't be long."
As the Brigadier General continued to attach the sealed components of his armor as quickly as his hands would allow, Stanley Carradan flapped his wings, and shot up the side of the building.

After all, he reasoned, how could guys in white plastic alloy possibly be any worse than demon possessed scorpion-pony skeletons?

"Knock knock." The instant Varan forced the doors open, he swung his grenade launcher into place with one claw, and let fly. The first two shots went completely wild, but the third impacted, and subsequently eviscerated, two Diamond Dog guards, who had most definitely not been expecting latecomers to the occasion.

Fyrenn began laying down cover fire with his RAC, and to his surprise, Skye did the same with the laser pistol he had lent her, a stunningly manic look of anger plastered to her muzzle.

Fyrenn smiled inwardly; Whatever anyone said about Ponies and passivity, if sufficiently provoked they could do serious damage.

Fyrenn was last into the room, and he found himself once again concentrating, accelerating his perceptions, taking an internal moment to get a feel for the room.

The chamber they had entered was enormous, spanning the entire interior of twenty five floors of the tower, with no other obstruction beside support girders, catwalks, electrical trunk lines, the elevator shaft, and the massive gunmetal-gray, armor plated cylinder suspended in the center of the tangle.

The space was, much to the red Gryphon's consternation, absolutely crawling with Diamond Dogs. There were easily two packs' worth of Trolls, decked out in a stripped down version of the PER's basic armor, and carrying regular, deadly, anti-personnel particle rifles.

Several levels below, on a catwalk encircling the middle of the warhead, Fyrenn spotted Gilchrist and Veritas working in tandem at a large control panel attached to the device with a snaking trail of fiber optic cabling.

As the Trolls milled about, trying to form up after the chaos created by Varan's grenades, Fyrenn shoved Skye back into the elevator shaft, her footing maintained on the small door ledge, "Stay put, stay in cover. Don't get shot."

She grinned mischievously, "Sure thing chief big-head."

Fyrenn raised his RAC, using both claws, and began laying down sporadic, precise shots.
Neyla was busy with her arbalest, and Varan had switched to wielding a pistol in one claw, and a sword in the other, for fear of putting a grenade through the warhead itself, and setting off, by accident.

Gilchrist whirled at the sound of weapons fire, "Get them! They must not be allowed to tamper with the warhead!" Fyrenn noticed that Robert had his own small chemical-round-propulsion pistol, which he drew and cocked.

Veritas disappeared out of sight to the other side of the warhead, presumably to continue the arming sequence in a more protected spot.

Kephic, Varan, and Neyla seemed to be holding their own versus the Trolls, dodging between support struts and making good use of their wings in the more open space. Fyrenn decided to cut to the chase.

With a blood curdling war screech, he did a swan dive off the upper catwalk that would have received a 9.0 with any Olympic committee. He tucked in his wings, and stooped towards Gilchrist, flaring at the last second for control, and holding his rifle out, stock first.

The impact sent vibrations up Fyrenn spine, and sparks flew from Gilchrist's chest as he was thrown back several yards. It took Fyrenn nearly two seconds to understand. He finally managed comprehension at the same moment that Gilchrist rose, and spoke, "How do you like the personal version of my shield technology? I'm sure that blow would have killed me otherwise... But now we're on an equal footing my fine, feathered, *friend.*"

Gilchrist spat the last word as an epithet, and raised his pistol.
Fyrenn ducked, and the fight began in earnest.

True to his word, Sildinar had hunted down and destroyed several more PER assault teams.
By the time his small attack group had reached the last distressed JRSF squad, local Military Police were finally responding in force to the explosions and gunfire around the city.

Manhattan was in utter chaos.

Firefights had broken out in several locations, the twelve fake Atomizer detonations had created a frantic terror scare, rumors were already circulating of a wide-scale Potion attack, and consequently the civilian populace was in a total state of panic.

Sildinar had switched to providing aerial support and leadership to an APC full of troops, assembled from disparate teams he had encountered in the previous hour. He was now guiding them to the location of an Atomizer; a piece of information that Carradan had provided over wideband radio transmission, much to his grateful surprise.

Once they were in close proximity to the target, and intervening buildings were no longer a visual obstacle, the subtle plume of purple gas became easy to spot. Sildinar realized, staring at the device, that if the atomizers weren't shut off soon the attack would do a great deal of damage, whether or not the central warhead detonated.

He tapped his microphone, and contacted the APC below, "I need you to wire up all of your C4 to a single detonator, and have it ready in a satchel for me. And radio for Crystallization teams."

"We can't see the extent of the problem from down here, How many should we send for sir?"

"All of them."

Gilchrist's shield did a good job of protecting him. Fyrenn could see that the effect emanated from a small DaTab size object attached to his belt, which also doubtless housed the control AI. The field never seemed to be present, right up until the moment a sufficiently sharp, or fast moving object was about to enter its area of protection.

On the other claw, the field did not extend to held items, and it was weak at the join between an in-hand item, and the hand itself. Fyrenn was easily able to dodge Gilchrist's first volley of shots, flipping under the catwalk, spinning midair with his slightly extended wings, and coming up behind him before the man even realized what had happened.

He put all his strength into one fisted claw, and knocked the gun out of Gilchrist's hand, taking some of the skin of the palm with it, so violent was the assault.

Gilchrist clutched his bleeding hand, "You are a fast devil, I'll give you that. But you're a devil all the same."

Fyrenn drew his sword, "I'm not the Devil. But I expect you'll be personally giving him my disregards very soon."

Gilchrist smirked, and Fyrenn felt the catwalk vibrate, from an impact, "He may not be the Devil either, but he's about as close as it gets."

Fyrenn turned to find himself beak-to-muzzle with a large, menacing, growling black Lupine Diamond Dog. He was standing face to face with Kryn.

"I suppose it was too much, to hope you'd starved and died on the tundra."

Kryn growled.

Fyrenn readied his sword, "You don't talk much, do you?"

The hulking wolf-creature shook his head, "Actions, are preferable to words."

Fyrenn nodded, "Well then, by all means, If you insist."

He launched himself forward, in a move designed to look like a foolish charge, but intended to cover for a hidden back-paw attack.

The red Gryphon may not have liked Shroud very much, but that didn't mean he'd pass up the chance to avenge his death.
With extreme prejudice, and more than a little enjoyment.

For all the high octane, high adrenaline fear of driving a Humvee with hooves in evening traffic, Carradan found the dark shadowy spaces of a skyscraper roof to be infinitely more terrifying.

The environment itself was tense, but the real issue was the fact that, for once, he was headed into a potentially deadly situation completely alone and unprepared.

He mumbled aloud to himself, as he touched down, "Sheesh... I'd rather have IJ with me than walk into that death trap...
Aaah what the hay. Why not. G'bye cruel world."

Tentatively, the Salmon colored Pegasus approached the swirling purple miasma that had descended over the Atomizer, a result of the backwash from the slowly ascending plume, now stretching at least two hundred feet into the night sky.

The first assault came so quickly, Carradan didn't even realize he had reacted, until he felt a sharp pain in his wing, and saw the rifle skittering across the rooftop. He turned to see a stunned, and disarmed, PER trooper. Emboldened by the man's newfound lack of weaponry, and the fact that it was a result of his own Pegasus reflexes, Carradan grinned sheepishly,

"This really isn't your day pal, is it? Trust me, I feel ya."

With that, he spun and delivered what Ponies seemed to like to call 'One hay of a Buck.'

The soldier flew backwards, a crackling sound emanating from his chestplate; a testament to cracked ribs, a punctured lung, and likely some serious bruising. The soldier came to rest, abruptly, against an upright steel antenna pole, shattering the back of his helmet and knocking him clean out.

Carradan gave a satisfied 'hmph' and continued talking to himself as he resumed his slow, somewhat more cautious trek to the Atomizer.

"The reporter shoots, and he SCORES! Right over the back wall ladies and germs, it's a hooooome ruuuuuuun!"

Carradan reached the Atomizer, at last, coughing as he inhaled a small cloud of Potion, "Yecch! Grape is DisGUSTING when its artificial."

He was so busy examining the control panel for the device, that he failed to notice the shadow falling over him, nor the caster of said shadow, nor the weapon in said caster's paws, and the murderous intent in his eyes.

Neyla found herself back to back with Varan. The two Gryphons had adopted a particularly thick stanchion for cover, and were periodically taking turns covering each others' sniping runs.

The Gryphons, and Skye, were badly outnumbered. For each of them there were three Diamond Dogs, not even counting Kryn, who seemed quite preoccupied with Fyrenn.

Gilchrist, mercifully, seemed content to watch from a safe and somewhat cowardly distance.
Veritas was nowhere to be seen.

Neyla rolled from her position behind the stanchion to the edge of the catwalk, and fired a bolt that pierced an incautious Diamond Dog directly through the skull, between the eyes.

Their compatriot's death put the true fear of the Gryphons into the rest of the large pack, causing them to adopt much more sheltered and advantageous cover fire positions.

A Hail of bright blue, deadly particle blasts forced Neyla to beat a hasty retreat.

Varan raised an eyebrow, "They have the upper claw. Would that I could risk using my grenade launcher again."

From her post in the doorway, Skye hissed quietly, "Hey! Hey! Guys they haven't seen me yet... If you bait them I can take at least three out."

Neyla looked taken aback, "You're comfortable with---"

Skye rolled her eyes dismissively, "Hey! Prettyfeathers! like I told Wrenn, I am *way* beyond mercy here. These guys stink, they're rude, and they constantly taunted and harassed me. Now get your tailfeathers out there and put these twerps in front of my gun before I do it *myself.*"

Neyla shrugged, to which Varan replied with a nod.

By unspoken agreement, and a silent countdown, the two Gryphons rolled from cover and began a series of diving, twisting flighted loops that were so dizzyingly quick, and tight, that they would have qualified for any Pegasus acrobatics competition.

Sure enough, once the Diamond Dog Trolls realized the Gryphons were too busy evading to squeeze off many shots, they began to get cocky. Several of the ugly gray canines emerged from their hiding spots, and propped their weapons up on girders to gain more stability and field of fire. That proved to be imminently fatal.

Seemingly as if from nowhere, a hail of automatic high-frequency laser fire silently sprayed down on the three Diamond Dogs, the only soft sizzling sounds being generated coming from the passage of the high energy streams through armor, flesh, and bone. The assault was so violent, and so wide-effect, that it peppered their unarmored weak points with a barrage of searing red energy bolts.

It was all over inside of five seconds. Skye looked down on the carnage she had created, accompanied by appreciative, and amazed looks from Varan and Neyla, and even a glance from Kephic, who was busy with two assailants of his own.
The Unicorn smirked.

Upon reflecting on the Trolls' behavior she decided that, no, she was not going to have *any* trouble sleeping at night.
None whatsoever.

Sildinar checked the cinch on his satchel one last time. The small remote detonator was clipped to the strap, and the bag itself was packed to bursting with blocks of gray clay-like substance, wrapped in unassuming brown paper labeled 'C4.'

The driver of the APC raised an eyebrow, "Remind me sir, why this is a good idea?"

Sildinar grunted, and cycled his RAC, "Better that the Potion be spilled all over an empty rooftop as a liquid, than dispersed in the air as a fog, don't you think?"

The man nodded sheepishly, "Point taken sir. We'll let you know when the Crystallization teams arrive. Wave bye bye to the bad guys for me."

Sildinar smirked, "I'll do that."

The roan Gryphon took to the air, using updrafts created leftover heat emanating from the roadways to speed his ascent.

He swooped down into the purple column of miasma and smoke. The Potion wasn't really going to affect him at that concentration, short of rarefying the oxygen in the air, and Gryphons, like Pegasi, were built for breathing far more rarified, freezing, high altitude air.

The more pressing problem was the sight impairment factor. If he missed the atomizer altogether, then he would have wasted all the C4 that was close to claw, with very little chance of acquiring more within an acceptable period of time.

Sildinar circled a few more times, trying to guesstimate exactly where the column of purple had its origin. When he was as sure as he could reasonably be, he slowed to a hover, and carefully removed the satchel from around his neck.

He unclipped the detonator, and clenched it firmly in one claw, extending the other out to his right with the satchel. He made one final position check, then allowed the ordinance to drop, praying that the detonation assembly wouldn't be jarred loose by the impact.

A loud metallic 'thunk' offered the reassuring promise that the package had, in fact, struck the Atomizer.

Sildinar allowed himself a small smile, and tossed off a wave, before clicking his thumb talon down on the detonation button.

The results were spectacular.

Fyrenn was losing. Badly.

For a Lupine, Kryn had very little sense of honor; A fact that had evidenced in what he had done to Shroud, and was now being reinforced by his tactics.

The jet black monstrosity kept maneuvering Fyrenn into vulnerable positions, and calling on his pack to provide covering fire.

The 'duel' had become monstrously unfair, and it was all Fyrenn could do to stay alive, on the run, and in a single piece. The other Gryphons were too busy with their own fights to even conceive of coming to his aid, and Skye didn't have a vantage point that afforded her a line of fire to Kryn.

Fyrenn had already sustained several impacts from particle rifles. The hail of fire in such a comparatively small space, combined with a Lupine trying to drive his claws into him, had opened him up several times. He had been able to deflect most of the damage with his armor, but direct blasts had sizzled through partially in several places, leaving him with mild, but highly unpleasant energy burns.

All at once, the situation changed. A loud alarm began to sound, and there was a whirr and clank of machinery. As Fyrenn watched out of the corner of his eyes, still doing his best to dodge particle rifle fire, the sides of the chamber began to move, panel by panel.

With a roar of servos, the entire assembly opened, into a fan-like structure, displaying open vertical slits at intervals, which would provide initial channeling to the warhead's blast.

At the same time, Fyrenn's preternatural vision also spied a countdown timer blinking into being on the main control panel.

The Bomb was armed, and set to go off in ten minutes.

It was only a mere act of providence that the device needed time to properly intermix its volatile chemicals for optimum shockwave propagation.

Fyrenn knew he had the means to do away with Kryn, given that the size of the open panels afforded him a way to take to the air, but the problem of the Lupine's new pack still remained.

They would fill him full of particle beam shaped holes if he so much as presented a single feather out in the open for a moment.

Had his assailants been Humans, he wouldn't have worried.
But despite their slower nature as compared to a Gryphon, Diamond Dogs were still appreciably faster than Homo Sapiens, and with that many of them arrayed against him, his chances were looking increasingly slim.

The fact was underscored by a renewed hail of fire. The barrage chewed away at the support Fyrenn was using for cover, and a bolt nicked the plate on the joint of his right wing, leaving it numb and tingling, as he dove and rolled for better cover.

The red Gryphon was swiftly running out of workable hiding spots, and Kryn was far too perceptive to fall into an ambush. He, in fact, seemed more than happy to leave the killing of Fyrenn entirely to his pack, if they could accomplish the task.

He had no reason to doubt they could. Fyrenn was on the ropes, and losing ground at a rate of spades.

But, as though a Guardian Angel were watching, the situation suddenly changed again.

With an audible series of clicks and clunks, the sun day lights of Manhattan began to shine forth.
Billions and billions of lumens speared skyward, turning the night into a strange, foggy blue parody of day.

The Diamond Dogs instinctively stopped everything they were doing, and covered their eyes. They were creatures of darkness, and their ocular structure was ill suited to quickly adjusting to a different luminosity.

Next, came the noise.

Kryn seemed to recognize it instantly, and dove for cover.
The other Diamond Dogs were far less lucky.

As if Fyrenn's Guardian Angel had suddenly been given physical form, a gunship VTOL dropped from the sky above the tower, weapons already spun up. The sleek gray craft hovered for a moment, and Fyrenn spied none other than Commander Aston in the gunner's seat.

She smiled, and tapped her earpiece, "Hi! I thought you might need a hand, and this here pilot was kind enough to give me a ride. Clear the deck."

Fyrenn saw what she intended to do, and dove from the catwalk, stooping towards the bottom of the chamber as fast as he could. He was quickly followed by Kephic, Varan, Neyla, and even Skye, who Neyla quickly caught, and set safely on the metal floor

The second the Gryphons, and Unicorn, were out of the line of fire, Aston squeezed the trigger.

The Pilot strafed the gunship in circles, allowing the twin rail-cannons the VTOL sported to pepper the inside of the chamber with a hail of copper and steel death.

It was only by sheer dumb luck that Gilchrist himself didn't get hit. He had the sense to move closer to the warhead, rightly assuming that Aston would try to shy away from the device with her fire. Nonetheless, a fair few ricochets nearly took his head off.

Only his shield saved him.

The Diamond Dog Trolls, however, had no such next-generation protection.

The VTOL's cannon rounds were designed to destroy heavily armored tanks, bunkers, and aircraft. Personal armor melted like tissue paper under the withering stream of hypersonic glowing death spikes, as did the ugly canines encased inside the woefully inadequate white plating.

Shredded body parts fell from above, littering the floor of the chamber in a gruesome, but entirely welcome testament to the efficiency of airborne close fire support.

Aston's voice crackled over the comm lines, "Sorry ya'll, that's all she wrote. I have an appointment with some missing Atomizers. Recently found, thanks I hear to the valiant little Unicorn. Drinks are on me sister."

Skye smiled, and waved a hoof, not having a radio of her own.

Kephic tapped his mic, "Acknowledged. Give them more of the same, see you back at the Fort."

Fyrenn glanced up at the maze of catwalks, to see that Kryn, and two other Diamond Dogs had unfortunately survived the barrage the same way Gilchrist had. By sticking close to the warhead.

"Excuse me a sec. I think I forgot to take out the trash."

Kephic grinned manically, "Break his shoulder for me before you kill him. I'm gonna go see about that warhead."

Fyrenn turned to Skye, as he readied his wings, "It's practically over up here. You don't have wings, so you need to get a head start. Get out. I mean it this time."

The white lie was an unusual move for a Gryphon, but Fyrenn's desire to see Skye out of harm's way trumped his desire for candor.

Skye sighed, "Oh well. The fray was fun while it lasted. Cheers."

As she hoofed it to the elevator, Varan and Neyla turned their attention to the remaining Diamond Dog trolls.

Fyrenn turned his attention to the remaining Lupine.
Soon to be a bright red sidewalk decoration, if he had his way.

Stanley Carradan was absolutely sure he was about to die.

The PER Diamond Dog had gotten in the first blow, putting a lump the size of a brickbat in the back of the Pegasus's head that was still throbbing so badly he could barely see straight.

