Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 22nd, Gregorian Calendar
"Oooooooooof. What... Exactly..."
Fyrenn grunted, and forced his eyes open as the sound of Neyla's voice pulled him back to the land of the living. Every muscle in his body ached, and his head felt as if it had been struck with a half ton anvil. Repeatedly.
"In simple terms; Very large explosions produce very large air disturbances. Very large air disturbances kill flying things. I made sure you weren't flying when the very large air disturbance hit. You're welcome."
As Neyla silently worked to process the words against the backdrop of her own headache, Fyrenn carefully took stock of the situation.
Aside from his aches and pains, the first thing he noticed was the darkness. There was absolutely no light, whatsoever, of any kind, for his eyes to magnify.
Ruefully thinking back to a similar situation during his knighthood trials, he reached carefully into one of the hard shell pouches on his back left leg plating. In spite of the pitch black, his talons easily found the edge of the emergency glow stick.
He pulled the item towards his beak, snapped it, and shook it vigorously. A dull yellow-white glow suffused the chamber, and the constraints of the situation at last became apparent.
The two Gryphons were buried, completely and utterly, under a plethora of debris chunks both large and small. Everything from steel girders, to shattered pieces of bricks.
Incredibly, there was enough space for the pair to co-exist without being crushed. Unfortunately, Fyrenn swiftly realized that 'enough' space was barely more than a few meters cubed, minus the uneven protrusions of the impromptu wall and ceiling.
Fyrenn also realized, with a physical jolt, that he was pressed directly up against Neyla. The pair were as close as they had ever been, side by side, and there was no room whatsoever to maneuver.
After a moment of silence, Neyla sighed.
"Well. This is..."
Fyrenn nodded.
"Awkward."
Another protracted silence followed, before Fyrenn let out an enormous sigh.
"Alright then. You've saved my life today, I saved yours... And we promised each other we would talk about... What happened. So. You first."
Neyla raised an eyebrow. At such close range, Fyrenn found it hard not to alternate between staring deeply into her eyes, and carefully mapping out the feather patterns on her cheeks.
"Are you joking?"
Fyrenn tried to shrug, and realized he couldn't move his wings upward.
"Why not? We're not going to be able to move the entire building that just fell on us. And even if we could make a start, we'd risk making it infinitely worse."
Neyla's eyes widened in fear.
"But how are they going to *find* us?!"
Fyrenn raised a claw as far as he could.
"Relax. I don't imagine very many structures collapsed in total. Our armor beacons will become visible to them again in an hour or two, when the effects of the EMP pass. They'll get to us if we're patient."
After yet a third silence, somewhat more amicable and contemplative in nature, Neyla spoke up once more.
"Well... Thank you. For what you did."
Fyrenn smiled, displaying surprising warmth, "Thanks appreciated, but ultimately not necessary. It's what you do for those you care about. That's just what we are. And I wouldn't have it any other way."
Neyla sighed, and shook her head slightly.
"So you want to talk about what... 'Happened' to us? You're sure?"
Fyrenn snorted, "No! Of course I'm not sure! But what else are we going to do trapped down here for two hours?"
The Gryphoness chuckled wryly.
"Point taken. Fine then..."
She thought for several moments, then her eyes narrowed, and her ears pinned back slightly.
"Explain to me why you pushed me away."
Fyrenn's beak fell open. For a moment, he silently worked his jaw. At last, the words came unstuck from the back of his throat.
"How can you even *ask* that?!"
Neyla's glare sharpened.
"What is that supposed to mean? How can I not ask?! You... You... You're like a stone WALL! You won't let me in, and I have *no* idea what's going on in your head anymore! It wasn't like that when I first met you. Why did you change?"
Fyrenn returned the glare in kind.
"Why?! Because you kept PUSHING that's why! Did it ever occur to you that what you were doing... Making a pass at me that way... That you *scared* me? Did that thought *ever* cross your mind?!"
Neyla pulled back as far as she could, stiffening. Fyrenn could feel her muscles coiling into bunches like steel cords.
"Did it ever occur to you that it was time to move on from your irrational psychosis about romantic involvement? Did *you* ever stop to think that what you did hurt me deeply?! I was ready to love you! And not just as a friend!"
Fyrenn raised his voice as high as he dared in the confined space.
"And I WASN'T!!! I wasn't ready Neyla! I was terrified beyond anything I can describe..."
Neyla's face fell.
"I scare you? Is that how you see me?!"
Fyrenn groaned in frustration, squinting his eyes as hard as he could.
