Hegira: Eternal Delta

by Guardian_Gryphon

Chapter 38

Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 27th, Gregorian Calendar

"There is nothing quite like trying to convince Humans to be organized in the middle of a crisis."

Neyla snorted, and raised an eyebrow as Varan spoke. She tossed back a glass of juice, and shook her head.

"What about trying to convince Humans, Ponies, Gryphons, and two Dragons to work together under the same organizational system?"

Fyrenn snorted as he finished the last of his synth-meat.

"You try spending all day crawling through scummy abandoned ventilation tubing. There are some crazy sickos down there you know..."

Carradan smiled, and slurped his coffee, intentionally magnifying the sound.

"Yeah yeah. Quit your whining. I have to corral the press, and you ain't seen scummy until you try to convince a guy dead-set on making his deadline that he's gotta play by the rules."

Kephic chuckled, and nudged the Pegasus lightly.

"I imagine this sheds new light on just how lucky you were to survive your first encounter with us."

Carradan sniffed, and glanced away.

"Oh come on. I was never *that* deluded."

Varan didn't even glance up as he interjected.

"Yes you were."

Skye chuckled as she levitated the last of her haycakes.

"He still is if you ask me."

Fyrenn rolled his eyes and sighed, starting slowly on his loaf of bread. In between bites, he spoke absently, his gaze wandering across the busy confines of the room.

"I wouldn't say he's deluded. He's just a little insane."

Stan grinned up at the red Gryphon, and raised an eyebrow.

"Gee. I wonder where I picked that up. You people are a terrible influence, you know that? I never had so much as a traffic citation before you came along, and now I spend half my nights frog-marching through the backwoods in twenty six pounds of armor plating, *looking* for things that wanna suck out my brains through my schnoz."

Neyla smiled slightly, and finished the last of her meat, rising slowly as she licked the edges of her beak clean.

"Admit it though; The hunt has a certain charm. Even for a Pony."

Carradan glared for a moment, then shrugged, his gaze softening.

"Yeeeeah. Well... I'm still convinced it's just an adrenaline addiction."

Fyrenn sighed, and rose to all fours himself, stretching his wings slightly and yawning.

"Speaking of the hunt, wish me fair fortune and deep tracks. I think I'm onto something, tenuous as it may be."

The group nodded collectively. Neyla spoke as she turned to make her way across the room.

"Sentinels are taught that the Hunt is nine tenths instinct. Yours are good, so don't let that intellect of yours get in the way."

Carradan's muzzle wrinkled in a manufactured expression of confusion.

"He has intellect?!"

Fyrenn found himself torn between a vague sense of encouragement, and strong twinge of desperation.

The previous day's findings could be construed as a positive development, but questions and doubts nagged incessantly at the back of his mind. Experience told him that two sets of footprints was very little to go on. His gut told him that he should be grateful to have even that.

He started his efforts by returning to the culvert. He had already memorized the distinctive qualities of the shoes' markings, but he felt there was more to be gained by examining the space itself in detail.

Fyrenn did his best to profile the location, cataloguing everything that defined it tactically and architecturally. A long flat running surface. Multiple entry and exit points of various size. An opening to the sky. Proximity to an industrial facility.

The Gryphon paced back and forth for nearly half an hour, trying to emulate his quarry's state of mind, based on the evidence; Fear. Paranoia. Drive to stay on the move. Suppressed desire for external contact.

Finally, Fyrenn turned to the tiny shaft that the two runners had used as their exit route. He stood for a moment, carefully cementing its proportions in his mind.

Then he spread his wings, and took to the air, circling at a leisurely pace two dozen stories above the site.

Fyrenn knew he would never fit down the pipe, but he also knew its exact dimensions, and starting point. From there, it was trivial to calculate the possible points where the runners' path would intersect more accessible structures and locations.

There were a dozen possibilities. Fyrenn carefully approached each, and examined it with the same dedication and care as he had expended on the culvert. As he had both feared, and expected, there was no real evidence to indicate which route the runners might have taken.

He found he could eliminate over half the potential avenues with simple logical consideration. They were simply non-viable choices to anyone fleeing pursuit, with any kind of experience in running and hiding.