The sun day lights had helped cut through the purple fog, but nonetheless the Diamond Dog seemed intent on breaking Carradan into tiny little pieces. Slowly. And painfully.

The creature laughed, a grim parody of humor, gravelly and disgusting, "I'm gonna use you for a shovel; Find out if Earth roof rock have gems for me."

Carradan, trembling, spat in the canine's face, "Oh yeah?! Well... Your MOM is a shovel. Freakin' ugly creep."

The Diamond Dog growled menacingly, "You no say bad things about my mummy! Stupid ugly little..." The Troll was no inches from ripping Carradan apart with his massive claws.

Mentally, Carradan decided that should he die there, in that moment, that he would haunt Hutch for the rest of his living days.

As if thinking of the man were some sort of summoning spell, Carradan heard his voice echo out across the rooftop, "Hey! YOU! Big gray and UGLY! With the ugly shovel of a mother!"

Foolishly, the Diamond Dog turned to seek out the source of the voice.

A RAC round came whizzing out of the shadows, pulping the creature's head with a perfect eyeshot.

Hutch stepped into the light, potion gas swirling around his sealed armor, like a stage effect for a major performer.

Carradan threw the Troll corpse off, and staggered to his hooves, "About *bloody* time you showed up. Old man."

Hutch cycled his weapon, and grinned inside his mask, "That was a hell of an ass-saving shot for an 'old man.' "

Carradan chuckled, "Yeah yeah yeah... I softened him up for you."

The two compatriots turned to survey the Atomizer.
Hutch sighed, "Any ideas? I'm not much for electronics."

Carradan cocked his head, mimicking one of the Gryphons' signature moves.

"I have a thought."

Without any further ado, Carradan turned, and began lashing out at the Atomizer's control panel with his back hooves. Sparks flew from the device as the plastic casing withered and crumpled under the furious Equine assault.

When Carradan began to tire, he stepped back, and it was the Brigadier General's turn.

Hutch raised his RAC, and emptied the clip.

Under the advisement of several thousand rounds, and after enduring the massage treatment of Carradan's hooves, the machine finally gave up the ghost, grinding to a halt.

Carradan stuck out a hoof, which Hutch slammed his fist into with gusto, "Scratch one."

A loud explosion in the distance drew the comrades' attention, and they turned in time to see a massive explosion illumen a winged shape against the backdrop of a potion plume.

Carradan grinned, "Ahhh... Scratch *two.*"

While Kryn was a formidable opponent, Fyrenn was quickly learning that he was also a coward, despite his considerable strength, and years of experience.

Without the guaranteed support of his pack, the jet black Lupine had lapsed into a much more defensive and tricky fighting style. But Fyrenn didn't need to penetrate his defenses.

He had one major advantage that Kryn could never match. He had wings.

If being rid of the traitorous monster meant taking a few deep cuts, then Fyrenn was willing and ready.

The Gryphon dodged and weaved, making good use of his wings. Kryn was a surprisingly agile foe, however, and made great use of the girders that made up their surroundings, leaping and pivoting, and gyrating with moves that would have impressed even Kephic, had he been able to spare a moment to look.

All Fyrenn needed was to draw Kryn's focus away from his surroundings, utterly and completely. From past experience, the Gryphon knew the best way to do that was to open himself to attack.

It was risky, painful, and potentially lethally stupid... But it had worked before in his favor.
And time was running out. Last he had seen, the countdown timer said seven minutes.

Rather than bait the Lupine by falling back, Fyrenn realized he needed to force the Diamond Dog to go backwards himself. He had to make the maneuver appear tactically advantageous.

With a cry of anger, Fyrenn let loose with a seemingly emotional, unpracticed, and ill advised flurry of blows.

Kryn stumbled at first, surprised by the sheer ferocity of the attack. For a split second Fyrenn wondered if he could change tack, and make an end of the fight then and there.

But the Lupine's cunning quickly shone through again, as he began to fight defensively, slowly backing up and parrying Fyrenn's blows.

All the while Kryn worked in short, sharp, painful attacks, leaving several of Fyrenn's gauntlet and shoulder plates jammed firmly into his skin like blades.

The pain, however, proved to be worth it.

Kryn was so busy plotting a killing blow that would exploit Fyrenn's seemingly emotional attack, and allow him to parry without putting himself at risk, that he failed to notice how far he had backed up.

Fyrenn abandoned his deceptive assault, and grinned. Kryn had only a moment to comprehend his position, before Fyrenn lunged again, claws extended.

The Gryphon snagged the Diamond Dog in the morbid, macabre equivalent of a bear hug, digging his talons deep into Kryn's flesh to keep him off balance.

Together, the pair sailed out one of the open slits in the cylinder.

The wind whipped at them as their combined weight caused them to accelerate swiftly to terminal velocity. Fyrenn leaned down, and whispered in Kryn's ear, "Funny thing about gravity..."

The Gryphon flared his wings, simultaneously raking Kryn's chest with his back paws, and dropping the 'bear hug.'

As the Lupine fell, screaming, Fyrenn flared his wings, and shouted after him, "...it doesn't really apply to me!"

Fyrenn flapped his wings, and returned to the altitude of the cylindrical chamber.

He swept the city with his gaze, and noted that he could just barely make out a few rising plumes of Potion gas. That settled it. The warhead had to go, or a large fraction of Manhattan, if not the entire populace, was going Pony. Whether they wanted to or not.

Fyrenn next cast a glance inward, catching Gilchrist's eye.

He formed a two pronged spear shape with his talons, pointing at his eyes, then at Robert.
The message was abundantly clear.

And for the first time, Gilchrist looked truly scared.

A little known fact about Manhattan; The city possessed a veritable air force of attack-drones.
The system had its roots in post 9/11 defensive schemes, and over time it had grown into a massive AI controlled automated air support and defense system.

Hundreds of large missile and cannon equipped helicopter style drones waited dormant, twenty-four-seven, in hidden compartments strewn across Manhattan's rooftops.

Most civilians went about their day-to-day business totally unaware of the powerful defensive tools' existence right above their heads.

The system had never once seen use.

A record that was suddenly, spectacularly, broken.

Skye's information, combined with Military Police reports, had finally shocked Military Command into action. The Brave, spunky Unicorn's intelligence had worked its way up the chain of command from an assault team, to a Fort Hamilton substation, to the Earthgov Military central command itself.

It didn't take long for the decision to be made; Use the drone system, or allow New York to be covered with ever expanding purple clouds of Potion.

The little red button had *finally* been pushed.

From a desolate rooftop, Hutch and Carradan watched as three of the buzzing silver devices flew in low over an Atomizer site, and let loose with dozens of tactical missiles, reducing the top of the building to ash, without so much as scratching even the uppermost floor.

Across the city, Commander Aston was destroying an Atomizer of her own, when her pilot pointed out the canopy glass. She watched, in glee, as three Drones carpet bombed another nearby target, sending white armored bodies flying in pieces.

Each and every atomizer went offline within mere moments of the next, as the efficient, AI controlled, over-armed silver shapes went about their task with seeming gusto.

While the drone strike ensured that at least part of the city would be saved, the fact remained that the delays had resulted in the formation of twelve massive plumes of potion gas that would be extraordinarily difficult to crystallize, filter, and otherwise render inert.

If the Thermobaric device at the center of the system were to go off, the top brass knew over two thirds of the city would likely be affected on some level.

The fight, was far from over.

Gilchrist saw Fyrenn coming, and that fact did him absolutely no good.

Fyrenn slammed into his one time friend with such force that if he hadn't been wearing his shield, he would have died from massive internal trauma on the spot.

Gilchrist had been clambering his way towards the elevator access at the top of the chamber, and was consequently also treated to a ten story fall as well, ending on the catwalk before the main warhead controls.

The impact actually caused his shield to fritz several times intermittently, a sign that Fyrenn's brutal assault was wearing it thin.

Gilchrist snarled, and tried to draw a knife from a compartment in his boot.

Fyrenn actually had time to consider how he wanted the arrogant man to suffer for his audacity.

Human reflexes unaugmented were simply no match for a Gryphon. One on one, Homo Sapiens was vastly outclassed at best.

Fyrenn snagged Robert's right wrist in a death hold, dragged him to the catwalk's railing, and slung his arm across the steel surface. Fyrenn then applied slow, steady, inexorable pressure.

Gilchrist screamed, as his arm bent ninety degrees backwards, shattering every single bone between his shoulder and fingertips on his right side.

Fyrenn held the crying, whimpering man against the railing, and shouted with deafening volume.

"WHY!?! Why did you DO IT?! We had TRUST, we had FRIENDSHIP... We were even like *family.* We could have worked it OUT! But you tried to KILL me, you broke every law I *know* of, and you ignored the best sources of advice you HAD. You've committed crimes I can NEVER get you amnesty for, even if you begged, and kissed my back paws. WHY?!"

The only response was a whimper. Fyrenn slammed Gilchrist's head into the railing, resisting the strong impulse to make it a killing blow, "I said WHY?! Answer me... And make it good... Or I will split your skull."

Sildinar had rejoined his exhausted, belabored squad. There were still a few PER in the streets, and they needed to be rounded up, or dealt with on site.

The Gryphon was busy sweeping an alley near Wall Street, when one of the Pegasi beside him began to cough.

Sildinar raised an eyebrow, "Problem?"

The Equine tried to shake his head, but all he managed to do was spray blood from his nose.
Sildinar rushed to help the Pony, as he fell to the pavement, but it was already too late.
The Gryphon could only watch in silence as the creature screamed, melting into a familiar silver puddle, with a disgusting red tinge.

Sildinar stood, ignoring the shocked and horrified reactions of his other team members, both Pony and Human.

The event might not have made any sense to his companions yet, but it made perfect sense to Sildinar. He murmured to himself, aloud, "Of course. They'd never trust us to finish the job properly..." He tapped his radio, "All units be advised. We have a major HLF infiltration problem."

Fyrenn heard the words went their way into his ear through his radio... But they only told him what he already knew.

Familiar menacing beige-armored figures were dropping from the ceiling in pairs.
There were six Augments in total, and that meant a serious fight.

The first pair took aim, and opened fire.

Fyrenn realized, too late, that he had no cover within range.

In and of himself, he had no way to stop the bullets that he could actually see whizzing towards his skull and chest. Even though he could perceive them, he no longer had enough time to physically move himself out of the way.

So... He reflected... Such would be the end.

Such *would* have been the end. Were it not for Robert Gilchrist's Thaumatic shield.
Despite the incredible pain he was in, the man had pivoted around, placing himself between Fyrenn and the bullets. The rounds pinged harmlessly off the electrified surface of the miraculous device's field, falling to the floor as crumpled discs.

That gave Fyrenn more than enough time to raise his RAC, and unleash hell.

A flurry of fire from Neyla, who had just finished dispatching the last Diamond Dog, joined Fyrenn's stream of bullets. It took several seconds of fire, but they managed to kill the first pair of troopers. The HLF soldiers were well armored, but their suspended position made them like ducks in a shooting gallery. Easy fodder for a Gryphon who could dodge incoming fire, and return the favor accurately.

Kephic and Varan managed to kill the second pair between them, which left only the final pair.
Fyrenn re-drew his sword, and charged.

The HLF Augments had an equal footing to a Gryphon in a tight space. The warhead chamber was not tight enough. And the odds were stacked.

As Fyrenn battered at the pair with his sword, using his wings to stay behind them, where their cumbersome bulk made turning difficult, the other three Gryphons simply dodged stray shots, pouring RAC and Arbalest rounds into the offending enemies.

It was over before it began. A product of the HLF's cliched and foolish insertion technique.

Fyrenn reflected, momentarily, that it was likely they hadn't expected the Gryphons to be present, only PER Diamond Dogs, who were long since dead.

Fyrenn shot a glance at Kephic, "The Warhead?"

The black and white Gryphon bounded back over to the panel, "Working on it. We still have four minutes."

Fyrenn returned his attention to Gilchrist, who had managed to stagger to his feet, and was clutching his broken arm in the crook of his other limb.

The red Gryphon stood tall over the broken and dazed man, glaring into his eyes with soul piercing force. This time, Fyrenn whispered the word.

"Why?"

Gilchrist winced, "Why save you, you mean? Because I'm not sure you're beyond convincing."

Fyrenn spat to the side, "Convincing? Convincing is what you do to persuade someone to a viewpoint. You? You have been brainwashed, and you're repeating the same abuse on other people. Anyone who gets in your way? You just take their free will."

Robert stared out of the channeling slits at the sun day lit city. He waited several seconds before replying, his voice cracking from the pain of his arm, "What meaning does free will have anymore, Isaac? We're living in a crumbling world. This planet's days are *numbered,* and what do they do? Out there? They run around carrying on with their pathetic mewling lives, instead of thinking about their future salvation."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Salvation is not something that can be forced, or taken, it must be freely given, from one to another. Do you know who said that?"

Gilchrist continued to stare grimly at the cityscape.

Fyrenn stepped up behind him, slowly, "You said it Robert. Second semester theology class. The saying has merit. You can't just force your viewpoint on someone... Even if you're *positive* it's right."

Fyrenn shot a glance at Kephic, who seemed buried deep in the Warhead control panel.
Gilchrist mumbled, "How is what I do any worse that what you and Korvan did to me? You forced your views on me... Tried to make me choose between my love, and my work."

Fyrenn shook his head, "When one man throws a belief in another man's face, that's extremism. When a legally voted into office *government* makes a majority decision, that's civilization. You had other means to pursue your beliefs. I still don't entirely agree with Korvan but do you know something? Were it not for the unhealthy way that Unicorn affects you, I would have sided with you outright. Merely because you were family to me."

Gilchrist snorted, "A fine sentiment. There you go again. Forcing me to make a choice between two things I want."

Fyrenn glared, "That's life. She's a *menace* Rob. From the *day* you met her, she put you in a deep, dark, scary place. I could see it, your foster parents could see it, hell your other *classmates* could see it. You can't just *ignore* those kinds of warning signs."

Gilchrist shook his head, and stepped away, "You don't UNDERSTAND! I LOVE her. I always have, and I don't really care if you do KILL me, that will NEVER change. So get it over with, or go do the world a favor, and plunge your sword into your own black heart."

A tear trickled down Fyrenn's cheek. He whispered, "Well. I guess I was right. The Robert Gilchrist I knew is dead. Good riddance to *you.*"

The red Gryphon was about to query Kephic, when he spotted a Purple shape rounding the Warhead on the catwalk. Fyrenn hissed, "You! I am going to *skewer* you in front of him, as soon as we disarm this device."

Kephic looked up sharply, and his claw flew to his RAC.

Veritas snickered, "That's the beauty of it, you *foals...* The device *can't* be disarmed. My love designed it... " She stood beside Gilchrist and nuzzled his arm, "Perfectly."

Gilchrist smiled, "She's right."

Veritas giggled, like a schoolgirl. The sound was disconcerting, eliciting looks of disgust from Neyla and Varan, "Now Robbie... Be a dear..." her voice took on a steely edge, "...And *shoot* this mongrel bird."

Gilchrist's hand went, as if by reflex, to his pocket, but he paused, "I..."

Veritas hissed, her voice dropping by several octaves, "Do it! Now! Do to him *exactly* what he did to you."

Fyrenn raised his sword, then let it fall from his claw, "Do as she says. Prove me wrong. Prove yourself right. Come on."

He growled, "Do you have the darkness in you? Or is there hope for you yet?"

Robert hesitated. And Veritas ran out of patience.

What happened next stunned everyone, to the point that Neyla and Varan didn't even move to raise their weapons, they were taken so off guard.

A black and violet ribbon of energy poured from Veritas's horn, the crackling magic punctuated by white pinpricks, as if stars had been born in her sparkling mane, and wended their way to her horn.

The black, snake-like threads hovered for a moment, probing out, and disabling Robert's Thaumatic shield as if it were a simple task. Then the tendrils thrust themselves forcefully into Gilchrist's head. He screamed, and his eyes began to glow. Instantly, his hand came away from his pocket, bearing a small but powerful assassin's laser pistol.

Fyrenn was without a sword, missing several plates of his armor, and far too close to dodge the forthcoming blast. Neyla and Varan were still in the initial stages of processing what was transpiring, and Skye was long gone to safer environs.

Fyrenn sighed, inwardly. He was, for the most part, at peace.
His one, single regret, was that he wouldn't get a chance to bid his family farewell properly.

A loud 'CRACK' rang out, and the red Gryphon winced.

But the end didn't come.

Instead, a red flower sprouted from Robert Gilchrist's head.

It took Fyrenn two hundred and eleven nanoseconds to realize what the flower was, and where it had come from. For a Gryphon in bullet time, it was an agonizing eternity.

Time snapped back to its average pace at the shock of realization, and Robert Gilchrist fell to the floor. Dead before he hit the pool of his own blood swiftly forming on the catwalk.

Fyrenn turned, as if in a dream, to see Kephic standing firm, sighting down the barrel of his rifle; A look of grim fury fixed on his face, mixed with the beginnings of satisfaction. Tendrils of exhaust smoke curled from the barrel of his RAC.

For a split second, no one moved or spoke, not even Veritas.

No one with the exception of Fyrenn.

He cross-drew his second laser pistol in a haze of rage, and took aim at the violet Unicorn responsible for so many wrongs.

Fyrenn squeezed the trigger, unleashing a stream of silent red that impacted thin air.

Where Veritas had once stood, now resided what looked like a small tear in the universe.
Closer inspection revealed that, while it looked deceptively like a chunk of the night sky had simply popped into existence as a spatial tear, that the object had a faint hazy border, and a volumetric quality.

Fyrenn tried to readjust his aim, but the moment he had the entity in his sight picture, it was already speeding away, silently, at what must have been several dozen times the speed of sound.

The red Gryphon continued to fire blindly out the channeling slits, swiftly exhausting the capacity of the weapon with his careless rage, before finally throwing the brunt out pistol with all his might, and screaming in impotent rage.

For a moment Fyrenn just glared at the horizon, willing the being, 'Veritas,' to hear his mental diatribe.

'I am coming for you. One day. And I will do to *you* what you did to *him*.'

Fyrenn turned, slowly, to look on the body of his one time friend.
Gilchrist's face was frozen in a mask of horror and pain; A darkly poetic reflection of the emotions he had so often brought to others.

The Gryphon bent low over the body, and gently closed the man's eyes.
Then he looked to Kephic.