"No! No no no absolutely not *no!* You? You're wonderful. You're kind, you're caring... Fiercely intelligent, creative, adventurous, wise..."
He watched as the Gryphoness began to blush furiously. He knew he was doing the same beneath his feathers, but their bright red hue mercifully disguised the tell tale signs.
Fyrenn kept speaking, quickening his pace as his emotions intensified.
"You are... Well you're perfect. You don't scare me. *I* scare me."
After a moment of calm, punctuated only by a tiny stream of dust falling from part of the ceiling, Fyrenn realized that Neyla was patiently waiting for him to continue. To spill out his entire soul at last.
Hesitantly, he obliged.
"I have... I have watched so many relationships self destruct horribly... Because one or both of the people involved were unprepared... Incapable of seeing past their desire..."
The red Gryphon shook his head as adamantly as he could, given the constrained space.
"I just can not risk becoming a monster that way. I saw it happen to my closest friend. I had to watch him die, *twice,* once by my own claw, hand, whatever it was then---"
Neyla placed one claw on Fyrenn's right foreleg. The contact left him dumbstruck. He felt as if an electric current had been passed through his brain.
The Gryphoness allowed him a moment to breathe, then took up her discourse once more, her voice and expression both much softened.
"I've dealt with the same issues. God knows, and so do you... I've dealt with precisely the same issues. I know you understand when I say that having to shoot someone you love through the head, or the heart, because they tried to end your life first? That leaves you with..."
Fyrenn nodded, "Questions. About your judgement."
Neyla mimicked the gesture, placing her other claw on Fyrenn's other foreleg and again subjecting him to a jolt of emotions.
"But I overcame that. I overcame that because I realized that everyone makes mistakes. That my judgement was partly at fault... But that I had also been carefully deceived. Just like you were. And that we had so much in common... And that you were *worth* the risk. Don't you think I'm worth risk?"
Fyrenn let out a sound halfway between a sob, and a chuckle.
"That's not fair. If I say no, not only will you be offended, and not only will you point out that I just risked my life for yours... But I'd be making myself a liar. If I say yes, your point is proven."
Neyla grinned, the lurid glow of the emergency light giving her a frighteningly predatory aspect on top of her joviality.
"So you're admitting defeat?"
Fyrenn took a deep breath, and shook his head slowly.
"No. And here's why..."
He paused to collect his thoughts, before continuing. Slowly and deliberately.
"It isn't fair... Wasn't fair, for you to put that sort of pressure on me. You moved on? I didn't. Sometimes I still have nightmares about what happened to Robert, and every time it's about the same thing happening to me. I haven't gotten past that yet, and you tried to force closure on me before I was prepared for it."
Neyla inhaled slowly, and nodded as she delivered her response.
"Fine. I'll grant you that... But what I put you through was no more or less unfair than what you did to me. You're brave, honorable, steadfast, loyal, moral to a fault, daring as they come. And we have so much that we share in common... About our past, and the way we think, and speak, and act, and what we believe..."
Fyrenn found himself struggling mightily to keep back a stream of tears. He lost the battle miserably as Neyla continued.
"I gave you as much time and cushioning as I could stand to. But I was ready, beyond ready, to delve deeper and see if we could make something more of our relationship. Your fear blinded you, and instead of saying all this to me then and letting me help you?"
Fyrenn gulped, and tried to keep his voice from breaking as he finished the thought.
"Well the human phrase is a 'knee jerk.' I didn't think. I couldn't. I was so scared I was turning *into* him... Little by little..."
Neyla tilted her head, and pierced the red Gryphon with an inescapable, probing gaze.
"How can you believe that? How can you see yourself in such a dim light? I know you. I know you perhaps better than you do. You're capable of many flaws. You left me sobbing nights and nights on end because of your flaws... But you're not capable of becoming a monster like that. It's not in your nature anymore."
"How can you know that for sure?"
The words escaped Fyrenn's beak more as a sob than as a question.
Neyla smiled sadly.
"Faith. Well grounded faith."
Fyrenn shook his head vigorously.
"Saying it, and believing it intellectually? Very different from believing it in here..."
He tapped his chest for emphasis with one talon. Neyla sighed, and reached out with her right claw. She gently laid it over Fyrenn's heart.
"Maybe you're wise not to completely trust yourself... So trust *me.* You are not him. You will never be him. People of his low caliber could never hope to be anything like *you.* Not even in their wildest aspirations."
