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.
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I hope something can definitely be done about those HLF assholes and quick.
It's a bad habit of mine, but I can't help but consider how plot elements in some folks' stories may have altered the outcomes of others. It's tacky for me to say, but in this case, the story I found myself considering was one that I wrote. If the griffin potion had been an option in the setting I'd used for Railroad Seven-Three—especially in the way you've presented it here—the lot who make up more moderate militant factions like the Railroad and the Cordon probably would have applied for it. It certainly would nullify the main concern such people have over the Equestrian expansion, and probably would have preserved hundreds of lives.
The story's moving fast and I like these sophisticated versions of the HLF and PER you're using. I think a lot of their original appeal was in their slapdash paramilitary duct-tape-and-bubble-gum structure, but swapping out their dirty t-shirts and cargo pants for slick expensive suits is working pretty well.
708994
I don't think its a bad habit at all, I think its another very useful piece of machinery in one's internal idea factory.
If nothing else, its a fun diversion. I often wonder how the lives of other characters from other TCB fics would play out in my universe.
I tend to imagine lots of those lens flare Fringe effects. Hmmm, mental note, observer Ponies would be boss.
There is a slapdash side to both organizations, but the leadership and vanguard military units tend to get all the cash-flow poured into their creation and maintenance and upgrades, while the lower decks languish; similar to the way dictatorships work in today's world.
You will get to see this side of the PER soon, the HLF it might be longer in coming since I wanted to especially turn that on it's ear for their higher-ups and make a point of it.
And too, the concept of sophisticated enemies is one that's near and dear to me due to so much time spent with Star Trek and Stargate, Fringe and X-Files, etc.
Ugh, I can't get over how big you make the Griffons. Seriously, how big are they, as big as Celestia!?
Great story, but it's confusing trying to picture them.
693588
The more I think about it, the more the Gryphon and Turian social structures feel almost 1:1. It's uncanny how similar they are in my mind.
This is really cool, the amount of realism. Is this particular description of gryphon culture and physiology unique to this fic, or is there a widely-used gryphon thing, ala the CB?
Because this? This is awesome.
Hold on, i have a quick question.
If gryphons are 'immune' to magic, does this mean that Unicorn battle magic wont work? Or is it simply less effective? Which brings up the question, Celestia uses Solar Magic, very powerful. If the case ever arose, would Celestia be able to defend herself using magic? Or could a gryphon just waltz right past any sheilds or 'magic missles'?
709679
I don't actually know enough about Turian society to draw parallels.
I dropped out of the ME universe after finding out about the ending of 3, and didn't bother to learn anything else about it that wasn't artistically related.
709228
Smaller than Celestia, but not by too much, bigger than Ponies.
Truth be told, I'm cheating a bit since the scale should be smaller, and it won't feel so huge in Equestria when you no longer have humans to compare things to.
710389
Gryphons are virtually unrecognized in media as a whole.
Even in terms of ancient stories, I've found very little material on them. What we know of past portrayals of them from archaeology could be summed up in a blog post, which I may very well do. Their role mostly consisted of 'look badass for statues and heraldry.'
Even when they show up in modern media, they're usually mistreated, mis-portrayed, or somebody simply doesn't do the homework.
Thus I've put together my own viewpoint on them, starting with a stripped down version of their original mythos and working from the premises of nobility, courage, and loyalty.
My crazy pipe dream is to, through books, or movies, or most preferably games, make a big enough impact one day to forever cement my special view of them as the default public go-to. To effectively make it impossible, or at least silly, to portray them as anything less.
710621
The immunity only extends to magical alteration or meddling, and sort of crosses over into a general immunity to physical change, including technological or chemical. That means no transformation, limited healing by magic (which can be a severe disadvantage depending, and has resulted in their culture doing more medical research than Equestrians), no mind/memory altering, no mind reading, no transmutation, no 'force choke' or 'force hold,' no teleport, no rule 63 by any means, no use of any other potion again, ever, and very very few effective poisons etc etc and so forth.