The speckled Gryphon shook his head, "I had no choice."

Fyrenn raised a claw for silence, then grabbed his brother in a tight embrace, "I know. I know. Thank you."
He had to resist the impulse to weep. There was much work still to be done, and very little time in which to do it.

He released Kephic abruptly, and gestured to the Warhead, "I've seen the plumes outside, if this thing goes off it will be the worst disaster in modern memory. Was she lying?"

Kephic shook his head, "Not as far as I can tell. I can't find anything even resembling a disarmament control, not even in password protected functions."

Fyrenn shook his head, "Any bomb can be defused. Help me."

He rushed over to the nearest panel in the device's skin, and began to work his talons into the seam. Varan, Kephic, and Neyla quickly fell to and followed suit.

In a matter of seconds, the group had managed to rip off the panel.

Behind the skin of the cylinder lay several smaller cylindrical objects, inserted into the side of the device in rows. They were slowly twisting on servo motors, carefully dispensing the right chemicals into the detonation chamber at the right times and in the right proportions.

There were, however, no wires, no circuits, and no further seams.

Varan grimace, "A disturbing development."

Neyla snorted, "Oh? Do you THINK!?"

Fyrenn once more held up a claw for silence, and continued to stare down the slowly rotating cylinders. The countdown timer beeped its minute warning.

Fyrenn stiffened, and turned to the group, "We can't disarm it. If we detonate it now, it will likely produce a shockwave, and if we leave it... The damage will be irrevocable. We have to sabotage it."

Each of the three other Gryphons stared at him in abject horror.

Fyrenn plowed ahead, "The Thermobaric reaction depends on very precise chemical balances. If one of us holds half of these Cylinders in place, then it will go off like a normal bomb---"

Neyla practically shrieked, "Yes! And Kill whoever stays behind along with it! That's a *terrible* plan!"

Varan raised an eyebrow, "And you have a viable alternate solution?"

Neyla made several frustrated choking noises before finally regaining her composure, "Fine. I'll do it."

Fyrenn stiffened, "The *hell* you will. I'm staying. That's *final.*"

Kephic glared, "As will I. We haven't exhausted every opportunity yet. We may find a way to disable the warhead first."

Neyla looked shocked, hurt, and outraged all at once. She stared at Varan, pleading with her eyes for him to side with her. The golden Gryphon turned to Kephic and Fyrenn instead, embracing them both, "It has been the highlight of my life to call you two my family. Come home safe. Please."

Fyrenn returned the embrace briefly, then nodded, doing his best to keep the tears in his eyes from showing too obviously. Neyla had already broken down and begun to weep softly.

He crossed to her, and repeated the embrace, "Do me a favor."

She stared up at him, her eyes glistening.
Fyrenn smiled slightly, "Find yourself a family. Whatever shape that takes for you. It's the life you *deserve.*"

He stood aside, and allowed Varan to shepherd his weeping friend to the edge of the platform.
The golden Gryphon, his brother, cast one last farewell look over his shoulder, before pushing himself and Neyla out into empty space, and winging away as fast as his wings could carry him, followed by the only female of his species Fyrenn had ever gotten the chance to know well.

For a few seconds, Kephic and Fyrenn merely stood, their claws outstretched, forcing half of the chemical dispensation cylinders to remain still, much to the protest of their wailing servos.
They both knew that their sacrifice was the only viable option.
There simply wasn't enough time left.

Finally, when the thirty second alarm sounded, Fyrenn spoke, "I have two things, Brother, that I want to say to you."

Kephic turned, and gave Fyrenn his full attention.

"First; Thank you. Not just for being family to me... But for what you did. I don't think I could have killed him a second time... But I don't think I could have stood to let him live either."
He reached out, momentarily allowing his cylinders to resume spinning, and embraced Kephic again.

His brother replied, voice cracking from emotion, "And the second thing?"

Fyrenn stiffened, "Second? I'm sorry."

Before Kephic could even form a query, Fyrenn slammed his fisted talons against the back of his brother's head with all the force he could muster.

For a moment, Kephic pierced him with a furious expression, then he collapsed into unconsciousness.

Fyrenn knew he only had a few more seconds to act.

He swiftly carried his brother's unconscious body to the elevator. Mercifully, it had returned to the chamber, likely when Gilchrist had called it, trying to make his escape.

Fyrenn chucked Kephic inside, yanked open the control panel, and mashed the 'EMRGNCY DSCNT' button, yanking his foreleg back out of the way as the doors snapped shut, and the steel car descended to safety at full speed.

He smiled, "Goodbye brother. Live well. May you ever have fair winds."

Fyrenn returned then to the cylinders. The infernal slowly rotating circles.

He quickly resumed his vigil, holding back the vital chemicals needed for Robert Gilchrist and Vertias' plan to execute itself despite their absence.

Out beyond the ruined atmosphere of his old world, the sun was just beginning to rise.

For a few moments, the color diffraction through the atmosphere mixed perfectly with the humidity, temperature, clouds, and direction of the sun lights, to create a perfectly naturally blue sky.

Fyrenn inhaled a breath of air; That high up it was more or less fresh. Lacking in many of the sweet, tangy, or otherwise wonderfully alive qualities of Equestrian air, but clean and unpolluted all the same.

He stared out at the city, and smiled.

"Not a bad way to end."

And then, all was heat, and light, and sound, and for a split second, pain.
Then darkness.

Neyla spun as the sound of the explosion shattered the temporary morning calm, she watched in horror as the entire top of the PER tower blew apart spectacularly, lit from within for a moment by the light of a thousand suns. The explosion was so awesome in power that the debris coming off the top third of the structure was reduced to objects no larger than a fisted claw.

She staggered, and fell to the nearest rooftop, collapsing in a heap of tears and sobs.
Varan, and his soothing brotherly wing her only comfort.

Hutch and Carradan jumped, in tandem, as the explosion rattled the window panes around them, and set off a bevy of car alarms.

Hutch dropped his canteen and gawked, "My... GOD..."

Carradan winced, "I hope they weren't in there...."

Hutch shook his head emphatically, "They couldn't have been. No way. They couldn't..."
He fervently hoped his assertion was true, but deep in his gut, he felt the boiling nagging pain of doubt.

From his position atop the New York Hilton, Mr. Utah could see the blast as if it were on a theater widescreen. He dropped his cigarette, his cold cynicism giving way for a small moment to a gut wrenching sense of worry.

When the explosion was not followed by a shockwave, he relaxed, and withdrew another cigarette. As he lit it, he threw off a casual salute to the men he had sacrificed to save the world.

"Mission accomplished."

Aston viewed the detonation from the air.

"DAMMIT! It blew!" She slammed her fist into the control panel in frustration.

The pilot whistled.

"Holy shit."

All over Manhattan, those few who had slept through the events of the night were rudely awakened by the ear splitting explosion.

Some window panes shattered, automatic rail control AI shut down the trains and applied emergency brakes, fearing an earthquake.

Nuclear attack sirens as old as the Cold War of centuries previous went off.
Their mournful tones acted as a makeshift funeral dirge.

Heads turned, parents clutched their children close, not realizing that the traumatic event was an indication that their lives would go on uninterrupted and unmolested for another day.

JRSF Soldiers removed their helmets all over the city.

Most knew what the explosion meant.

Someone had made the ultimate play.
The sacrifice maneuver.

As General Lantry watched, on the Fort Hamilton situation screen, he cast a glance at Sorven, who was staring out the window, in glass eyed shock.

They were both privy to the details. They knew the cost.

Lantry shook his head, and sighed, "Whoever it was... God go with 'em. God go with 'em."

Chapter 45

"In local news, Military Command is finally removing the last of the biohazard quarantines in what has become known as 'The Midtown Circle.' The area strongly affected by the attempted detonation of a multistage PER bioweapon, had been evacuated and cordoned off, following the generation of several massive plumes of aerosolized Potion."

The channel displayed some gratuitous footage. Amateur video of the night in question, taken from a shaking DaTab.

"The attack, designed to affect nearly the entire greater New York area, was thwarted by the new 'Joint Reconnaissance and Strike Force,' a multispecies military initiative that seeks to put an end to threats like this once and for all. The plumes of purple gas affected nearly fifteen thousand people, but that number is relatively small when compared to the nineteen and a half *million* whose lives were so bravely defended."

The imagery changed again, showing white-suited Hazmat and Crystallization teams, playing out what looked for all the world like a grim parody of a firefight; Spraying fluid at the billowing, twisting, writhing purple clouds.

"Quick thinking, and action, on the part of emergency response teams prevented the gas clouds from spreading too far beyond their origin points, but it has taken nearly two weeks to fully sweep the area and eliminate all active potion from the surfaces to which it became attached. But now, at last, families are being allowed to return home, and workers are resuming their regular hours, in The Midtown Circle."

The screen changed a third time, returning to a head-on shot of the Anchor, "In the wake of what witnesses described as an Armageddon like event, hard questions are being asked pertaining to the way in which the PER acquired the level of technology, and the amount of Potion necessary to carry out an attack on this scale. We'll have more on this at six, when Generals Lantry and Sorven address the Council live, to deliver a report on the Military's findings.
We will be bringing you that footage *exclusively* on channel 17, NYC News."

In the wake of the attack, the city did what it had always done. The city moved on.

As first one week passed from the fateful night, and then another. Rumors began to circulate.

Speculation began to swirl about the Gryphon who had supposedly been on top of the tower when it exploded so violently, and spectacularly.

For several days the rumors grew, until they had morphed and twisted into outright legends.
People began to cast wary, almost reverent glances at the burned out husk of the tower, which was visible from much of the city.

As news channels and radio stations proudly proclaimed the success of the JRSF, a phenomenon began to sweep the streets. At first it was merely a single instance of graffiti; A bold defiance of the military cordon. The image of a Gryphon's silhouette, flanked by a Pony and a Human, appeared on the main doors of the forbidden, half destroyed tower.

The incident became the spark for a firestorm. Before two weeks were out, similar imagery was everywhere, legitimately and otherwise. What had once been a mere interest in, and perhaps support for, the leo-avian species swiftly turned into lines at Conversion Bureaus so long that the Bureau Network had to beg the media to air specials on Gryphonization, urging people to first take a provided self-psychological test to be sure of their initial eligibility.

The sequence of events hearkened back to the initial days of Conversion itself. While the crowds were somewhat smaller, the effect of the circulating stories and speculation was still impressive. Conventional Ponification rates even saw a thirty five percent spike, despite the leftover hard feelings from the PER's attack.

A veritable library of online footage captured during the attack was ultimately considered to be the JRSF's best ally in public circles. The compelling imagery of three species working in perfect tandem struck a chord in many. Unity had saved Manhattan on that hellish night. None of the groups in play could have ever conceived of defending the city on their own.

There were even confirmed stories of pro-HLF sympathizers at low levels of the organization abandoning their cause, and defecting to Military custody, after seeing the footage.

There was no arguing with the truth. Humanity had friends.

Humanity had Hope.

Gryphons had become a somewhat more frequent sight in Manhattan since the attack.

The ice between Humans and Gryphons seemed to have broken. Permanently.

Even the Ponies on the streets had begun, nearly overnight, to treat the feathered creatures as friends, and a normal average part of the daily routine.

Three Gryphons in particular, however, were seeking solace from other companionship, media harassment, and the general atmosphere of appreciation that, to them, felt more like a crushing sense of depression. Constant reminders of their loss.

They had taken up residence on top of a stanchion of elevated track used for storing maglevs during the system's downtimes. The duracrete became reasonably warm during the day, and made for a good place to rest, and think. And remember.

For Kephic, Varan, and Neyla, it was difficult to forget Fyrenn's absence.
Military Command had insisted on keeping most details of the fateful night sealed for at least two weeks, in order to allow them to keep the PER guessing and on the run.

Initial perhaps over-optimistic expectations indicated that the organization might even fracture and fall completely apart. Kephic and Varan both had their private strong doubts on the matter.

Nonetheless, the Mayor of New York knew that lives had been sacrificed to defend his city. As such, he had declared that the city would keep its sun lights on. Every day for a month.

The PER tower, visible from so much of New York, was permanently framed during the day by a reasonable, if somewhat artificial and 'plastic' facsimile of a clear blue sky.

Upon first examination, Neyla seemed to be the most greatly affected by what had transpired.
But anyone who knew the Gryphons better understood that she merely had a more visible way of expressing her sadness than the other two.

It was Kephic who was most deeply saddened.

He had barely spoken in two weeks, most of the times he had opened his beak it was to express his anger, sadness, and regret to his companions.

He had, Varan determined, not yet forgiven himself for being taken by surprise.
For outliving his brother.

Carradan had called it 'Survivor's Guilt.'

He and Skye had coped in their own, distinctly more Equine way; Doing their best to drown their sorrows in victory parties, fraught with raucous celebration and many, many pints of liquid courage.

The Salmon Pegasus had twice gotten himself drunken under the table by the smaller, lighter, and apparently much more iron-willed Unicorn, much to his chagrin and humorous good natured shame.

The aforementioned Ponies, Kephic could see, were approaching the Gryphons' secret perch from across the road. He stretched, yawned, and wiped the bleariness from his eyes.

Kephic had been suffering nightmares, every single sleep cycle, since the events at the tower, and was consequently staying awake on half-naps, Coffee, and food alone.

Skye shouted to make herself heard from ground level, "Ahoy the Eyrie! Anyone up there?"

Varan poked his head over the edge of the track, and nodded, "What is the word?"

Carradan sighed, "I think you guys had better come down here. They're saying it's time."

It was disconcerting for the Being. Not knowing his name.
He had awoken under something he somehow knew was called a 'Spreading Oak Tree,' with no memory whatsoever.

And yet, he knew that description was not entirely correct either. He understood language, written and spoken. He knew of the sun, moon, and stars... Although he seemed to have a strange dichotomy of beliefs when it came to those celestial bodies.

He understood North, South, East, and West. He knew the names of all the parts of his body; Beak, feathers, fur, wings, tail, legs, claws, paws...

He knew colors. The green of tree leaves and grass, the grays, blues, and browns of stone, gravel, and dirt... The red, burgundy, and russet tones of his own body.

Somewhere, deep down, he knew he was experiencing a form of amnesia wherein a person's life's memories; Events, people, places, experiences... Were locked behind some kind of wall. A defense erected against trauma.

Memories of skills, basic knowledge, instinct, language... These remained intact.

So the 'Gryphon,' for he knew that was *what* he was, and therefore at least a part of who he was, took to wandering his world.

After the first few hours, he began to 'find' snippets of memory.

Thoughts, sounds, smells... The familiar way light glinted off a lake... Would trigger an image, or the way the wind rustled through pine forests below his wings would remind him of a voice.

Life continued that way for two weeks. He knew, because he could count the cycles of the sun and moon in his memory, which seemed perfectly functional, and perfectly detailed, in terms of recording current events.

He was alone in the world. There were no animals, no others of his kind, or any other kind that he could see. He knew he needed meat to live, but he also realized after the second day that he was neither becoming hungry, nor tired.

The world was, to all appearances, a desolate, beautiful, lonely expanse of forests, mountains, rivers, highlands, and plains.

So the red Gryphon adopted a 24/7 flight schedule, following the first river he came to, back up its length, hoping to find its source. Why, he wasn't sure, but it provided an objective.

The strategy seemed sound. As he continued up the course of the flowing blue ribbon, memories began to return at an exponential rate.

For the first week, very little made sense. He thought his name might be Isaac.
Isaac Wrenn.

In a way, he knew it was... But it wasn't. He had no explanation for the sensation.
In fact he had no way to reliably or properly describe it to himself whatsoever.

After he reached the foot of a large mountain range, the strange sounds began.
They were easy to separate from the normal ambient noises of his lonely, expansive world...

...And yet they were indistinct. Far off. Alien, yet familiar, like an image badly out of focus.

One thing he did know for sure. The sounds were voices.
Each time they manifested, he would try to listen.

Somehow he knew they couldn't hear him calling back.

His only companionship was the sky above.

Kephic hated doctors.
He hated infirmaries too.

But most of all, like Varan, Neyla, Skye, and even Carradan; He hated seeing Fyrenn laid low.

The speckled Gryphon wanted to take his fisted claw and wreak frustrated, bloody, damaging vengeance for the situation on everything within reach. His own brother was lying there, on two hospital beds pushed together, with a tube in his neck, and an artificial lung forcing him to breathe. Technology keeping him alive.

Barely Alive.

Over the last two weeks, the five friends had agreed on a rotating schedule. At least one of them would be present by the fallen Gryphon's side at all times.

They had been startled, and in some cases furiously upset, to learn that Fyrenn had a living will.

He was to be allowed exactly fifteen days, to the minute, on life support from time of admittance. No more no less. In the event he did not wake, he was to receive a quick, painless injection containing fatal levels of sedative.

It had been fourteen days, twenty three hours, and fifty minutes.

If Fyrenn didn't wake shortly... The terms of his will were imminently, depressingly, agonizingly clear.

Kephic stared down at his brother, absently fingering in his talons the device that was responsible, in a strangely ironic way, for his pain.

Gilchrist's shield generator was burnt out. In saving Fyrenn from the brunt of the explosion, it had overloaded, toasting it to a crispy thin black wafer. Thinking back, they all realized he must have pulled the device from his ex-friend's belt when he bent to pay his final respects.

Kephic himself had awoken in the half-shattered remains of the building's elevator, to find Skye tugging on his foreleg, frantically begging for help. The shield had deflected the fire, heat, and debris of the explosion, but it was Skye who had been responsible for catching Fyrenn's body in a cushioning magical field as it fell hundreds of stories without his input or conscious realization, flung free by the kinetic force of the detonation.

Fyrenn had been comatose since the instant of the blast. As near as the doctors, both Pony and Human could tell, the shield had not been designed to fit something the size of a Gryphon, and thus had not entirely absorbed the kinetic fallout of the blast over his entire body, leaving Fyrenn's head exposed to the equivalent impact force of a speeding subway train.

Skye shook her head, as the five friends gathered around their dying comrade, "Was this what it was like? After I..."

Varan nodded, "Yes."

Skye sniffed back a small stream of tears, and attempted a half hearted chuckle, "You know, I wouldn't blame you guys if you made me pay for everyone's dinner for the next millennium. No one should have to go through this."

Neyla bowed her head to hide her own tears.
Varan nodded his agreement.