For a moment, Fyrenn silently wept, at last abandoning all effort to hold back the confused tidal wave of emotions that Neyla's words had unleashed from the inner storehouses where he had buried them so carefully.
At last, he managed to get out the words he had been meaning to say for three years.
"I'm sorry. I'm so... So sorry..."
Neyla blinked rapidly to clear her own tears, and sighed.
"You're right though. I owe you an apology too... This mess came as much from my pushing as from your hedging."
Fyrenn allowed a small smile to cross his beak. He wiped at his eyes with one dust encrusted claw, and finally managed to bring his heaving sobs under control.
"There. Was that so hard?"
Neyla returned the smile.
"No harder than it was for you. No one ever told you how this works?"
Fyrenn paused, and a small chuckle escaped his beak.
"Those were the first words you ever said to me. I was so baffled by the dome... In the library..."
Neyla nodded, "You remember."
Fyrenn exhaled slowly.
"How could I not? That was the day you helped me find my new name."
There was, once more, silence. At last, Neyla spoke again.
"So. Where do we go from here then?"
Fyrenn shook his head and exhaled again, shuddering as his body continued to reflexively heave from his earlier bout of weeping.
"Honestly? I don't know. We can't just pick up where we left off..."
Neyla rolled her eyes.
"Give me some credit. I do know, and accept that."
She tilted her head, and perked both ears as she thought, finally settling on a wording she liked.
"I propose that we do what all those pilot types you idolize do."
Fyrenn smiled, "That being?"
"We 'fly by the seat of our pants.' "
The red Gryphon narrowed his eyes.
"I perceive a flaw in this plan. We don't have pants."
Neyla groaned.
"You are insufferable."
Fyrenn nodded, "I know. And in all seriousness... I suppose I agree. I still don't think I'm ready to go much further than 'really really really good friends.' For now. But we both have to accept that all roads are still open."
The Gryphoness nodded and sighed, "That's fair. Like you said, we can't just pick up exactly where we left off... But at least we can stop being so cold."
"Yes. And I think we needn't be afraid to talk about it more. We were both guilty of that, and we can't afford that kind of lapse anymore."
Fyrenn's tone finally began to approach an even keel once more. Neyla's followed suit.
"Agreed. Very much agreed. I think its time we both accept that what we do, what we don't do... What we say, and what goes unsaid, affects more than just one of us. So I will hold you to that."
Fyrenn nodded, and the pair lapsed into silence once more.
As the glowstick sputtered, and began to die, Neyla surprised Fyrenn by pushing up against his right side, and working her way into a protected, and very intimate position under his wing.
The red Gryphon stammered, and barely managed to form cogent speech.
"Ah... Uh... Well... That's... Why would you... After what you just said?!"
Neyla offered him a piercingly sad half-smile.
"I've spent the last three years missing you. More than I cared to admit, especially to myself. After they dig us out? We have to abide by our ground rules, and that will be very strange and difficult for me. Let me have this one warm, happy moment, at least."
Fyrenn sighed, and smiled, making a conscious effort to release his tension.
"Well, when you put it like that..."
"Good God! What did they DO to you?!"
Hutch chuckled as Aston raced to come alongside his stretcher. He immediately regretted allowing his mirth expression, and the laugh devolved into a cough as his ribs protested violently.
"You should see the other guy..."
The Commander bent low over her friend's stretcher, and put a finger to his lips.
"I did. They were hauling what was left of him away in pieces on a halftrack. You need to save your breath. You look like you've just been through a meat grinder."
Hutch reached up with one hand, and clamped down on Aston's arm with a surprisingly powerful grip, considering his condition.
"Any news?"
Aston smiled widely, and nodded. She ducked to the side to avoid an oncoming stream of technicians, before rejoining the small parade of doctors and junior officers accompanying Hutch's stretcher.
"We just got word through a fiber land-line ten minutes ago. Your friend Varan personally delivered the good news to Lantry, who passed it on up the chain. Thanks to you and Taranis, they were able to coordinate a plan and divert the rod into the northwest Pacific."
The General sighed, and allowed his arm to fall back to the stretcher.
The group passed carefully through a set of unhinged doors, and out onto the street. The entire boulevard had been closed to civilian traffic for a six block radius, and emergency vehicles had descended in a thick swarm.
The air resonated with idling engines, hastily barked orders, and the clatter of boots on paving stones.
As the paramedics began to lift Hutch's stretcher into the back of a waiting ambulance, he glanced down at Aston again.
"What else do I need to know?"
The Commander sighed, and vaulted up into the back of the vehicle carefully making space for herself on a bench seat as the doctors began to set up a series of IV drips for the General.
