• Published 22nd May 2012
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Hegira: Option Gamma - Guardian_Gryphon

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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."