Kephic clenched the damaged shield generator in a claw until he heard it begin to crackle under the strain.

As the five silently said farewell in their own ways, the doctors entered.
Both were Human; Ponies had no stomach for what Kephic had at one point equated to euthanasia, during a particularly violent verbal spat with a military appointed attorney who was present to execute Fyrenn's will.

As he watched, debating violently throwing both men from the room, the two medical professionals filled a large IV bag with triply concentrate sedative, and attached the hose to an injector. Being a Gryphon, a 'fatal dose' of sedative was, for Fyrenn, about seven hundred times what it would have been for a physically fit Human of similar age.

One of the doctors checked his watch, as the attorney also entered the room.
Kephic had to stifle a strong urge to throttle the small, wiry, suited man.
He didn't know it, but Varan and Neyla were also holding back similar desires.

Finally, the hour rolled over.
It was time.

Fyrenn knew he had reached the end of his journey.

In all the world he had seen the last two weeks, he had never spied so much as a single shaped stone. Not a trace of evidence that civilization ever had, or did exist in all the desolate, eerie reaches of the place he was stranded in.

So it came as quite a shock, when he began to recognize familiar terrain.

Most of the structures that made up Tih’ré Seli’hn were missing, but he found himself standing on what he was positive was the very spot where he had endured the trial of the lake.

From there, he felt as though his objective was clear.

The closer he had come to his destination, the more of his memories had returned.
He could now remember everything; Right up until the moment of the explosion itself.
He even had a basic theory as to where he was.

He arrived, just as the sun was preparing to rise, at the hearth on top of the mountain.
The place where the Gryphon Kingdoms had once been created, so many ages ago.

As expected, the hearth, complete will still-smoldering coals and carvings were there; Albeit they looked far newer, as if they had been created in recent decades, rather than many many centuries ago.

What Fyrenn had not expected was to see another Gryphon waiting for him.
He was tall, muscular, and a similar shade of gold to Varan, though he looked like he could have been a distant ancestor of Sildinar, or Fyrenn himself.

His face bore a distinctive iridescent blue patch that started on both cheeks as a wave-like formation, and arched over the bridge of his beak in an uninterrupted band of cerulean.

The other Gryphon bore armor too; A strange and beautiful looking suit that seemed, to Fyrenn's surprise, vaguely technological in origin.

At his back sat a sword, the hilt inlaid with a blue chunk of agate that was likely a piece of his egg.

The Gryphon smiled, "Welcome! It is good that you've arrived so early. It will give us more of a chance to talk."

Fyrenn stepped to the hearth, and cocked his head in confusion, "Who are you? How can you be here? In fact, where *is* here?"

The golden Gryphon chuckled, "As to the latter, I think you already have a theory. But I'll confirm it. We're in Mengelisk's Maze."

His words supported Fyrenn's theory.

Heinz Mengelisk had been an influential Military psychologist several decades prior.
He had devised a technique for those suffering amnesia, partial memory loss, aphasias, and even comas, to navigate their minds and set right whatever had been jolted out of place, mentally.

The technique had become known as the Mengelisk Maze. And it was required learning for everyone in Earthgov Marine Special Forces, despite the low rate of success it usually suffered.

It had been proven to work on occasion, but it required a mental and emotional conviction. A powerful courage, an almost fearless way of thinking about death that went beyond even the usual bravado most soldiers could muster.

To create, and subsequently successfully navigate the Maze, which was merely a visual representation of one's own mind, required an individual to be utterly, truly, at peace with death prior to their trauma.

Some had theorized that the Maze shared certain commonalities with the Conversion Dream, in that both represented a mind's way of re-attaching itself properly to the body after a massive physical trauma, albeit in a different fashion in each instance. Repairing 'device drivers' in the case of the Maze, versus reinstalling them in the case of the Dreams, as someone had once put it.

Fyrenn gestured to the hearth, "The Maze is usually comprised of what I've been seeing for the past two weeks; Empty environments. I seriously doubt being... What, am I in a coma? I seriously doubt being comatose has suddenly enabled me to look into the past of this city."

The second Gryphon shook his head, "Just like other beings don't appear in the Maze. No this is a result of me... Hmm...
Let us just say 'hijacking' your Maze, to use parlance that is familiar to your timeframe and cultural history."

Fyrenn narrowed his eyes, "Why?"

"My name is Seldar. I lived far too long ago for you to be able to find much mention of me in historical documents, but if you could, you would know me as one of the far flung forbearers of your friend Sildinar, genetically, and both of you, emotionally and spiritually."

Fyrenn cocked his head, but remained silent, allowing Seldar to continue, "By your current Human calendar? I've been dead for... Oh... Approaching several millennia. This place? It is a manifestation of the Hearth during my time. Before almost nay of the City was present."

Fyrenn shook his head, "That's still no real explanation for how this is possible, or why."

Seldar chuckled, "You of *all* people should not be questioning the boundaries of possibility. You have changed species, the first to join our kind from elsewhere in over a million years. Was that not enough of a clue that there are forces, magical, spiritual, and scientific, that you have not even begun to plumb the depths of? Very little is truly 'impossible.' Open your mind to the extraordinary. You are, after all, speaking with a Gryphon long, long since passed."

Seldar sighed and looked to the rising sun for a brief moment before continuing, "Fyrenn... There is no delicate way to say this, but you are medically dead. Your brain hasn't had a single cognizant thought, not physically, since the explosion. All of this? It is taking place more in your... Well what Humans call a soul, though the word hardly does it justice. But I am here to tell you something important. To deliver a message as it were. Think of me as a stand-in for an Angel; I was more qualified and pertinent to this particular task, and I was happy to oblige when asked."

Fyrenn shook his head emphatically, "If I'm dead... Then why the Maze? That's supposed to be---"

"Yes. A Self-rescue technique. Fyrenn, you are close. Very close, to making it back. You are also very close to passing on. Part of the reason I was sent here is to help reassure you that your mortal journey is not yet complete. I know you believe there is a Divine plan behind everything. You are most certainly right, moments of faith crisis aside. You have accomplished some of your purposes out there already. But you have much more still to come."

Fyrenn shook his head slowly, this time in wonderment, "And the other reason you're here?"

Seldar cocked his head to the side, as if listening to a voice only he could hear, "Time is running shorter now. So yes, we should get to the point. I am here to deliver into your care something once entrusted to me. Something lost a long time ago, and which it is *imperative* you have. You will not remember much, if any, of what has transpired here, including this conversation. Your mind's way of compartmentalizing, and protecting. But *this* you *must* remember, so timing is critical. When I give the word, you must do exactly as I say."

Fyrenn nodded his assent. What choice did he have.

"Answer me two things first."

It was Seldar's turn to cock his head, "Name them."

"First; What is it like? Life... After. And second... Do you have any other advice?"

The golden Gryphon chuckled, "You will not remember, and yet you are still so curious. Such an urge to explore. Very well; What is it like? Like living out joy, constantly, on a moment to moment basis. As to advice? Do not live your life in isolation. A family is a beautiful thing."

Fyrenn smiled, "I know. I already have one."

Seldar chuckled, "Yes. But there are opportunities for you to go beyond mere platonics. You recently gave a lovely female some advice... All I will say is, again in the vernacular of your period; Practice what you preach. That is the contemporary Human expression isn't it?"

Before Fyrenn could object, Seldar stiffened, "It is time. Prepare yourself, and do *exactly* as I do. Much history, and many lives, depend on this moment..."

Skye and Carradan and Neyla had turned away. Kephic and Varan, as Fyrenn's brothers, felt it was their solemn duty to watch.

Despite a glare from the attorney, the two male Gryphons had insisted on being allowed to deliver a short prayer before the deed was done.

But once that task was complete, there was no further delaying it.
It was time for Fyrenn to die.

As the first doctor prepared the syringe, the second carefully disconnected Fyrenn's feeding tube, and artificial breathing system. The red Gryphon's vital functions began their steady decline almost instantly.

Kephic sighed deeply. It was all he could do to contain sobs of rage, and sadness.
Varan had always been the better of the pair at emotional control, but deep down he was no less conflicted and sad.

Both Gryphons knew this moment was going to haunt them for the rest of their days.
Perfect memory was, at times, the worst curse imaginable.

Yet they forced themselves to watch as the needled descended.
Both separately indulged in a longer moment of accelerated time. They each wanted to think of their brother as a living being for one more moment.

Then, all at once, the room erupted into chaos.

The needle was on the very point of penetrating Fyrenn's neck, when his foreleg snapped up and snagged the Doctor's right wrist with crushing force.

Simultaneously, the medical instrumentation let out a bevy of cacophonous alarms and tones as the display graphs on the screens above the bed went wild.

Fyrenn, still somehow not breathing, rose until he was sitting on his haunches.
He stared ahead, glassy eyed, and spoke, words pouring from his beak as though they were not his own.

"In bonds of family six set out; To seek The Dispossessed,
In joy and sorrow, grief and strife, bearing morbid stress.
Where Sun and Moon the expanse share, the six will find the power,
To put an end to Darkness... Strife... The war of Night's own hour."

Kephic and Varan were staring, eyes wide, as they beheld what may as well have been a ghost.
Neyla let out a yelp of surprise, Skye's mane stood on end as if electrically charged, and Carradan swooned, nearly collapsing onto the floor.

Kephic was about to open his beak, when they were all jolted again, by the sound of a deep breath.

Fyrenn gasped for breath frantically, like a drowning man. In a sense, he was suffering asphyxiation, but he was unaware of exactly why. For a moment, he could only see a great white expanse, and hear an unintelligible stream of noise, as if his ears were immersed in a waterfall.

Then, slowly, his breathing came under control. His vision faded from pure white, to shapes, then to colors, then all at once the world came into its familiar hyper-clear focus.

The first thing Fyrenn saw was Kephic, practically in his face. His brother was yelling something, but Fyrenn's ears still hadn't quite kicked in. Slowly, he began to make out words, then all at once his aural sense came back full force as well.

"...FYRENN! ANSWER ME! BREATHE! COME ON!"

Fyrenn shook his head to clear it, "I'm Here I'm HERE! stop SHOUTING DAMMIT!"

For a moment, the room was utterly still and silent, punctuated only by the now steady beep of the heart monitor above the bed. Then, all at once, his friends and family were all over Fyrenn, nearly collapsing the bed as they rushed to verify that the miracle was real.

Fyrenn found himself swept up in the emotion, shedding nearly as many tears as Kephic, Neyla, and Skye. All at once they were laughing, and embracing, and smiling.

He wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but there would be more than enough time to learn.
All Fyrenn wanted, right then and there, was to enjoy a moment.
A moment with family.
A moment of pure joy.

Epilogue

The meeting had not been what Fyrenn would have called a 'success.'

As slow as soldiers were to forget the lessons learned in war, politicians seemed conversely quick to dismiss them. Despite repeated corroborating testimony from all four Gryphons, with three Generals of various rankings to back them up, the Earthgov Council had waved the concerns about Veritas, and the HLF infiltration of the final JRSF operation, aside.

As the four Gryphons, two Ponies, Hutch, Aston, and Sorven vacated the chamber, the latter shook her head, "I swear, they're never going to learn."

Hutch snorted, "At this stage, does it matter? We *did* manage to secure the funding upgrade."

Aston chuckled, "Thank heavens for small mercies."

Kephic shot Fyrenn a sideways glance, "I noticed you didn't mention the exact nature of Veritas' escape."

Fyrenn looked in turn to each of his brothers, eyebrow raised, "Neither did you two. I think we would all agree. No one in that room, present company excepted, is going to believe for one instant that Veritas is... Some sort of Wisp-like creature."

Skye smirked, "Yeah. You'd be oh so convincing. Especially if we tell em you woke up out of a coma after being declared brain-dead, and recited four lines of prophecy. And that was *before* you started breathing."

Fyrenn shook his head, "I still wouldn't have believed it happened if you all hadn't shown me the security footage."

Carradan let out a short, sharp bark of laughter, "Buddy, you had me so scared, I swooned. Which ain't an easy feat. I took out a whole battalion of PER you know. Stone cold Bucker."

Hutch glared good naturedly, "I seem to remember you managed to knock *one* soldier on his rump before I had to come save your tail end from the mother of all angry Trolls."

Neyla smirked, "Ah! So the truth outs at last!"

The mood lightened at that, and remained relatively upbeat all the way back to the Bureau.
The group traveled by VTOL, to save time. As the three craft touched down in a cordoned off landing zone at the end of a side-street, Fyrenn thought he detected the sounds of a crowd.

His suspicions were confirmed when the hatches opened to reveal a massive throng of people filling the front steps of the Bureau. Hutch had to shout to make himself heard over the combined roar of the engines, and the crowd, "It's been like this ever since you went under!"

Fyrenn gaped, "Well I hope you brought the keys to the *back* door!"

Sorven shook her head, "You guys need to make an appearance, even if its just walking in, smiling and waving. You're heroes to these people. They need to put faces on this if we're gonna make a lasting impression for good."

Varan grimaced, "I would prefer unarmed combat against five armed foes."
He said it with such deadpan, that Skye had to stifle her muzzle to prevent herself from bursting out laughing.

Kephic jerked his head, "I think we've been had. It looks like the press is arriving."

Aston shrugged, "Sorry guys. Lantry hit us with it at the last minute. Says he's got a big announcement, and wanted us on hand." The group began walking slowly towards the crowd.

Neyla cocked her head, "We're going before some sort of audience?"

Fyrenn nodded, "Nothing major. Just the larger portion of the planet. Why do I suddenly feel more like a trophy than a soldier?"

Carradan laughed, "Oh come on you overgrown chickens, it's just a bunch of cameras."

Skye needled him in the side with a hoof, "Says the guy who probably grew up in front of one."

The Pegasus smirked, "Born and bred sister. You doing anything later?"

Skye chuckled, "If I wasn't before, I sure am now."

Carradan winced, "Ouch. You didn't even give me a chance."

"Talk to the hoof."

Skye's word was the last word, as the crowd had now noticed the approaching party, and gone, as Fyrenn would later describe it 'Hogwild Berzerk.'

Hutch smiled, and gritted out through his teeth, "So *this* is what all those pop stars have to live with every day?"

Aston chuckled and shot back, "And they wonder about the suicide rate...?"

General Lantry was already waiting at an impromptu podium that had been hastily wheeled out to the top of the steps. ConSec guards were hastily clearing the top step, and space a few levels down for the press.

Lantry smiled broadly as the group finally managed to break through the crowd, and join him, forming a large semicircle around the podium, facing the press, and the cheering civilians.

The General waved, and raised his hands for silence. It took several minutes, but the raucous noise finally died down. Fyrenn noted that the cameras were already rolling.

"My fellow New Yorkers... It is a good day to be breathing!"
The statement elicited a flurry of applause.

Kephic looked slightly bemused. Like Fyrenn he hadn't figured Lantry for a public figure. But the General's crusty outer surfaces apparently hid an adept showman.

"Today, I'm here to commemorate the gift these nine people; Three Humans, two Ponies, and four Gryphons... Were so instrumental in giving us. The gift of free will. These nine warriors put aside boundaries of rank, status, background, and even species, to put their lives on the line...
So that we could wake up to another day of peace."

The response was deafening, Fyrenn even caught sight of a camera tech frantically adjusting a volume slider to compensate. He did his best to smile, pouring the joy he felt at simply being alive into his expression, and hoping that it would read well on-camera.

When the commotion finally subsided, Lantry continued, "But ladies and gentlemen, of New York, and of the world, I'm also here today to present you all with a gift on behalf of a friend."

The low murmur sweeping the crowd died down to absolute silence. Fyrenn noticed the same curious expressions gracing his brother's beaks, that were also plastered to Neyla, Skye, and Carradan.

"It is my duty, and distinct privilege, to inform you that a joint team of Equestrian mages, Gryphon Engineers, and Human scientists, under the auspices and patronage of their majesties Celestia and Luna, have succeeded in creating a functional prototype for a Barrier Retardation Device."

Silence reigned. Lantry paused to let the words sink in, "In short; while we can not stop the Bubble, we have found a way to appreciably slow its progress... And in addition the system, once activated, will artificially ensure a short, stable route between the Bubble edge on one side, and the Equestrian Nation on the other, despite the Barrier's growth. It may not seem like much, in the grand scheme of things, but it will give this city *three* more years."

At first, no one moved, or spoke. But then the applause began, first one person, then two, then ten, then fifty. Before long, the assembled crowd was celebrating as if they had been given the greatest gift imaginable.

Fyrenn smiled and shook his head in awe, reflecting that perhaps, in a way, they had.

As the press dispersed, Fyrenn took a moment to stop and speak to General Lantry.
The man smiled at his approach, "Lieutenant Commander! It's good to see you back on your... Paws."

Fyrenn inclined his head, "That was quite an announcement. I wouldn't be surprised if they make this a public holiday before the week is out."

Lantry nodded, "The press for the Bureau, and the Military, has never been better."

Fyrenn smiled, "That's always a good thing I suppose. But I'm not here to deliver congratulations."

"Oh?"

Fyrenn narrowed his eyes, "I respect you sir. Honestly I do. As an officer, a leader, and a man... But let me make one thing imminently clear. If you ever see fit to deceive me, the way you did with Skye, again? I will personally donate my life's savings to your retirement fund. Then I will make you chew and swallow every last credit chit, with a glass of acid to wash it down. And from now on? Anyone in my family is off-limits to you, or anyone else in Military Intelligence for the purposes of your wet work. Find someone else to pretend to be dead."

Fyrenn entered the Bureau to find his friends waiting for him. Skye chuckled, "What was *that* about?"

The red Gryphon smiled and winked, "Just looking after a family matter. All better now. So... What's next?"

Kephic shrugged, "Well, Gilchrist is gone... But I doubt that will stop the PER."

Hutch nodded, "We will get a *much* needed reprieve out of it tho."

Sorven chimed in, "Time we can use to start running down the HLF."

Aston smiled, "You, ma'm, are brass after my own heart. With all due respect."

The General glared at Laura, but beneath the expression lurked the beginnings of a good natured smile.

Neyla shook her head, "There is always Fyrenn's prophecy to consider. Just because no one else will believe us doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue it."

Skye nodded her assent, "Dollars to bits, it's got something to do with those spooky skeleton-thingies you guys told me about."

Varan glowered, "And Veritas."

Fyrenn sighed contentedly, "Well then! I suppose we have our work cut out for us. Where shall we begin?"