That still left Fyrenn with four possible routes. A drainage pipe, two maintenance tubes, and a dis-used subway tunnel.

He took to the air once more, circling lazily from point to point as he tried to determine a single likely course.

The edges of his beak turned upward slightly. The drainage pipe was likely prone to flooding. Fyrenn knew that if he were stuck with deteriorating footwear, he would avoid soaked surfaces as much as possible.

Wet feet inside tight shoes led to blisters, and blisters were a runner's enemy.

In a blinding moment of purely instinctual guesswork, Fyrenn tucked his wings, and dipped towards the mouth of the subway tunnel.

The world canted, elongated, and then abruptly snapped back, descending into shadows as Fyrenn flared his wings, and alighted in the mouth of the tunnel. He tapped absently at the rusted bars of the rails, and inhaled the scent of the structure.

Concrete dust, oxidization, engine lubricant, and warm metal blended together to generate a truly unique aroma.

Fyrenn smiled slightly, mumbling to himself as he set off at a sedate pace.

"I always wondered what the inside of these looked like..."

Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Fourth Month, Twenty Eight Day, Celestial Calendar

"Sister!"

Celestia found herself nearly crushed in a blur of deep blue fur and wings as her sibling dashed forward into an unusually passionate expression of her sororal affections.

The Solar Monarch returned the embrace, savoring the rare moment of emotional release. The Alicorn almost felt as if she could shed the pervading aches and pains of her drained state for a fleeting instant.

As Luna pulled away and re-composed her normally stoic visage, Celestia stared off the edge of the reception pad.

Canterlot was buzzing with activity. The skyline of the city was a remarkable and vaguely amusing sight. Nearly every window was draped with pieces of tarp, curtains, or covered over with boards to keep out rain.

Pegasi darted to and fro carrying panes of glass, large and small, while a veritable army of other Ponies worked to install the new windows as swiftly as possible.

Celestia brought her gaze to rest on her sister, and her muzzle turned down slightly.

"Are you well? You must have endured considerable strain..."

Luna tried to force a reassuring smile, but something dark clouded her visage in spite of her best efforts.

"I am sound enough of body. But I fear that my mind has failed us all."

Celestia's gaze narrowed, and she stepped forward, lowering her voice slightly to avoid broadcasting to the nearest guards.

"What has transpired?"

Luna's gaze shifted left, then right, then down. She shuffled one hoof slightly, then inclined her head towards the double-doors leading into the palace.

"I think this conversation is best saved for a private place."

Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 27th, Gregorian Calendar

Fyrenn sighed, yawned, and stretched each wing in turn. He glanced up at the evening sky, and paused to take in the strange panoply of colors. In the west teal and gray, in the east deep orange, yellow, and even blue.

He paused, and took stock of the surrounding terrain. The subway tunnel had eventually led him to a series of large switching tracks, a maintenance tube, and then several hours of circling aimlessly through catacombs.

Finally, he had come upon an exit vent. The aperture opened onto a large concrete tarmac that had once been a staging area for maintenance and fire trucks.

Fyrenn examined the space carefully, and selected his exit route. As he leapt deftly from the vent down to the duracrete surface, he decided that he wouldn't extend his search more than an hour beyond sundown.

At that point his lead would, in his estimation, become a cold trail. He would have to start over.

The thought made Fyrenn wince. The idea of having to start from scratch on such an impossibly vast search grid made him physically recoil.

The red Gryphon ambled slowly towards the nearest vehicle exit ramp, sweeping the ground in the vain hope of sighting some sort of footprint, or disturbed loose item. He mumbled aloud as he reached the edge of the ramp, shaking his head.

"I hate tracking on artificial surfaces..."

As he placed his front left claw on the ramp, Fyrenn paused, and reflexively twisted one ear to the left. A long moment passed.

The Gryphon prepared to continue, but froze as the sound reached him once more. Once could have been anything. The squeal of settling metal, or the scrape of a misaligned fan blade. Twice was, however, something Fyrenn could not ignore.

He pivoted his entire body to the left, and slackened his stance. Varan had taught him that the secret to absolute silence on paw and claw was to remain loose, and carefully consider each step.

