Hegira: Option Gamma

by Guardian_Gryphon

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.

Comments

[Error_404_Not_Found]

Um...daaaayumn.

[The Rogue Wolf]

Two updates in a day? You beast! If I posted two chapters in the same day, my readers would ask me who I was and what I'd done with the real Rogue Wolf.

Our heroes are not exactly in the best position, hm? Hopefully somebody's got a "big damn heroes" moment ready!

[Guardian_Gryphon]

1038027
Theorize, plot, feverishly assemble a board of clues....
...for I have liberally sprinkled some lovely clues.

1038408
Who knows, I may even churn out another chapter shortly if exhaustion doesn't claim me and drag me off to gt some sleep.

1039074
I'm not really a fan of the show's visual conception of Gryphons.
Gilda was 'ok' but lacked finishing touches, ears being among them.
My visual portrayal of the whole universe would be a bit more serious and, I hope, visually appealing.
That's most readily seen with Gryphons (who have always traditionally had ears) my Gryphons are much more 'srs bzns' visually than the ones in the show.

Anyone looking at one would *instanly* know; 'This thing could twist me into a pretzel around my own ribcage'

Similarly, Dragons are (as we will see at some stage here, or in the sequel) much more 'visually serious' along with the Diamond Dogs, especially Lupines and Hyanians.

[Grif_Bladefeather]

k so theroy, IJ is a changeling, possibly working for celestia for some unexplained reason, likely she replaced the real pony that was supposed to meet the group in hopes of getting a gryphon. now would be a damn good time for the dragons to come in, i mean surly they must hate these things too, if there are wisps does that mean there are golems? anyway great job so far