Carradan's stomach filled the ensuing silence with a loud, amusingly timed rumble.
The Salmon Pegasus grinned sheepishly, "How about with lunch?"

Fyrenn laughed, "*That* I second."

Neyla smiled, "No argument here."

Varan and Kephic simultaneously nodded.

Skye began jumping up and down, "Oooh ooh! Dibs on the haycakes!"

Carradan smirked, "Only if you beat me to 'em."

Everyone laughed as the group ambled its way back out into the Manhattan afternoon, no particular destination in mind, each fully intent on taking a day to take a breath...

...Then getting right back into the action. Come hell or high water.

Mr. Utah made a point of avoiding the aptly christened 'knee knocker' as he let himself into the darkened room.

His benefactor's eyes were best adjusted to darkness, and on darkness she insisted.

Mr. Utah's theory was that she was simply insecure; the magic-scarce environment of Earth left her at a disadvantage, both tactically, and in Mr. Utah's opinion aesthetically.

She glowered, "Did your agents retrieve it."

Mr. Utah smiled, and withdrew the item from his inside jacket pocket, setting it on the table, and shoving it across to her casually.

It was unassuming; A small one inch, by six inch gray cylinder, inlaid at several junctures with faint circuitry lines.

At first glance, there was no indication that it was the focal point of the HLF operation codenamed "Ragnar." That it was the power of Armageddon in a data chip.

Mr. Utah snapped his fingers, and a hologram pulsed into existence above the chip.
The Benefactor rustled her leaf-like wings, and grinned, an expression that even the Devil himself would have found daunting.

She nosed the displayed model carefully, as if savoring it, "Well done. They suspect nothing?"

Mr. Utah shook his head, "They were too busy with the PER. Our agent walked straight in, removed it, planted the duplicate, and walked out. No one goes into those vaults, except for the maintenance technicians, once a year at best. They won't know it's missing until it hits them..."

The man thumped his fist on the table, "...Literally."

The Benefactor's smile acquired a sickly sweet demure quality, and she intentionally brushed up against Mr. Utah on her way to the door, "Do you have the prisoners?"

"Do you have the substance?"

The Benefactor chuckled, "Naturally. I must admit, many in my hive find it amusing that you value our chitin excretions so highly."

Mr. Utah snorted, "Many in my Cabinet think we're wasting potential hostages letting you suck the joy out of their heads, or whatever it is you do."

Chrysalis smiled, "And that's why it's such a perfect compromise. Nobody is truly happy. See you again... Soon."

The HLF Submarine 'Retribution' steamed its way towards the bubble, ferrying the organization's Equestrian Benefactor, Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, back to her home.

Back to her army.

Fresh food in hoof.

The remaining heads of the PER's over-cells were mystified. Mere moments after news of the Manhattan attack broke, they had received an urgent microburst transmission from their leader. A single imperative; 'Assemble.'

The PER's central settlement would have occupied beautiful real-estate, had the rainforests surrounding it been a living breathing verdant biome, rather than a stark gray petrified tangle.

But the branches and trunks of the trees still made for excellent camouflage, dead or alive.

As they waited for the man, who they knew by so many names, the fourteen Humans fell to talking amongst themselves about the desolate view out the room's ceiling to floor windows.

Their aesthetic reflections were abruptly interrupted by the entrance of a familiar violet Unicorn.

They all knew of Veritas; She seldom left her beloved's side, which made his absence all the more keenly disturbing.

Perhaps more disturbing, Veritas was flanked by two Diamond Dogs. Their armor, unlike traditional PER garb, was jet black with a violet shoulder bar. Their helmets, disconcertingly, covered their eyes with an opaque plasteel strip.

Veritas marched to the center of the room, "Brethren; We have suffered a great loss. Our leader, Robert Gilchrist, is dead."

A perturbed murmur swept the room like wildfire.

The violet unicorn raised her hoof for silence, "However... This is not an irreparable setback, by any means. Even now, I am taking steps..." She nodded curtly at her guards, who moved to bar the door, "...to ensure the future of the PER."

She tapped the room's lighting controls with a slight nudge of her magical field, and the windows began turning opaque.

The over-cell heads shot confused, and disturbed glances at each other.

The appointed speaker for the group stood, shakily, "No offence... But with him gone... I think we're going to need stronger leadership than you can provide. We don't even know you that well."

Veritas smiled, as the black tendrils began to wend their way from her horn, creeping across the room's central table, splitting into fourteen 'branches' that rose, like long extinct Cobras, to face the terrified over-cell leaders.

When she spoke again, Vertias' voice bore a quality, and timbre, that could only be described as regal, "You will know us better hereafter!"

The Diamond Dog guards watched, impassively and unmoving, as the remaining leaders of the PER writhed.

And screamed.

ACV-10, the UES Yorktown; Named, and numbered, for the famed Essex class carrier of old, the Area Control Vessel was a floating fortress, command center, landing strip, city, and on occasion, neutral meeting ground.

The vessel was close to the point in the Atlantic where it had first served that same function; Acting as a meeting ground for the first official talks between the Royal sisters of the Equestrian Nation, and the Ambassadors of the Earthgov Council.

Over the years, the ship had remained in the same general area, sometimes being called to shelter newfoal transports from the occasional, and ill conceived HLF naval raid. Other times, and more frequently, being used as a stopover for diplomats from Equestria.

The Yorktown had made history before. She was about to do so again.

"Scythe two oh one, Yorktown LSO; spin to go-around, we have incoming foursie traffic."
The term, 'foursie,' had become common pilot speak aboard the carrier for Gryphons and Pegasi, denoting their defining common trait of having four legs.

The pilot, Air Corps colonel Thomas West, snickered to himself as he twisted the stick to the right, gently nudging the rudder pedals at the same time, "Who have we got this time Maggie?"

"Rumor says its the Royal White One herself."

"Nice. We can paint another sun on the island."

The crew had taken to painting emblems on the island, beside the combat decorations, to denote visits from Celestia, Luna, and the Gryphon King.

Several minutes passed, and the LSO's voice returned to West's headset,
"Scythe two oh one, you are cleared for landing. And before you ask; Yeah. It's her."

Thomas grinned, and attached his oxygen mask, as per landing protocol, "Tell Louis to get out my paintbrush."

Maggie's laughter filled the channel, "Alright CAG. Scythe two oh one, cleared for final approach, call the ball."

Aircraft carriers still used the 'antiquated' meatball system of landing mirrors, as an added failsafe against instrumentation failure. Scythes didn't need the system when performing vertical landings, but Celestia's entourage would be gumming up the VTOL landing zone, so West was relegated to a 'good ol fashioned' trap, or arrestor-assisted landing.

The colonel smiled, "Scythe two oh one, ball!"

A few moments later the sleek silver craft roared to a stop, the backwash from its passage ruffling a few strands of Celestia's flowing mane.

The monarch offered a smile, and a nod, to the fighter's pilot.

Human craft, even the deadly ones, were admittedly, works of art.
And the people who flew them were Knights, in their own way.

The designated meeting room on the Yorktown had seen enough service that, over the years, it had been transformed from a spartan gunmetal cube into a carpeted paneled diplomatic lounge worthy of an embassy.

A granite table dominated the center of the room. Two walls were occupied with massive screens, one was relegated to the door, flanked by the Carrier's flag, and naval group emblem, and the final wall was decorated with the crests of Earthgov, the Equestrian Nation, and more recently, the Gryphon Kingdoms.

The room was occupied, on the auspicious occasion in question, by a diverse and somewhat volatile group.

Curled up in one end of the expansive chamber, taking up nearly all the space between the back wall and table, was a fearsome looking green Dragon, accompanied by a small gray Pony stallion, clad in the most peculiar and menacing armor.

At the opposite end of the table, eyeing the gargantuan reptile silently, and warily, was a strapping specimen of the Lupine Diamond Dogs.

Tucked into another corner, as far from the Diamond Dog, and Dragon, as they could get, were a female Zebra, and a large russet colored male Buffalo, adorned with a feathered band upon his brow.

Dancing nervously around the Zebra's legs was a small pastel purple creature best described as a fusion of Changeling and Pony.

As time wore on, and the assembled heads of state began to grow impatient for the arrival of their hosts, the small creature carefully, haltingly, made her way over to the Draconic ambassador, and his son.

Eyeing the Dragon with no small amount of trepidation, she worked up the courage to address the gray Pony, "H... Hi."

He offered her an embarrassed smile, "Hi."

"I'm Mimic!"

"Chip."

Over the next few minutes, the pair hit it off wonderfully, finally working up the gumption to ask their respective adoptive parents if they could be excused to roam the ship.

Ambassador Sharptooth lent his approval, and Mimic's adoptive guardian followed up, "If a chauffer you can locate, you may roam free, but do not return too late."

Shortly after the two unique younglings coerced a Seaman second class into tagging along on their grand adventure, the hosts of the summit finally arrived.

Celestia and Siidran, flanked by two Royal guards, and one well armored Gryphon Knight, took up places at each end of the table. Silently, the other ambassadors acquired seats, perches, or standing positions.

Celestia smiled, "It's good to see you again Sharptooth. You as well Zecora."

The Dragon and Zebra both returned the smile, and inclined their heads.
The Lupine Diamond Dog drove a fist into the table, "I want to know why we were all brought here, on one of your dreadful ships in my case, only to wait for an hour for you to arrive."

Twin glares from the Buffalo chieftain, and King Siidran swiftly silenced the canine.

Celestia raised a hoof, "A valid question."

She swept the room with her gaze, receiving an encouraging half smile from Siidran.

"Ambassadors, Alpha, Chieftain... We are here because of the success of the Gryphonization program. We are here, because exclusivity breeds both contempt, and stagnation. We are here, because Diversity is strength. In short..."

The Monarch of the Sun grinned, "We are here to discuss... Options."

Special thanks to Callie's Author for the guest appearance;
Give her Tumblr some love here; Ask Callie

Pre-Readers (Past and Present) Alphabetically:
Airstream
darthrex
frieD195
MetBoy
rigomi

Fyrenn and the rest return in:

Available Here.

Added Advice and Encouragement From:
Defoloce
&
midnightshadow

Tacksworn, Sharptooth, Carmine, Chip, Beryl, etc belong to midnightshadow
Mimic is rigomi's creation

In The Darkness, the void of voids, the space between, the voice of the one-who-would-lead rang out, silvery like the moon, yet as black as the abyss, each word repeating and echoing back on itself, as if spoken within a massive cavern.

Silence reigned in the Darkness, from the reaches of the void, to the spires of the Fortress-within-the-frozen-expanse.

The one-who-would-lead spoke again, "The six, are gathered. Send for those-who-we-command, have them found. Have them Slain."

A rising cacophony, at once fire, and water, darkness, and starlight, rose to answer the call.
The one-who-would-lead bellowed a war cry, "The Night, shall have its reign!"

Chapter 22

The barrier between Earth and Equestria.
Not so much a true barrier, as a spatial membrane. A threshold between worlds.
The membrane’s barrier-like qualities were merely the result of the Thaumatic imbalance between the two pockets of spacetime.

Since Thaumatic radiation was so reactive, objects that were capable of surviving in such an environment could easily handle transition into a less charged universe, such as Earth's, and the return trip as well.

The problems only arose when matter transited from the less charged universe to the more charged universe.

Wrenn didn’t understand the actual physics behind it, but someone had once used the illustration of legos to explain it to him in layman’s terms. Matter from Earth’s universe had all kinds of color patterns in it’s lego blocks. Equestria’s matter had many of the same colors, but in wildly different patterns to suit the addition of a new color or two.

Since the first law of thermodynamics stated that matter and energy could not be truly created or destroyed, only changed or transmuted, Earth’s matter could not simply disappear when it crossed the barrier.

Instead, the matter would be broken down to its ‘component blocks.’
If the object was sufficiently simple, such as an air molecule, a drop of water, or an ingot of raw iron without additives, then it would swiftly recombine in the proper ‘pattern’ with the proper ‘new blocks’ included.

If the object was more complex, such as a life form, the recombination wouldn’t happen swiftly or precisely enough, causing all the ‘blocks’ to fall apart violently.

Essentially, nothing would be left but base elements, and the dissociation process would release energy akin to the dissolution of bonds seen in a fission reaction.

That was the primary reason there was no known way to simply ‘adapt’ a human’s quantum ‘block patterns’ short of Conversion. The recombination required certain new quantum signatures to exist, and those new patterns had been found to be fundamentally, deathly incompatible with human DNA, or anything even remotely similar.

If you happened to be an Earth life form, such as homo sapiens sapiens, that meant you would come out of barrier transit as a roughly person-shaped carbon dust cloud; blown away by the small to moderate explosion produced as the instant dissociation of your atomic bonds manifested as pure energy.

On the other claw, as Wrenn understood it; if one was an Equestrian life form, one could cross the barrier with trace elements of Earth, such as oxygen in the lungs, without suffering any pain.
The molecules of the simple non-living substances would adapt fairly seamlessly.

Transit tended to do odd things to complex matter, such as food, so anyone who was planning to cross the barrier from Earth in the direction of Equestria was advised to do so on an empty stomach, or risk severe indigestion at best. Injury at worst.

Thus, to stock up on more food, and take on one of Sildinar’s chosen new team members, the group would have to stop at the port of Foals’ Haven.

Wrenn was looking forward to seeing Equestrian ships, and getting a glimpse of their lifestyle.
He was not looking forward to meeting the new Pony.

In his mind, there was no replacing Skye.

It was nothing personal, but he didn’t see the need to add in someone new and untried so soon.
It felt wrong somehow, as though it was dishonoring the memory of a fallen comrade.

A unit of soldiers was analogous enough to their little group that Wrenn figured some of the same rules were applicable. He had seen teams fall apart before due to the inclusion of a new soldier too soon after the death of a squadmate.

The interpersonal tensions were often too complex to handle, and were severely exacerbated by the grief of loss, and the suspicion of new faces. It was often times an explosive mixture.

Seeing the Barrier in person, for the first time, put all other thoughts out of Wrenn’s head.
The moment it came into visual range, it became impossible to ignore. The sheer scale of it demanded the attention of the brain in the way only a planetary-scale large imposing object could.

It looked like nothing so much as a God-sized soap bubble. A shimmering semi-transparent wall with an ethereally fluidic aspect, enhanced by the subtle, but visible rainbow patterns that slowly danced across its surface in multi-kilometer long bands.

Air didn’t pass through the bubble by diffusion, the pressure was not sufficient, but sometimes water did due to tidal forces in both worlds, producing strange eddies and currents along both edges of the membrane.

There had even been a very few sightings of Equestrian fish in Earth waters, before they either turned back to their own ocean, or the lack of sunlight, edible plants, or prey starved them to death.

Wrenn craned his head, first left, then right, taking in the extent of the Barrier.

A recent newscast had cited its radius at just over one thousand kilometers, which meant that a very slight curvature was still visible from up close, especially to Wrenn’s Gryphon eyes.

The shimmering wall also stretched up vertically to his sight limit. The bubble had touched the very edge of Earth’s atmosphere, but didn’t seem to be going any higher. The general shape of the phenomena actually appeared to be conforming partly to the shape of the planet as it consumed it, leaving it ‘squished’ into an oblate spheroid wider than it was tall.

Through the Barrier, a dizzying sight was laid out for all to see; A window into another world.
The time differences between Earth and Equestria were negligible at most of the intersect points, approximately 1.618 seconds, so it was night on both sides of the membrane.

The weather patterns, however, were startlingly different.

On the Earth side, the usual layers of gray clouds were visible, pushing up against the bubble, splitting to meander around it.

But on the Equestrian side, there was a clear night sky, filled with billions of vivid bright points of light, distorted only by the bubble, and occasionally occluded by a stray fluffy white cloud.

Casting a glow so strong it actually passed out through the barrier and provided some luminescence on the Earth side, was a massive silver disc of light.

With a shock, Wrenn realized what it was.
The Moon.

Or Equestria’s moon, in any case.
Equestria wasn’t a ‘planet’ like Earth, but more of a 'disc-world,' so far as anyone could tell. Hypothesis about Equestria's origin, particularly that it was an artificial construct, were still flying fast and thick in the astrophysics community.

The shape of the world was why matter from Earth was creating more land on the other side of the bubble. More of it could be used to create visible ground, since so little was required for the rock beneath, by comparison to Earth. According to tests, there was no asthenosphere, mantle, nor core to Equestria. Just a layer of crust roughly twice as thick as Earth's in total.

The group approached the barrier and slowed to a hover.
Varan called out, “Exhale just before you cross, or you’ll be sorry.”

Wrenn raised an eyebrow, Carradan snorted, “Why?”

Kephic chuckled, “Because if you don’t, it usually results in a week long case of the hiccups.”

Upon seeing Wrenn and Carradan’s disbelieving expressions, Kephic shrugged, “I don’t know why. But believe me, it's true. I’ve seen it, and it’s not pretty. But it is funny.”

Varan smiled slightly, “For those of us who know better, anyhow. Shall we?”
He exhaled and darted across, his transit momentarily producing ripples in the barely visible rainbow patterns inching across its surface.

Carradan glanced back and forth between Wrenn and Kephic, “Might as well... I feel like I should yell something....”

The salmon colored Pegasus thought for a moment, then dived through the barrier as fast as he could screaming the whole way, “GERONIMOOOOOOOO.....”

Wrenn looked on in amusement, “He’s not always the most creative of sorts, is he?”

Kephic chuckled, and prepared to cross himself.

The black and white Gryphon paused when he noticed Wrenn’s transfixed expression.
“What?”

Wrenn shook himself, “I just.... Its not every day you step into another *world.*”

Kephic nodded, beating his wings in a backwards motion to rejoin his friend, “I know what you mean. When I first crossed over to Earth, it was an... Emotionally moving moment.
Exploration is quite a thrill.”

Wrenn took a deep breath, “Well... Here’s to exploration then.”
He exhaled as far as he could, and dived towards the barrier.

Passing through the membrane was easy. Wrenn hadn’t expected to feel anything, but for a split second there was the impression of pushing through a tiny bit of resistance. He didn’t know it, but the sensation was the result of differing temperatures on the two sides of the bubble creating a small standing pressure front.

And just like that, Isaac Wrenn wasn’t on Earth anymore.

The first thing to hit him was the smell. As he filled his lungs with Equestrian air for the first time, he experienced a normal atmosphere for the first time in his life.

The effect was shocking.