"Vancouver and New York weren't the only targets. There were also large scale attacks in San Francisco and Singapore. We avoided the worst of the catastrophe, in a lot of ways, but there are thousands dead. Maybe more after the tsunami hits on the West Coast, and in Asia. In terms of logistical disruptions, the damage is... Extreme."
Hutch inhaled slowly, and winced as one of the medical technicians drove a three inch needle into his right arm.
"How bad?"
Aston shook her head, and cast her eyes down to the floor of the vehicle. She paused as the rear doors closed, and the Ambulance lurched off the curb, into the street-proper.
"From what I've heard? Vancouver is in rough shape. No specifics there yet. In Singapore, the Earthgov complex went mostly unscathed in spite of a bombing attempt, but the Conversion Bureau was half-torched before the military police finally got organized. Rioting is still in progress. As for San Francisco?"
Aston winced as the Ambulance accelerated into a particularly sharp turn.
"Apparently the only standing above-ground military structure left is the Naval Station at Mare Island. And... The Conversion Bureau was completely levelled. There are at least twelve confirmed dead civilians, and over six hundred military casualties there. And climbing fast."
Hutch nodded slowly, and coughed once again. The sound seemed less gravelly to Aston, likely as a result of the medications now coursing through the man's bloodstream.
The General managed a few final words before the sedatives fully took effect, "Find out about everyone else... I want... A... Head count---"
Aston smiled forlornly as Hutch's words faded away into a loud snore.
"I guess I'm dead."
Shierel nearly jumped several inches into the air at the sound of Lieutenant McBride's voice. She raised her head from the side of his cot, and smiled.
"Why would you say that?"
The Lieutenant grinned sheepishly.
"Well because you look like an angel to me."
The Gryphoness chuckled, and shook her head slowly.
"Hardly. I haven't even had a chance to get all of the blood out of my feathers."
The Lieutenant inhaled slowly, and squinted up into Shierel's eyes.
"What exactly happened? I remember the cabin got hit..."
Shierel nodded, "Yes. You were injured gravely. I brought you to the naval base, but we were forced to evacuate several minutes ago."
McBride stiffened, and grunted.
"Evacuate? Why?"
The Gryphoness shook her head, and glanced away to the horizon. The Lieutenant realized, with a start, that they were outdoors, in the midst of a makeshift triage center set up on some poor soul's front lawn.
"There was an attack on Vancouver. The enemy made use of a weapon so powerful that it could not be stopped entirely. It struck some distance northwest of here, and produced a large wave. Everyone along the coast had been moved inland."
The Lieutenant nodded, and closed his eyes.
"So how bad is the damage? To me, I mean."
There was a long pause. When Shierel spoke, her tone carried a note McBride had never heard in her voice before.
Apprehension.
"You lost over half of your body. I wanted to wake you... To ask your permission... But they told me doing so would kill you instantly. You only had minutes left to live regardless. So I did what needed to be done. The only thing I could have done."
The Lieutenant opened his eyes wide, and tried to sit bolt upright. Instead, he only succeeded in rolling off the cot. Shierel reached out with both forelegs to help him steady himself.
It was only when McBride looked down at his own legs, all four of them, that he realized what had happened.
He slumped gingerly back onto the gurney, and stared down at his own newly minted foreclaws in disbelief. Though slightly larger than Shierel's, and of a somewhat different hue, they were unmistakably Gryphon claws. And they were unmistakably his.
"I... But... How did you...?"
Shierel held up a small empty glass cylinder, etched with a silver delta superimposed over an inlaid gamma.
"There was one left. It was perhaps the only intact thing in all the rubble. I'm sorry that---"
McBride laughed, and shook his head vehemently, dislodging the new feathers around his ears.
"No no! No... This is not something for you to be sorry about... You saved my life. And the new wings aren't too shabby either..."
He chuckled, and glanced back over his shoulder, gently working the new limbs back and forth as much as he could without disturbing other nearby patients.
"I just... I don't quite know what to say yet... I thought Humans had to pass all kinds of tests and things before they handed out your potion..."
Shierel sighed, and smiled wanly, her ears perking up as the Lieutenant's good mood relieved her of her fears.
"I do not believe either of us will get into any trouble over this. I will vouch for you if necessary."
McBride held his head up as far as he could without losing his balance, and allowed the breeze to flow over his face, ruffling the feathers of his neck and cheeks, and toying with his ears as if they were windsocks.
"I... Think I could definitely get used to this."