If by Unicorn Battle Magic you mean the equivalent of cast magic missile, then that's going to work fine. Its the magic equivalent, in my mind, of a phaser blast, and so its just plain energy and it will remain effective, the problem you'll have there is actually managing to score a hit.
Gryphons' immunity does *not* allow them to somehow turn off or pass through other forms of magic. Celestia's defenses are no less potent versus one of us than anyone else, presuming defenses means no attempts at meddling directly with us. Hence her own illustration of throwing a table at Siidran telekinetically. Your best and safest bet, when using magic against a Gryphon, is to funnel alot of power into your own defense, and use the rest to manipulate the environment.
Now you know.
And Knowing is half the battle.
seeklogo.com/images/G/G_I__Joe-logo-561093A132-seeklogo.com.gif
710865 Quick question: what does "rule 63" mean?
713898
If you don't know, then its safer not to ask.
If you don't know, and have a brazen disregard for caution, then you can find the answer with a quick call to Dr. Google.
Ah, I'm enjoying this. I ask you, can I steal some of your characters for King of Diamonds (should they be necessary)?
I'm definitely being cross-pollinated by this, and I'm happy to say that "my" griffons are a lot like your "gryphons" (spelling differences aside) so it's making it hard for me to remember where one ends and the other begins.
715327
Sure! As long as I can steal one or two of yours for cameos now and then.
I do love me some good cameos, it helps stories all seem more plausible in relation to each-other, even in different universes.
And I always loved exploring 'how did X Y or Z person's life turn out differently in this timeline?'
Also, there are something like 24 ways to spell 'Gryphon' of which Gryphon, Griffon, and Griffin are the three most common and accepted variants.
The more everyone's Gryphons are like 'my' Gryphons (spelling aside), the happier I am!
Hopefully a new chapter today.
Usually I don't go more than two days without one, sometimes I get in two per day, it really depends on an odd mix of sleep levels, inspiration levels, and time levels.
Finally getting around to reading this. It has been on my list for a while. I am liking this so far. It is not often you read about an asexual character and the story does NOT focus on that one aspect of the character's life. When is the third story in the series going to begin?
Okay, so Wren did find he's got teeth, too. Good.
BTW, as the beginning of the story, there was descriptions for the ponization (purple) and griffonization (yellow) potions. But during the fire fight in the vault, I noticed there was a red potion that was also spilled...
Dragons?
8802758
Dragon potion does come up later, but it has a more orange hue; The red potion is Ponification serum as well. It works exactly the same as the purple standard potion, but with two key differences.
1; It can be administered safely for the very small percentage of people who are deathly allergic to certain chemical components of standard potion.
2; It is about 25x more expensive to produce.
So the PER doesn't bother with it, of course, meaning they kill a small but tragic percentage of the people they dose. The Bureaus care enough to spend the extra cash to produce the special potion type for those affected with the allergy.
What I like most about this is that Wrenn's plan to provoke them worked. They aren't considering for even a moment that they've been successfully, purposefully goaded into impulsivity. People are so delightfully hackable.
As for their plan... Point one, good luck. Point two, if the salient public takeaway from Gryphonization has been anchored in positivity, all they'd be going in assassinating the representatives of this process would be to anger the people who had hope for it. And a failed assassination attempt? Oh, just hand the Bureau a loaded gun, why don't you.
I love that Wrenn is cognizant of this. He really does consider everyone, even the folks he wasn't very close with.
Ah, the delightfully hilarious mental image of a Gryphon making faces and growling in the mirror. I must say I'm loving this exploration of self after going through a transition so jarring. I'm also very glad that the new vision was received positively, and did not overwhelm him too much. I suppose if being comfortable with that is in the very animal nature of a Gryphon, the human reaction of dissociation would be somewhat repressed.
It probably helps that he has more mental cycles to process his feelings with, now.
Wrenn's self examination alone made this a joy of a chapter.
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This always seems to be something both sides forget in asymmetric unbounded warfare; Don't make martyrs!
He may be impulsive and sad and lonely... But by golly he does care about people.
One of my top ten favorites from this book.
I'm so glad!