The air itself almost had a flavor, a sweet and salty tang from the ocean below mixed with the subtle promise of blossoming plant life not too far away. Wrenn had been born into a post-biosphere Earth; To him, clean living air was a sublime discovery.

The next discovery, or rather re-discovery, was the sky.
The moon and stars had been surprising before, but now that he was actually seeing them, actually flying under them, it was a whole new experience.

He nearly fell out of the sky, he was so preoccupied with staring up at the blazing pinpricks of multicolored light. It was almost like looking at a painting, it was too beautiful to be anything other than contrived created artwork of the highest form; The way the patterns drew the eye along, the subtle variations to the shades of black and deep blue in the non-emptiness behind them.

Wrenn had to remind himself with a jolt that art was exactly what it was.

The moon itself drew his attention next. It was producing enough light that his eyes could process everything with the same detail as if it were under daylight conditions. The quality of the light fascinated him. On Earth, the only light quality besides ‘artificial’ were the sickly shades of teal the sun’s filtered light produced as it passed through the ruined atmosphere.

Equestria’s moon rendered everything in a blue-tinged shade of liquid silver, lending life to every edge of every feather, and every crest of every wave in the ocean below.

The world felt so enormous. So real. So alive. Being under a true sky, over a living ocean, seeing everything under real light. It was very nearly too much for Wrenn.

He finally managed to regain enough of a grip on his senses to notice that Carradan was having a very similar transcendental experience.

The Pegasus was busy mouthing ‘wow’ as he gaped at the star-strewn expanse above.

Kephic and Varan were busy with their own examination of the world.
For them it was home, but a home they hadn’t seen in a year.
It wasn’t unexpected to them, or new, but it was deeply refreshing.
In such a case, absence did make the heart grow fonder.

Kephic finally had to shake Wrenn out of his trance, “Come on! I’m starving, and it's a good few hours of full speed flight to Foals’ Haven. If we don’t start now, we won’t have the energy to make it. Besides, you haven’t seen *anything* yet.”

Kephic hadn’t been exaggerating. A seven hour flight was a grueling prospect without food.
Wrenn wondered why they couldn’t have eaten an Equestrian meal beforeclaw, but the question answered itself almost immediately; If the food was overly tainted with Earth molecules, it was too big a risk.

Despite the increasingly nagging pain in his stomach, he found his attention divided fairly equally between the sky and the sea. He was immensely interested to discover that he could see, at times, schools of fish darting by in search of food, or currents.

Animal life. Other living beings besides Humans and Equestrians. It was such an impactful sight, that it held his eyes for hours.

Somehow the images were at once familiar and alien. Against the backdrop of his Human memories, seeing a living fish was an incredible new experience. But to the Gryphon instincts that were also part of him, the fish was familiar. An enjoyable easily accessible food source.

And Wrenn was in desperate need of food.

He only debated with himself for a moment. On the one claw, the other Gryphons probably hadn’t suggested it because it was a great deal more macabre in Human terms to snag something live, kill it, and eat it raw. On the other claw, he was very hungry, and didn’t feel any sort of compulsion to avoid the inevitably messy aspects of eating a raw animal carcass.

He tucked in his wings and stooped, flaring to glide along the surface of the ocean.
On a whim, he splayed out one claw and ran his index talon through the water, producing a fresh cool mist of salty liquid that hit him full in the face. He stuck out his tongue and grinned like an idiot at the taste; Clean, sharp, fresh.

He scanned the waves ahead, and picked out what looked to be a reasonably sized fish.
Wrenn beat his wings twice to catch up, then took a quick swipe at the creature.
He missed miserably.

It wasn’t that his eyes couldn’t account for the water diffraction, but he hadn’t thought out his approach properly, and the fish had seen his shadow. The water produced too much resistance for his claw to catch up in time, and the silvery piscine darted off into the invisible watery depths before Wrenn could try again.

On the next attempt, Wrenn felt his talons sink into the creature’s scales, and he quickly flared his wings to pull the wriggling prey from the water. His instincts told him exactly how to kill the fish as kindly as possible, and he had a decent idea of how to remove the head.

As he climbed back up to join the group, he fell to removing the scales with the sharp edge of one talon.

Carradan turned away, looking slightly queasy. Kephic looked genuinely impressed, he shot a knowing glance at Varan, “I told you we shouldn’t bother easing him into it.”

Varan shrugged, and dived after his own meal, tossing off, “It seemed prudent at the time.” over one shoulder.

Kephic chuckled, Wrenn snorted, “Don’t ‘ease’ me into anything. I’m one of you now, I want to dive straight in.”

Kephic nodded, “I was hoping you’d feel that way. Now, I’m going to go find a meal before Varan takes all the good prey.” He spared a glance for Carradan, “You’ve seen worse! Fish have to swim, we have to eat.”

With that he dived rapidly to join Varan, leaving Wrenn to continue scaling his fish.
He felt sorry for Carradan, given that he didn’t have any food to sate his hunger.

Wrenn resolved to make sure the reporter got a big portion once they made it to Foals’ Haven.

When the last scales came off, Wrenn lifted the fish to his beak, and used the sharp edge to tear off a strip of the raw inner meat. As he chewed, flavor exploded on his tongue. In an instant, synthetic meat became the most disgusting thing in the world. A whole new way of thinking about food took hold, the culinary equivalent of a colorblind person seeing the full spectrum for the first time.

Wrenn’s hunger only served to magnify the experience. He scarfed down the rest of the fish, only stopping short of the membranous tail. He found the bones fairly easy to crush inside his beak and swallow along with the meat. No sense in wasting good nutrients.

Around the time Varan and Kephic returned, Wrenn pulled ahead to net himself a few more fish.
Carradan was obviously doing his best to ignore the meat consumption, but Wrenn could see on his return trip that the Pegasus was having a hard time ignoring the sound of crunching bones.

Wrenn finished his second fish as quietly as he could, and despite the fact that he felt like he could stomach at least two more, he refrained for Carradan’s sake.

After an extended period of silence, Wrenn asked, “How can you tell we haven’t started off in the wrong direction?”

Varan pointed up, “Stars.”

Kephic nodded in agreement, “It’s fairly easy to memorize the patterns and how they correspond to a map. I’ll show you if you like.”

Wrenn smiled, “Well it’s not as if I get GPS reception here.”

Foal’s Haven had once been a small seaside town known only for being home to a pineapple plantation, and being one of Equestria’s three ‘ports’ by the loosest possible definition.

It had been called ‘Pineapple Glen’ in those days, and it has seen, at most, a ship every two months.

When Ponification became a reality, the town had turned into the Equestrian nation’s fifth largest municipality overnight. The constant influx of newfoals had lent the town its new purpose, most of its streams of revenue, and finally its new name.

The first sign of the town was not the sight of a shoreline over the horizon, but rather a ship.
Wrenn had intellectually understood that Equestrians must build ships to bring newfoals across the ocean, but he had never really thought to visualize them, and never bothered to do an image search.

The craft was wide and tall; Built for space, not for speed. A Carrack , not a Sloop. It looked to be made of wood, painted up in white with gold trimming, which seemed to hearken to Celestia’s own heraldic colors.
Bright blue pennants topped the masts, snapping in the breeze, their semi-reflective edges glowing in the moonlight.

The ship bore surprisingly complicated rigging given that it had to be maintained and sailed by creatures lacking in opposable digits. Wrenn looked closer, and noticed that the entire design was centered around accommodating either hooves or magic. He wouldn’t have thought it tenable until he actually saw it.

The sails were large, white, and square, with the Equestrian royal seal subtly worked into the center in an unobtrusive shade of beige. All in all, the ship brought to mind the word ‘galleon’ more than anything else.

Except that Wrenn very much doubted that an Equestrian ship packed any sort of armaments to speak of.

As the group passed over, Wrenn spied a few Ponies on deck, a group of crew and newfoals, staring up with a mixture of curiosity and concern. Apparently Gryphons were not a common sight in those parts. Not yet in any case.

The ship wasn’t travelling with much alacrity, so it was a speck, left far behind, by the time Foals’ Haven itself came into view.

Wrenn hadn’t been sure what to expect of an Equestrian port, except that it would be nothing like any port he’d ever been to. No concrete, no steel, no sleek civilian hydrofoils offset by the gunmetal gray of a shark-like military vessel.

Foals’ Haven was like nothing so much as an old Earth Caribbean seaport.
Quaint wooden piers served as a safe resting place for three more galleons, framed from behind by the warm glow of candle-light emanating from the windows of multi-story wooden dwellings.

Even at such a distance, Wrenn could see the vast differences from any other settlement he’d ever been in. There was no sign of electricity, no form of transportation besides the ships and the streets, and no obtrusive orange haze from halon lights emitting bloom through the smog. There was no smog at all.

A few moments later, the town was close enough for him to pick out Ponies in the midst of their comings and goings. That was a touch of familiarity. From one city that never slept to another.
Wrenn found it almost poetically fitting.

Judging by the swarm of activity focused at the docks, the town was well aware that a ship of newfoals was arriving shortly. They were decidedly unaware that a flight of Gryphons was preceding it.

Their arrival did not generate the panicked reaction Wrenn feared, but it also did not go as unnoticed as he might have hoped. The group alighted in the central square, which opened on one side to the port itself, and was surrounded on the other three by two story shops, inns, and a tavern, with space cut into the opposite side for the main thoroughfare.

Many of the Ponies stopped to stare, which swiftly turned to whispered conversations.
Movement and routine resumed gradually, but Wrenn could tell that the presence of so many Gryphons together was slightly unnerving to anyone who had to come close to them.

He suspected it was alleviated in part by Carradan’s presence in the group.
Seeing one of their own walking and talking with Gryphons was bound to ease some of the concern the natives seemed to be feeling.

Varan and Kephic seemed to have an idea of where they were going, so Wrenn simply followed, devoting most of his attention to taking in the sights. It was quite an adjustment, to be surrounded by people, but not by Humans. For a few moments, he became fascinated with cataloging cutie marks, and trying to discern their meaning.
It lent a whole new aspect to ‘people watching.’

Another few moments were spent thinking about the texture of the cobblestones under his paws and claws, before the group finally stopped in front of a tavern. The name, ‘Lotus and Lilac,’ was tacked up above the door in large violet letters, along with a stylized pair of flowers.

Kephic nodded at the door, “This is where Sildinar said our new companion would be waiting.”

Carradan grunted, “Forget the new guy... I’m *starved!*”

They filed inside, to be greeted by a homely central room; Wood floors, candle chandeliers, oaken tables, and a big fireplace in one wall containing a small merry blaze.

Wrenn was surprised to hear upbeat piano music coming from a small box in the corner.
It had a peculiar trumpet-like protrusion made of brass, and a needle on an arm hovering over a spinning black disc that seemed to be driven by energy stored in a wound spring.

It took Wrenn several seconds to realize what it was. A phonograph.
He had never actually seen one, but he had read descriptions of it before.

Even though he was no longer overridingly hungry, the smell of food and ale was strong and pleasurable enough to make Wrenn’s stomach growl. Carradan looked as though his nose was actually going to drag him to the bar.

Kephic sighed, and nodded, “Alright then, come on Stanley, let’s get some food in you before you keel over. I am not going to carry you the way Wrenn had to. I don't need that much excercise.”

As the two made their way over to the bar, Wrenn managed to catch Carradan’s response, “Are you calling me heavy?”

“More like big-boned...”

Varan made a sound somewhere between a low chuckle and a snort, “Come. Our new companion is likely to be in the upstairs room. We’re looking for a royal guard Pegasus, that is as much as Sildinar told me.”

As they slowly meandered to the stairs, being careful to avoid knocking over any chairs, Wrenn raised an eyebrow, “Royal Guard? As in Celestia’s Royal Guards? The ones who always seem to be the same colors?”

Varan nodded, “The same.”

Before Wrenn could ask how they all turned out the same colors, and how a pacifist race could have a standing ‘fighting’ force, Varan cast a glance around the room and made an interesting observation, “It is unusually empty tonight, considering they are expecting newfoals in.”

Wrenn shook his head, “That’s probably *why* it’s almost empty. Everyone's down at the docks right now. Give it 'till twenty minutes after the ship puts in. You won’t be able to find squatting room on the floor it’ll be so packed.”

Varan started up the stairs, “You sound as if you speak from experience.”

Wrenn chuckled as he followed, “I was part of a unit embarked on a destroyer for years.
Trust me; Some things about port towns are universal.”

Varan nodded, “In that case, we should collect our new companion and find somewhere else to make introductions.” Wrenn found himself in hearty agreement. Gryphons were ill suited to close crowds. It aggravated battle senses and territorial instincts simultaneously.

The upstairs room was a cozier twin to the main hall. The chairs were more plush, the tables seated fewer, and the hearth, which was tied into the same chimney, took up more of the wall.

Wrenn appreciatively noted that the tables all had an inlaid chess board, but that immediately set his mind spinning, trying to reason out how tables that looked older than contact could possibly have a board for a game that originated on Earth.

Before he could pursue his musings further, a white Pegasus with a bright blue mane, and gold adornments caught his attention. The Pony was most definitely the color of one of Celestia’s royal guards, and was wearing the same armor Wrenn had seen a dozen times in newscasts, right down to the helmet which had been set on the table for convenience.

The only thing that seemed out of place, was the fact that this particular royal guard was a female. That was something Wrenn had never seen in person before.

Deleted Scenes

Author's Note

All of these scenes fall in the final 1/3rd of the book. The first occurred in Canterlot, the remaining two occurred after the climax and thus have a strong comedic charachter-centric tone that I wanted to use to help offset some of the darkness of the climax. All were cut because they did not fit the flow at the time logistically. I have finished them and touched them up for your enjoyment as a New Years 2013 present. Please enjoy!

Deleted Scenes

"So what's it like?"

IJ glanced up from her meal to see Carradan approaching from the other end of the room. The mess hall was mostly used by palace guards, and since the morning watch had started hours before it was empty save for herself, her two guards, and the salmon Pegasus.

IJ sighed loudly and resigned herself to Stanley's presence, returning to idly stirring the grits before her with one hoof. The gyroscopically stabilized bowl, a staple eating implement for non-Unicorns, made a slight rasping sound as the wooden gimbals moved slightly with each revolution "You mean being trapped in a single form?"

Carradan plopped down into the seat opposite his fellow newly minted Pegasus, and shook his head, "Naw. I mean what's the hive like?"

IJ looked up from her bowl again, an expression of confusion mixed with disdain plastered to her muzzle, "Beg pardon?"

Carradan leaned forward enthusiastically, "The hive! Neyla told me Changelings have a hive mind. What's it like to be connected?"

The white Pegasus shook her head and downed a mouthful of grits before responding, "Why do you care?"

Carradan snorted and sat back, his expression of offense not entirely sincere, yet not entirely false, "Awww c'mon! I'm a *reporter* sweetheart. Most folks who read a newspaper, over here or over there, haven't the foggiest what your life is like. Aintcha the least bit interested to open their eyes?"

IJ raised an eyebrow and glared, "Why should I discuss a difficult topic to further *your* career, *and* help induce greater prejudice against my race than we already suffer?"

Carradan shook his head and leaned forward again, lowering his tone to a conspiratorial level and eyeing the stone-faced unmoving guards flanking IJ, "Because sister... I don't want to 'induce greater prejudice.' I want to give people a chance to see what *you* did."

IJ grimaced, "You mean lie, play the traitor's role, and fail miserably at even that?"

Carradan frowned sympathetically, "No. I mean comin' quietly, and learnin' your lesson. Like I had to. You think you're the only one who's 'gone four legs' ? Alotta people back on Earth deal with being forced into a new shape every day. I was given the chance to go willingly, or refuse, even tho I didn't much deserve it, and it was *still* hard to adjust to some things as wonderful as it is."

The reporter's normally mirthful minty-green eyes fixed solidly on IJ's, and he spoke with unusual gravitas, "I want folks to give others the same chance you got. I've done alotta nasty things in my career its true... so maybe its time for a change."

IJ frowned thoughtfully, before sighing, her ears flattening in defeat, "Very well." She sighed and leaned back in her own seat, "It is difficult to make into words you would grasp. We can have private thought, but most elect not to; why hide anything after all? While our thoughts are our own and we do not hear those of others at all times, our streams of consciousness become... linked when we choose to. More importantly, information and emotions flow instantly and freely through the hive. Part of the power and joy of it is perfect memory; when one of us dies, copies of our memories are preserved, and later generations can peruse them. Practically, this also gives us instant access to all the collective knowledge of our kind."

Stanley gaped and stammered, "You uhh. um.. you talk about it like a thing... is it? A real thing you can touch I mean."

IJ shook her head, "It is... distributed. All Changelings act as... nodes in a web. A tiny portion of each mind dedicated to storing data not-its-own so that no individual suffers inconvenience, yet the whole always has access."

Carradan nodded, "Like cloud computing."

"It has nothing to do with weather magic."

Stanley guffawed, "Earth stuff sweetheart. Anyways that gives me another question; how do you 'log on' ?"

IJ tilted her head quizzically, and Carradan shook his, rephrasing swiftly, "Turn of phrase. I mean how do ya connect to the Hive? Is it pheremones or chemical whatchamacallits?"

IJ flared her wings impatiently, "I am not sure you have the words for it. It is a form of magic, or science, you would not understand. It works over great, but not infinite distances, and it happens naturally whenever any Changeling is close enough to one or more others that are themselves linked to the Hive."

Carradan shook his head once more, in awe, and sat back, "Sweetheart... I bet you have some amazing stories to tell."

IJ allowed herself an almost-smile, "And if you call me that again... I shall give you an excellent story to tell about how I broke every bone in your muzzle, and it took two royal guards to get me off you."

Stanley smirked, "I like the way you think. I'd wrastle with you anytime. Sweetheart."

Neyla yawned; a gesture non-beaked life forms seemed to find peculiar and amusing on Gryphic faces. Sleep had been a long time coming, even by her rugged standards, and she was looking forward to nesting early.

She had decided she liked human fabrics and 'tempur' materials; they made for astonishingly restful sleeping surfaces, especially compared to her usual position in a rock cleft or on a tree branch, deep in the wilderness.

The Gryphoness was nearly to her temporary quarters, when she noticed a strange bluish light coming from Varan's room. Kephic and Fyrenn had their accommodations several doors down, but their rooms seemed silent and dark.