He opened his eyes, and scanned the horizon, his grin widening.
"That's incredible... I had no idea there was so much... Everything!"
Shierel couldn't help herself. She began to laugh. McBride decided the sound reminded him of a cross between wind chimes, and a choir of heavenly hosts.
The Gryphoness glanced over her shoulder, stiffened, and then held up a claw.
"I'm sorry, I must attend to this. Please don't try to move just yet. It will take a few minutes for your mind to accept that your sense of balance is different."
McBride smiled, crossed his forelegs, laid his head down on the impromptu pillow.
"I'm not going anywhere. Yet."
He watched as the Gryphoness ambled over to a pair of stone-faced officials. The men didn't look like military police, in spite of their light body armor. McBride surmised that they were likely logistics officials.
Between the two men, a young forlorn Pegasus colt stood, eyes fixated on Shierel as if she were the last and only thing in the world that mattered.
The Gryphoness conversed animatedly with the two men for a moment, at one point hissing and causing the shorter of the two to step back in fear. At last, the senior official produced a DaTab, which Shierel signed deftly.
The men then turned, and vanished into the commotion from whence they had come.
McBride kept his eyes fixated on Shierel as the Gryphoness knelt beside the colt, and pulled him into a comforting embrace. He could tell the young Pony wanted to cry, but was simply too shell shocked to process his situation fully.
He could also tell that Shierel's presence meant the world to the little Pegasus.
At that precise moment, Lieutenant William McBride decided precisely what he wanted for his future, and precisely how he was going to get there.
He smiled up at Shierel as she slowly made her way over to his cot, her little Pegasus in tow under the protective canopy of one partially spread wing.
The Lieutenant glanced down at the colt, and waved. The little Pony returned the gesture shyly, then tried his best to burrow into the feathers and fur of Shierel's left side.
McBride glanced up at the Gryphoness and whispered.
"So he's..."
She nodded quietly, her expression sober.
The Lieutenant sighed, "So what happens to him?"
Shierel smiled slightly, "I have no qualms about becoming a mother. I plan to care for him."
McBride grinned, and beckoned for her to lean in closer. As soon as the Gryphoness was in range, he reached up, and touched the side of his beak to her right cheek lightly, whispering.
"Correction. *We* plan to care for him."
At first, the Lieutenant was afraid Shierel would pull away. But instead, she pushed into the impromptu kiss for a long, silent moment.
As she pulled away, smiling, she nodded.
From that moment on, McBride always referred to the moment as the happiest he had ever been in his life.
If San Francisco and Los Angeles had the advantage of distance from the impact zone, then Vancouver had the advantage of a large uninhabited land break.
Nonetheless, the kinetic fury of the towering wave would not content itself with consuming two and a half miles of barrier landmass.
The titanic wall of water diffused some of its energy outward, producing a cascade of relatively smaller waves and ripples. Several of the disturbances raced inland through the various waterways and gulfs of the area, reaching a height of nearly fifty feet through compression.
Though most of Vancouver's occupants had been given sufficient warning, there were still a few for whom there was no escape.
Though the casualties were relatively low, the structural damage was substantial. When the wave struck, it completely demolished the first two blocks of waterfront property. The foaming cascade continued inland, further damaging another five blocks worth of vehicles and lower-slung buildings, before it finally subsided into a more manageable trickle.
At last, however, the disaster was well and truly over.
As the sun set on March twenty second, 2117, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, Vancouver still stood, a myriad glittering lights testifying to the millions who had faced certain death, and survived.
Fyrenn woke with a start. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and another unusually long moment for him to realize that he had been jolted into consciousness by the sound of voices, and heavy machinery.
He nearly jumped once again when he realized that Neyla had fallen asleep as well, still under his right wing, and at some point had reflexively nestled her head in the crook of his neck.
He shook her gently, and her eyes snapped open.
"HMMMMM!?!"
Fyrenn held up a claw.
"It's alright. I think we've been found."
Neyla glanced up at the red Gryphon, then stiffened.
"I'm sorry. Was I...?"
Fyrenn chuckled, "Nestled very very close to me? Yes you were. I have to confess I fell asleep too. I can't remember the last time I had decent rest."
Neyla sighed, and shook her head.
Fyrenn exhaled slowly, "We speak of this to no one."
Neyla inclined her head in agreement.
"Especially not Stan."
Fyrenn glanced up as a particularly large stone fell away, to reveal the face of a helmeted emergency worker.
He raised his right claw, and waved.
"Hi there. What took you so long?"