The light under the door was being accompanied by a strange rhythmic beat. Neyla's right ear twitched, and she rapped sharply on the metal slab of the door, unable to stem the rising tide of her curiosity.

When no answer was forthcoming, Neyla tapped the open control beside the aperture and stepped in as the door hissed open. She paused, coming up short and flattening both ears as the noise assaulted her directly.

"Oppa GANGAM STYLE!"

The sound was blaring from a pair of extra-large headphones surrounding Varan's ears. The golden Gryphon was sitting on a large cushion before his desk terminal. Neyla could make out a human in some form of peculiar obsolete clothing and eye protection dancing madly on the holoscreen.

"What in the name of...?"

Varan was oblivious; the headphones were intended to be noise-cancelling, and he was too busy enjoying blaring the peculiar form of human music at a decibel level that most Gryphons would find truly painful.

Neyla reached forward and tapped him on the shoulder-joint of his wing, causing him to tense and reflexively pause the video.

"Neyla?!" His shock swiftly shifted to a glowering stare, "Are you not familiar with the concept of requesting permission before entering?"

Neyla chuckled and shook her head, "I did knock. Rather loudly. You missed it. I can hear your... cultural studies all the way out in the hall. I wasn't sure what to make of the noise."

Even under the pale blue light of the screen, Neyla could tell Varan was uncharacteristically blanching, "I... well... Kephic and Fyrenn were insistent I browse this 'internet.' I was merely taking my brothers' suggestion in order to better understand human culture."

Neyla raised an eyebrow and smirked, the expression mixed with a tinge of rebuking glare, "Mmmhmmmm. And what have you learned from..." She leaned over and glanced at the words on the screen, "You Tube?"

Varan tried, mostly successfully, to resume his usual stoic posture and expression, "Thus far my strongest impression has been that the infrastructure is riddled with... cats."

Neyla laughed, her amusement generated as much by the deadpan manner in which Varan delivered the word 'cats' as by the fact that it *was* 'cats.' "Cats?"

Varan nodded and with the swipe of a claw displayed several tabs at once. Neyla swiftly scanned the images as Varan described the phenomenon, "In the twenty-first epoch of their Anno Domini calendar, a strange infatuation with images of tame felines, captioned with amusing phrases, swept the 'internet.' I have found the spelling to be universally reprehensible."

Neyla giggled, "I take it you have no desire to share your finding with the others?"

Varan nodded, "Your discretion is appreciated."

The tan and blue Gryphoness smiled and nodded herself, "I will remain silent on the matter." She began walking back to the hallway, but turned as she reached the door, "Providing, of course, that you pass on half of your meat ration tomorrow."

Varan glowered, "One quarter."

Neyla smirked, "One third, or I tell Fyrenn to go look up the security log for this room for the past hour."

"You would not."

Neyla's expression instantly robbed the surety from Varan's words, and expression. The gold Gryphon sighed, "Very well then. And if you feel tempted to break our agreement, I will find a suitable recourse for punishment."

Neyla rolled her eyes and tapped the door control, "Duly noted."

"And you let him?"

In answer to Skye's query, Fyrenn shrugged, "Well of course Tevere got off easy. The CO was watching."

Skye stopped and stepped to the side to clear the hallway; the Bureau was still in damage control mode thanks to the events at Gavin/Schummel, and the corridors were even more crowded than usual.

"And when the CO *wasn't* watching?" Her mischievous grin implied that she had some idea of the answer before the Gryphon spoke.

Fyrenn grinned, the devil-may-care expression sitting well on his sharp yellow beak, "Hypothetically... I may or may not have reprogrammed all the lieutenant's DaTabs to spout offensive remarks with regard to the character of the CO. In Einrig's own voice too."

Skye tried unsuccessfully to avoid bursting out into peals of laughter, first making a few strained 'snerk' noises, then finally succumbing. Fyrenn chuckled, the humor of the memory somehow enhanced by having someone appreciative to share it with.

When Skye finally managed to regain vocal control, she glanced up at Fyrenn, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes with a hoof, "And... how.. hehe... did that work out for him?"

Fyrenn snickered, "It.. aaahh.. 'didn't go his way.' He was trying to give a briefing the next morning and, from what sources tell me, the DaTab he was reading off of popped out with, 'Who wants to know, captain wanker, sir?' the first time he got asked a question."

Skye's eyes grew to the size of saucers, "I bet that went over like a lead airship."

"Its Balloon, actually. And the CO put him in traction for two months."

Skye began chuckling again, "Noooo..."

Fyrenn smiled wickedly and began walking again, "Yessss. And what's better? I went to sign his cast. The guy was a die-hard speciesist. Been on watchlist for HLF activity twice... and do you know what I did?"

Skye winced, mocking Fyrenn's manic expression, "You *didn't*...."

The red Gryphon nodded and chirruped slightly in his throat mirthfully, "I did. I drew my best rendition of her majesty, the esteemed Solar Monarch herself on his dermoplast cast. In pink permanent ink..."

Fyrenn paused and snickered uncontrollably for a moment before finishing, "With the words 'I am the very model of an asinine homo sapiens, I wish I could be pretty, pink, and nice as all the Ponies is.' "

Skye once again devolved into peals of laughter, drawing confused looks from several passing medical technicians.

Prologue

Hegira (n.) - "A flight, or journey, to a more desirable place."

"In that country be many griffins, more plenty than in any other country. Some men say that they have the body upward as an eagle and beneath as a lion; and truly they say sooth, that they be of that shape. But one griffin hath the body more great and is more strong than eight lions, of such lions as be on this half, and more great and stronger than an hundred eagles such as we have amongst us."

―Sir John Mandeville

Earth Calendar: 2113
Equestrian Calendar: 11 AC (After Contact)

'Power corrupts,' was one of her favorite human sayings; The belief that it takes an extraordinary amount of restraint, and morals, proportionate to the level of power one could wield, to avoid sinking into a host of evils. Being the unopposed, nearly-universally loved, and immensely powerful co-ruler of a species, the levels of restraint required for the task imbued a kind of patience beyond the mortal ken.

So why, Celestia reflected, did being made to wait still provoke an ever so slight irritation after all these millennia?

Perhaps it was less the passage of time, and more the root cause of the waiting. No matter how many times she liaised with a foreign dignitary, she would always despise that small span of tension before the plunge. The moment when, for all that power, and authority, and gracefulness, she was effectively blind to the limitless possibilities of the moment

She sighed inwardly and sipped her tea, a quiet mellifluous hum accompanying the magic that guided the cup. Everypony in Equestria was used to that distinctive sound, and the characteristic colored glow that would follow. Celestia always found it interesting to observe the reactions of non-Ponies to its presence.

Gryphons didn’t seem to mind. Magic never bothered them, nonetheless it always seemed to interest them if only for a moment.

Zebras were not exposed to it the same way Ponies were growing up, but they were no strangers to it either.

Humans, on the other hoof, would look upon the simplest of daily tasks with abject wonderment. According to the historical files she had read, humanity had tried for centuries to make themselves capable of basic telekinesis with absolutely no success. Even in their modern age of, as they called it, post-singularity technology, only an extremely gifted few could make use of the simplest telekinetic powers, and only with the help of a piece of technology and decades of intensive training from youth up.

Celestia marveled at how much had changed, in both worlds, since first contact eleven years prior. Thanks to the more difficult particulars of the situation, Equestria had not seen such colonization and expansion since its founding, and Humanity...

Humanity had hope again. And on this, the anniversary day of first contact, everything was going to change. Again.

The door to the great hall opened with a muffled clank, and the rat-tat-tat of guardsponies’ armored hooves accompanied a softer click-clack across the tiled floor.
Her guest had arrived.

He was tall, nearly as tall as she was, which made interacting with him interesting from the get-go. Most beings she met had always been much shorter than her, Humans included, which gave her a certain air of authority and control even without the glowing mane and deific features.

As it was, her guards seemed wary of her guest, which in itself was telling.

He was a ruler too, which made them equals. Though his population was smaller than hers they were far more militarily capable. Furthermore, he had no reason to fear her magic, something every other species, save Dragons, had good reason to fear and respect.

He and his kind had a peculiar immunity to magical alteration or direct interaction. While it prevented them from actively wielding magic in any way, or benefiting from things like healing spells, it also protected them from having it directly used on them.

This defense was so primal, so overriding, that even her own unfathomable energies couldn’t breach it. She mused that she could always telekinetically throw the table at him. She had to violently suppress a very undignified grin at the mental image of two rulers heaving the broken pieces of a fully laden breakfast table at each other.

Celestia rose from her set and faced her guest, the King of the Gryphons, head on.
He stepped forward and inclined his head respectfully. One ruler to another, an acknowledgement of power.

“Princess Celestia. I hope you are well as always?”

She inclined her head in a similar manner, “King Siidran. Well indeed, as I hope you and your kind are.”

Celestia had been nervous about the inevitable topic of the meeting from the day Equestria had touched Earth. For Siidran to open the meeting with a traditional diplomatic gesture was promising. He waited to be asked to sit, another good sign.

When Gryphons were upset they seldom stood on ceremony. Siidran had come wearing ceremonial armor, but Gryphons always used armor as formal clothing. It was generally some combination of alloy, bronze, and diamonds. They never used malleable substances like gold or silver in armor, not even for ceremonial purposes.

Celestia took a deep breath mentally, even as she spoke, “Please join me for breakfast, and we can discuss the matter at hoof.”

The Gryphon’s expression told her he appreciated the dispensation of formalities.

They always hated beating around the bush. They liked everything done frankly and candidly and immediately; No taste whatsoever for the art of political subtlety. Their Kingdoms were ruled by one High King, whose power was in turn balanced by a council made up of each kingdom's Champion Paladins. The Champions in turn had a council of Paladins within each of their kingdoms who balanced their power. Succession to Kingship depended as much on the opinions of the Paladins, as anything else, and their positions were electoral.

Humans called it a form of ‘Constitutional Monarchy.’ Celestia shuddered to imagine being directly legally bound by the will of a separate council, but she reasoned that for Siidran it must not be a bureaucratic entanglement so much as an immensely helpful structure to take pressure off him.
Gryphons didn’t engage in bureaucracy, ever. Not to say they didn't have their share of internal government issues, they merely solved them quickly and sometimes violently, though rarely to the death.

Siidran sat on his haunches, the position added to the height of the chair putting him at eye level with Celestia. He did not however take any food. Gryphons were obligate carnivores, they needed meat to live. They could eat anything else, and often did for pleasure, but without meat it would give them no nutrition and they would soon starve and die. Another reason Equestria and the Gryphon Kingdoms had always been mildly at odds with each other; Equestrians viewed meat eating as senseless slaughter, even if most of the species the Gryphons hunted were considered monsters and terrors.

Siidran spoke first, “Were it not for the tight control you keep on the comings and goings from Earth, this day would have come far sooner...”
Internally, Celestia cursed. Siidran was going to play this card for all it was worth.
He continued, a slight clacking accompanying a shift in position as his armor reseated itself, “...Now that the bubble has expanded however, we will shortly have our own routes into and out of Earth, and so I presume that is why you have called me here.”

Celestia nodded, “That, and the fact that it is high time your species had a share in this.”

Siidran glanced up, his tone remaining flat, “It is not for you to decide when our species gains a share in anything.”
Anyone else would have seen it as a veiled threat, Celestia knew enough about Gryphons to see it for what it was; A frank statement and nothing more.

She nodded, “Hence this meeting. You could have simply made your own inroads to the human world and left us out of the process entirely, but you didn’t. Despite the fact that I did not initially allow your kind significant access to the human world. Why?”

Siidran took a ripe apple from the table and began methodically peeling it with a talon. His tone was matter-of-fact; Honest, without a hint of subtext.

“Isn’t it obvious? If we cooperate we stand to gain access to the infrastructure you have in place already. We can always do things our way if you don’t agree to mutually beneficial terms.”

Celestia wondered just how much damage ‘their way’ would cause to the already unstable human world. Gryphons couldn’t stand the kind of political manipulations and conniving that Humans needed to keep their government running on a day to day basis.
This was the main reason she had opted to disallow all but a few short duration liaison teams from the Gryphons to Humanity. If the Gryphons ever got too deep into the situation without a neutral mediator, it would be like throwing a match into a powder keg.
And a Human/Gryphon war would mean a bloody conflict at a time when humanity could ill afford the strain it would place on them.

Celestia wanted Ponies to be the neutral mediator. Despite their differences, Gryphons respected her kind enough for this to work. But it would have been disastrous to attempt this before her little Ponies had a hoof-hold on Earth and a cemented place in the hearts and minds of humanity.
Besides giving them a position of respect with the Human government, the constant sight of Ponies had prepared the population to see the unthinkable on their streets as an everyday occurrence. The problem would be convincing Siidran to see things her way.

There was no going back. Celestia considered her words carefully before speaking,
“I am prepared to offer you complete access to the network.... All facilities, logistics chains, and personnel... But starting in stages.”
Siidran intentionally kept all reaction off his face. Celestia recognized it as a tactic to deny her any sort of indication as to where she could stop offering concessions before he would be satisfied.

She continued to elaborate on her proposition, “We would start by allowing envoys from your government to meet with Human leaders at a summit which we would mediate. We will back your interests, and ideally within a year the scientists can have the first test-able batches of potion ready.”

Siidran nodded, “And how do you propose to handle distribution?”

Celestia smiled, “That will be for you to decide.” There she calculated that she had an advantage.

Gryphons had an incredibly strict ingrained moral code. They would have no desire to add anyone to their species who wasn’t already a person of the highest caliber, despite the fact that the change would likely ingrain those morals on even the most hardened coward or traitor, or kill them in the process of trying.

These strict criteria would keep the numbers of Gryphon converts artificially low, allowing their species to maintain a similar numbers ratio to the present. Status Quo would be maintained well into the future, for both of them.
And they needed status quo.
Neither side could afford a war, not with the speed at which the world was expanding and the need for unity against the hordes of Diamond Dogs, Changelings, and other monsters that lurked in the lands they would both need to colonize.

Equestria had always relied informally,on the Gryphons to fend off the wilder things of the world, since Ponies had no stomach for killing. As Celestia’s population increased, so too did the need for protection. Her motives in bringing the Gryphon King to the table had not been entirely altruistic.

Siidran stared at a point above Celestia’s head, quietly summing up everything she had said and processing it, before responding in a calm, sure, unshakably set tone.

“I have three conditions.” This was where things would turn fractious, if they were going to. “Firstly, we will be allowed unopposed access to the human media. You will not oppose the way we present ourselves and we will not oppose the way you present yourselves.”

Celestia inwardly sighed in relief. That was an acceptable compromise.

“Secondly, we will provide our own guards for the portions of the process related to our species.”
Another good sign, this could even turn out to be to their mutual advantage. Potion always needed the best protection that could be had, given that so many people wanted to get their collective hands and hooves on it.

“Lastly, while you may mediate between us and the Humans, you will have no access to, or part in the training, evaluating, converting, transporting, or settling of new converts to our species.”

That was going to be a problem.

Celestia had hoped to keep doors open for a more cooperative initiative. Their species needed to forge bonds of true friendship if they were going to face the future with any kind of security.

She shook her head, “We have a vested interest in the conversion process itself. No matter the results. We must, by necessity, be involved.”

Siidran raised an eyebrow, “You’re in no position to deny me a reasonable concession. A less patient King would have had his entire army pouring through your defenses at the first sign you had denied him access to something so important as the Human world and conversion. Be grateful I don’t stipulate numeric ratio controls.”

Of all the concessions he could have suggested Celestia feared that one most; The Gryphons would never accept the kind of influx that would be needed to keep total conversion numbers stable, if the ratio stilted in their favor. But she still needed Siidran to allow Ponies to remain, at least tertiarily, a part of the conversion process.

“I will accept with one revision. Since the procedures take place in our facilities, we will devise, in concert with your chosen delegates, a primer course for all Humans seeking conversion. It will honestly enumerate the qualities of both species, and at the same time allow you to evaluate the candidates in one smooth simple process. After that Humans who choose ponification will be taken on to our introductory courses as they are now, and those who choose your kind, and who pass your criteria, will be taken to a course of your own construction, and from then on how much or little we are involved is up to you.”

Siidran only needed to consider briefly before nodding sharply, “Done.”
He bit into the now peeled apple, his razor sharp beak slicing a perfect segment out of it.
The rest of the fruit followed swiftly, then he smiled ever so slightly, “I can see why you like to eat these raw. They have a very refreshing quality in the juice.”

From there, the talk turned to other, thankfully simpler matters.
Celestia smiled behind her second cup of tea.
She had managed to guide things into increasingly stable outcomes thus far, hopefully this was a good start to another successful year.

If she had anything to say about it, Humanity and their achievements would not go quietly into the void.
She had already offered them the best escape from their collapsing world that the combined achievements of their species could devise. So she resolved to put aside personal pride in her kind and arbitrate a new evolution of humanity’s future.
A new option.

Chapter 5

“That did not go well.”

“It could have gone worse.”

“True enough.”

The young man sipped his synth-beer thoughtfully, then cast an appreciative glance at the violet unicorn beside him. “We did at least gain something by our efforts.”

Veritas smiled coyly, “You mean aside from the eight thousand souls we delivered?”

The man inclined his head, “Yes. Beyond that.”

He stared up at a broken faux-wood ceiling fan and mused quietly, slowly running his hand back and forth through his jet black short hair. Veritas allowed him time to collect his thoughts. She enjoyed watching him while he was thinking about what to say. She liked to imagine she could see the words swirling around his head in groups, forming artful patterns before his gray eyes.

For a long time the only sounds were the low hum of patrons’ voices, the dull clink of glasses as the bartender poured drinks and cleaned dishes, and, detectable only to Veritas and her equine ears, the soft whine of the muted holo-screen above the bar as it silently cycled between sporting events, and news of the attacks in Philadelphia and New York.

Finally the young man spoke again, “What we failed to gain in knowledge, we recouped in image. When you and I came on the scene the movement was a shambles, no organization, no vision, no technology, and no funds. But they had the spirit for the job; their hearts belonged to Celestia and, more than that, they sought what we seek. That the hearts of all should belong to her. In just two years we’ve gone from that, to this...”

He gestured up at the holo-screen, which was replaying now overused footage of the Liberty Bell Tower.

He set down his beer and turned to face the unicorn, “We have the capability now to fight them on their terms. To show them the error in their ways through fear and respect. In the coming weeks what story will the media tell? Perhaps they will try to portray us as monsters robbing people of their free will but I think that humanity does, at least, have enough of the quality of discernment to see through the propaganda. They will understand. They will realize that we are only trying to speed on the inevitable so that no one need die when the end comes for Earth. Our government may have corrupted the Conversion Bureaus and sided with these new monsters from beyond Celestia’s realm, but they are still eminently predictable in their evil.”

Veritas raised a quizzical eyebrow. The man continued, “They won’t dare to make a trial run of their new serum now. The initial backlash against conversion caused by the attack will scare the publicists and politicians too much. By the time they realize that the end result of our campaign brings not fear, but joy to people, it will be too late for them to see that their own Bureaus have become our greatest tools for change, and that their best chance to show off their ‘alternative option’ has passed.”

Veritas stared up at him, her blue eyes sparkling in the low off-yellow lighting. “Truly Celestia has given you a gift for words.”

The man smiled, “Soon enough we will put it to use once again.”

From beneath the surface, the Atlantic ocean seemed no different than it had for countless hundreds of thousands of eons. Dark blue water, filtering out light and heat, growing ever more spectacular in its crushing pressure as it dove to depths as deep as the atmosphere was thick, and further.

It was only when one could see the surface, or the sea floor, that there was be any indication as to how dead the vast expanse of water truly was.

No fish, very little kelp, barely any microorganisms.

Global ecological collapse had done what centuries of garbage, chemical poison, and invasive species had never quite fully accomplished; it had truly killed the ocean.

Captain Elridge decided it was fitting, then, that the Atlantic had become the focal point for planetary rebirth. Barely three miles beyond the hull of his battleship, the glimmering barrier between normal space-time, and Equestria, was slowly growing. Millimeter by millimeter.

Ever since that day just over a decade ago, when the world had shook, the poles had flipped, and a land mass the size of Texas had sprung into existence midway between Europe and the Americas.

Captain Elridge wasn’t privy to all the physics, few were; but somehow only Equestrian species and materials seemed to be able to transit the barrier safely.

Any human, or originally Earthen synthetic or complex material, crossing the barrier at any point, would suffer a violent fate; the Thaumatically charged nature of the Equestrian universe simply didn’t play well with the quantum signature of the universe as humanity knew it.

Even radio waves couldn’t cross the barrier. After discovering this scientists had attempted quantum entanglement, but they always ran into the same issue. The second half of the entangled pair never survived barrier transit.

“Bring us up, five degree elevation. Recalibrate bow planes and prepare to surface.”

The helmsman snapped out, “Up five degrees, Aye. Recalibrating bow planes, all hands prepare to switch to surface configuration. Secure all stations.”

This communications blackout was the reason Elridge and his ship were here.
Apparently someone very very high up in the Equestrian hierarchy needed to speak with someone in New York, and couldn’t wait for one of the daily messengers.

The UES Tohoku would provide a quickly accessible secure communications relay.

The XO braced himself against an upright console, as a three tone alarm sounded, and called out, “Surfacing! standby for level one operations, honor detail to pre-posts. Open the hatches.”

As the ship broke the surface, displacing enough water to fill three hundred olympic pools, the plating over the windows and weapons ports retracted in sequence.
This was always a satisfying moment to Elridge; so many personnel and machines working in perfect harmony. His ship.

The communications officer rattled off instructions and information in her staccato Russian accent, “Sat vision 44, downlink from Central Command established. Orders are to proceed to designated pickup site three and hold steady to receive envoys. Honor detail to the landing pads, Escorts 06, 07, 08, you are cleared forward for sequential launch, maintain minimum safe barrier distance.”

Elridge peered out the main window just in time to catch the faint glimmer of three F-A26 engines racing off into the distance. The stealth fighters were all but invisible at this hour of night.

These days every type of naval vessel, destroyer size and above, carried at least one embarked VSTOL fighter. The Tohoku had eight, plus four VTOL gunships.

His XO, a taller man from South Africa, joined him at the window. “Sir. Any new information?”

Elridge shook his head, “Only confirming what we already knew; whatever the last daily messenger took over apparently caused quite a stir, and now a major dignitary wants radio comms with Manhattan.”

the XO’s eyes widened slightly, “So we’re going to play host to one of the royals?”

Elridge shrugged, “They didn’t say.”

“Well who else could it be?”

“We will find out soon enough.”

A voice crackled through the bridge comm speakers, “Tohoku, Escort 06; FLiR confirms you have three incoming... somethings. You should be ready to receive within sixty seconds.”

As the Scythe flew a low pass over the ship, three forms materialized from the darkness and alighted on the ship’s rear VTOL pad.

The XO pressed a hand to the window and stared, “I have to admit... I didn’t see that coming.”

“Two dead, forty seven severely wounded, more than eight *thousand* converted forcibly... millions of dollars of damage... gentlemen... this was an unmitigated disaster.”

For a long moment nobody spoke. Sildinar, Kephic, Varan, Wrenn, Commander Hutch, the head of the Bureau (whom Wrenn had learned was named Golden Sunbeam, but apparently she preferred Mrs. Sunbeam) and dozens of high ranking officers, scientists, and the heads of the medical department were all seated around the long granite topped table.

At the head of the table Earthgov councilor Mathas Korvan stood in his impeccable cream colored suit. His hand rested on a matching fedora that occupied his space on the table; the hat was making quite a comeback in socialite and political circles. His balding head was framed by the backlighting of the holoscreen that dominated the main wall. The ceiling-to-floor bank of windows that looked out over lower Manhattan were tinted to full opacity.

Councilor Korvan continued, “The public backlash to conversion is going to be severe, and the blame points squarely to us. This was a major failing on your part.”

Predictably, Kephic did not react well. He stood, looming tall despite having chosen to stand on all fours. “Failing? We prevented the unavoidable catastrophe in Philadelphia from spiraling out of control. We saved this very bureau with minimal damage and loss, we prevented a hostile well prepared enemy force from acquiring highly valuable secrets, and we did all this with only two deaths. Perhaps it has been a nightmare, perhaps the results are a mess, but were it not for us...” Kephic gestured to Varan and Sildinar, “...and your own fine warriors...” he gestured to the rest of the table, “...you would now be facing an unthinkable scenario.”

The Gryphon’s voice dipped low, an ominous edge crept into the words, “You owe them everything, the least you can do is thank them.”

Another awkward silence descended on the room. The humans and ponies both understood the concept of delicate political maneuvering, or at the very least civility. Clearly Kephic was more a fan of candor, regardless of who he was speaking to.

It took councilor Korvan a long moment to collect himself. He was even less used to the idea of such bald faced honesty than everyone else, and he was intimidated by Kephic, though he was doing his dead level best not to show it.

“I don’t know how much or how little experience you’ve had with our politics, but I would advise you to practice a little harder before addressing a representative of Earthgov that way again.”

Kephic glared, and Korvan took a halting step back, the Gryphon’s voice rang out, level and measured with each word, “And I would advise you to practice a little harder at earning the respect you seem to think that title affords you. Maybe words and prefixes and such grant power in your world, but where I come from leadership is earned, or it is taken away. By force if necessary. If you aren’t going to ascribe us the thanks we deserve then I am leaving, because I certainly have no obligation to stand here while you babble inane insults to cover your own cowardly hindquarters.”

Kephic turned and walked slowly, deliberately, from the room. In the stunned silence that followed Varan got up, shrugged, and did the same. Sildinar’s face bore a calm collected expression, but Wrenn suspected he was more than a little perturbed beneath his well constructed demeanor.

Councilor Korvan shifted his gaze to Sildinar, “I presume you have something to say to me about the conduct of your soldiers?”

Sildinar paused then looked up, “Only that I completely agree with every word they said. Just not with their choice of timing.”

Korvan shook his head in disdain and returned to the head of the table, then looked to Hutch, “Where are we with the two prisoners your men secured?”

The commander muttered something inaudible before speaking, “The two PER scumbags that Sildinar and Kephic tagged ‘n bagged...”
Wrenn noticed that Hutch intentionally emphasized the Gryphon’s names,
“...they’re as useful as bumps on a log. As far as our lie detection software, qualified Unicorn magicians, and the Gryphons can tell, they know nothing but their own specific orders to break in and plant that dispersion cylinder. Apparently the PER is keeping things very cellular.”

Korvan grunted, “As of now, I want ConSec tasked twenty-four-seven with finding and eliminating the terrorists responsible for the attack. Gather other leads if necessary, call for whatever resources you want, but get me their heads on a plate. Yesterday. They kicked in our front door, and nearly walked out with a supposedly secure crate. I don’t buy the mole rumors going around, so step up your drills while you’re at it.
As for the new batch of potion... That needs to be delayed until the backlash from all of this subsides. Now is not a good time to rock the boat.”

Sildinar shook his head, “No. You agreed fully to the terms of our accords, and the timing of this was mutually voted on, and selected by a majority.”

Korvan nodded, “Of course of course. But there is room in the accords for changes to plans in order to effect mutual benefits. If you want to forge ahead, by all means proceed. But because your thoughtless action would place Earthgov under a great deal of pressure you must understand that it would introduce inherent.... instability... into the accords.”

“Gentlemen ENOUGH.” The deep but distinctly feminine voice brought the room to an absolute standstill. Wrenn could barely resist a chuckle as Mrs. Sunbeam stood up. He knew she had reminded him of a school teacher.

“This pointless bickering is doing nothing but wasting valuable time. We have common problems and a common enemy, and we are all under far too much stress. I propose we not make any decisions in the heat of the moment and instead take some time to think this through.”

Hutch stood as well, “Agreed. Also I could use some lunch.”

With that the tension broke, at least partially, and everyone began to exit the room en masse, breaking off into groups of two and three headed back to their posts, or to find a midday meal.
Wrenn did his best to get out as quickly as possible, but Councilor Korvan managed to lay a hand on his shoulder before he could make it through the door.

“Isaac. You’re looking well.”

Wrenn steeled himself and turned to shake Mathas’ hand.
“You too. How is the council treating you?”

“Well enough. This is going to be a political shit-storm, but like all things it will eventually blow over. How are the eyes?”

“Working decently, for not being able to really ‘see’ much of anything.”

Korvan sighed, “Well, you know how much I appreciate what you sacrificed for me, but I will say it again; Thank you for what you did that day.”

“Just doing my duty sir.” Wrenn stiffened reflexively, the old military parade pose coming back naturally.

Korvan chuckled, “Always the modest one weren’t you? Listen... Wrenn... what do you think of our new... partners, in the Conversion Bureau initiative?”

Wrenn realized he was talking about the Gryphons and struggled to find a response that wouldn’t upset either of them. Finally he settled on, “I think they don’t have much of a taste for our brand of politics.”

Korvan raised his eyebrows, “No it would seem they don’t. Isaac I wonder if I might ask a simple favor of you. For old times’ sake.”

Wrenn offered no response. He didn’t like where the conversation was headed in the slightest.

“Wrenn, I need you to look into these guys. Find out how they tick, build me a... well a sort of informal psych profile. Anything useful you could dig up on them while you’re at it would sure make my job easier. They don’t respect the system, not as we know it, and I can’t just let the kind of instability they’re introducing run amok in the halls of power. You understand?”

Wrenn shifted uncomfortably, “Look sir... I doubt I’m going to be here long enough to do that. The Indianapolis ships out at the end of the week and there’s no reason for me not to be on her as per usual. I’ve long overstayed my ‘medical leave.’”

Councilor Korvan shrugged and placed his hat on his head with dignified and deliberate precision, “Let me know if you change your mind. I can always fast track a transfer if you’d like to give up special forces for ConSec.”

“I’ll keep that in mind sir.”

“Please do.”

With that Korvan left Wrenn alone in the room as the windows slowly un-tinted to let in the foggy morning vista.

Wrenn brought his lunch tray over to the table and slumped into the off-white seamless shaped plastic of the ergonomic chair. He, the Gryphons, and commander Hutch had taken to sitting together for lunch after the attack. During mealtime there we no ranks, and no positions.

Just soldiers united by shared experiences, common viewpoints, and common enemies.

Hutch started the conversation, “That was worse than slip ‘n sliding through a potion covered room with raving lunatics trying to gun you down.”

Wrenn whistled, “You said it. Some days, I wish I’d just let him take that grenade and melt.
He stopped me afterwards. Wanted me to essentially spy on you guys,” he looked at each of the Gryphons in turn, “and help him dig up something he could use to stonewall you.”

Kephic growled, Varan made no sound, but his expression could have melted steel. He had finally convinced the nurse to let him remove his head bandages, and even though the cuts and deep gashes were no longer visible under his feathers they were still bothering him, making his mood worse than usual.

Even the corners of Sildinar’s beak turned down visibly. He sipped a large cup of what Wrenn assumed was coffee and spoke, “I presume you didn’t accept his offer?”

Wrenn nodded, “I was as noncommittal as possible. Id've loved to tell him to stick his offer in that shiny hat and shove it as far up his nether regions as his head would fit, but that wouldn’t do my career any favors and we could kiss any chance of getting me a slot for potion goodbye.”

Varan leaned forward, “Speaking of the subject; we had hoped to tell you this earlier...”

Kephic interjected, “Back when it was all good news...”

“...we managed to persuade one of our superiors with sufficient rank to side with you. Hopefully he has enough pull to get you a slot for the new potion.”

Wrenn’s fork fell out of his hand, “You... persuaded a superior? meaning?”

Kephic gestured to Sildinar, “Meaning he personally vouched for you to his father. The king.”

Wrenn’s eyes would have tripled in size if they could, “Your father is.... and you never....? I.... I’m not sure what to say....”

Sildinar inclined his head, “ ‘Thank you’ would suffice, although a promise to support us when the time comes would not go amiss.”

Wrenn nodded vigorously, “You don’t even have to ask. Thank you.”

Hutch ripped into his sandwich, chewed for a moment, then swallowed loudly, “If you’re all done being sentimental, we need to figure out how we’re going to send this clown packing and get back to business as usual.”

Wrenn glanced over to the commander, “Carefully. He got where he is by being a master manipulator and a darn good spin artist.”

“Spin artist?” Varan said it with the annoyed tone of voice reserved for someone who is engaging in an irritation they have long since been asked to cease.

“Sorry... Spin Artist; as in someone who excels at twisting people’s viewpoints on a situation to benefit themselves, their agenda, and their image.”

Kephic cocked his head, “So... a professional liar?”

Wrenn chuckled, “Something like that.”

Hutch grunted, “I don’t like the politics game, and from what I gather neither do any of you, but unfortunately it looks like we have to play this guy on his home field.”

Wrenn shuddered, “And he has the deck stacked.”

Varan groaned, “If your kind would publish a dictionary of references, metaphors, and cultural know-how it would benefit us greatly.”

Kephic turned to his companion and displayed an expression midway between smirk and quizzical stare, “You mean to say you haven’t tried out their ‘internet’ ?”

Varan harrumphed, “I haven’t had a great deal of time. I actually like to maintain a sane rest and sleep schedule.”

Sildinar smiled, “You should give it a chance. It's one of their most incredible cultural and technological achievements.”

“Oh not you too...”

Wrenn laughed, “In all seriousness. How do we even this fight up? Korvan has a lot of pull, but he’s just one of two hundred and eighteen councilors that make up the top tier of Earthgov. Right now he’s got all the power over this situation merely because no one else wants to touch it. Its ‘toxic’ right now, but his specialty is handling the toxic stuff and turning it into another asset in his arsenal. We have to get at least one other councilor involved, preferably one who’s part of an opposing party and wants an opportunity to take a shot at him. After that the others will reassert their support.”

Kephic sighed and bit a strip off his meat, “And how do you propose to do that?”

Wrenn shrugged, “I have no earthly idea. But we only have a few days. If he doesn’t tear the accords apart first, then I’m being shipped back out. I could always accept his offer but I really don’t like to dance with the devil. I prefer the straightforward shotgun method.”

“So. You boys sound like you could do with some help?”
Everyone turned in tandem to see the source of the new voice.

Hutch broke into a smile, “Laura! Its good to see you. What are you doing here?”

“Hand delivering the Philadelphia report. Probably getting busted back down to lieutenant for the mess. Sounds like we have a problem with the same shady cream colored jack-a---”

Wrenn stood up, his chair making a loud scraping noise on the tiled floor and cutting off the end of Laura’s sentence, “Nice to see you again Commander Aston. I hope you didn’t miss the VTOLs we commandeered too badly.”

The Philadelphia ConSec commander glared at him, then her face melted into a slight grin, “I’ve decided I like this guy Hutch. Where did you find him?”

“Kephic over there dragged him in here with a hole the size of New Roanoke in his shoulder and a concussion that would’ve cracked granite.”

Laura nodded, “Well that's good, because if you gentlemen want my help you’re going to need a thick skull and a good heavy dose of stubborn-as-a-mule; this won’t be easy.”

Hutch leaned over, “What’s your play?”

Laura smiled conspiratorially, “I thought I’d phone a friend.”

Varan pinched the bridge of his beak, “Please don’t tell me... Another reference?”

After a round of debriefings with Earthgov military advisors, Wrenn was nearly spent. Nevertheless he made time to drop by Sildinar’s ‘office’ before clocking out and crashing in his quarters.

The Gryphon had been given an office like all high level Bureau personnel, but he had chosen to turn the space into something of a conference room for his entire team.
Wrenn found him with Kephic hunched over a holo monitor manipulating a keyboard at breakneck speed as the speckled black and white Gryphon conversed with him in low tones and pointed at items flying by.

“Find anything useful?”

Kephic looked up and shook his head, “I still agree with you that we have a mole...”

Sildinar broke in without looking up, “...as do I, especially considering the fact that the PER had my secure crate override codes...”

“...but so far whomever it is has been very very adept at covering their tracks. I wish we could bring in a real technician on this. Sildinar and I have only had a year to learn these computer systems of yours, and I don’t think we’re qualified to search them with the same eye for discrepancies as someone who has been doing it for their entire life.”

“Well how about we find some time and sit down together? I may not specialize in them, but I have always been a bit more of a computer nerd than your average guy.”

Sildinar nodded, still working as he did so, “Perhaps you will also be able to provide a fresh perspective as well.”

“Ok. Tomorrow same time, same place?”

Sildinar finally stopped and looked up, “That should work well for both of us.”

Kephic jerked his head at a cup on the desk, “You might wanna bring along some coffee.”

“Don’t I know it,” Wrenn managed to push out ahead of a yawn.