As he approached the alleyway from whence the waft of sound had emanated, he caught another resonant hint of the noise. Surety flooded his mind. It was definitely a voice.

Fyrenn quickened his pace as much as he dared, effortlessly traversing the alleyway in a matter of moments with two cat-like bounds.

The small gulf between structures exited onto a slightly wider causeway which itself terminated in another series of alleys. Fyrenn's gaze immediately fixated on the space's lone inhabitant.

He froze, even neglecting to draw breath as he stared downwards at the figure in the shadows.

The girl couldn't have been older than nine. Her stark blond hair spilled across her shoulders in an unkempt and tangled wave that looked as if it were washed in gutter water, and trimmed with a rusty razor.

Her clothing was battered, stained, and torn. There was a large gash in the back of her shirt that exposed a series of metallic fin-like structures grafted directly into her spine.

What struck Fyrenn the hardest, however, was her voice; Clear, strong, sweet, and melancholy. It reminded him of a stingingly cold breath of mountain air.

The child was singing softly, and the melody was familiar. Fyrenn listened through the first verse without so much as inhaling, trying to place the origin.

At last recognized it as a song his mother used to sing to him as she tucked him in every night. He hadn't heard the tune in decades, but the words came flooding back to him as he listened to the child.

She absently toyed with the edge of a pebble, making her way seamlessly into the second verse.

"In the silence, you won't let go. In the questions, your truth will hold. Your great love will lead me through; You are the peace in my troubled sea. Ooooh, you are the peace, in my troubled sea!"

As the words poured forth, rolling off the sides of the causeway, and back into the space like eddies in a brook, Fyrenn leapt silently from his perch to the ground below.

As the last of the verse echoed away, he steeled himself, and conjured up the depths of his memory. The girl tensed as she heard him inhale, turning slowly and cautiously as his own voice filled the silence.

"My lighthouse! My Lighthouse! Shining in the darkness; I will follow you!"

A moment of stark silence followed as the child stared up at him, her wide eyes filled to the brim with fear, hope, awe, and questions.

She took a tentative step forward, and then hesitantly, delicately, offered up the next part of the refrain.

"My Lighthouse, My Lighthouse..."

As her voice gained strength, and surety, Fyrenn joined her, doing his best to provide the right harmonic notes as they finished the refrain together. With each word, the young girl moved closer, gradually reducing the distance.

"I will trust the promise; You will carry me safe to shore!"

As the last words of the refrain died away, the child finally came within arm's reach. She smiled slightly, and reached up with one hand, brushing the side of Fyrenn's face lightly, as if to verify that he wasn't an illusion.

He offered his best reassuring smile, and lowered himself into an unimposing recumbent position, resting his head on his crossed forelegs, and stretching out his hind legs to the rear.

The girl returned the smile shyly, and sat cross-legged, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on Fyrenn's.

"You have a nice voice."

The red Gryphon snorted, and shook his head.

"I don't really think so... But thanks. You know that's one of my favorites. My mother used to sing it to me before bedtime every night."

The child's face wrinkled in confusion. Fyrenn chuckled as he realized what was bothering her.

"I wasn't born with... All of... This," He gestured expansively to his wings, beak, tail, and claws, "I was a Human for a long time. Then they gave me a special magic---"

The girl cut him off with a wave of her hand, "A thaumatic suspension laced with programmable nanoparticles, sedatives, and protein filaments. I know what Conversion is."

Fyrenn cocked his head, and his eyes widened.

"You know a lot for someone so young."

The girl shrugged, and traced cracks in the pavement idly with one finger, breaking eye contact and staring down at the duracrete.

"I want to go for Conversion. But Sonya says we can't. I'm not old enough."

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, and blinked.

"Sonya is...?"

The girl smiled, "My older sister. I'm April."

The red Gryphon smiled again, and sighed.

"I'm Fyrenn."

April made eye contact once more, and returned the smile, though Fyrenn thought he detected a hint of pained sadness behind the expression.

"It's nice to meet you Fyrenn. I don't get to meet much of anyone. Sonya says we can't have friends. We tried once..."

April's voice trailed off. Fyrenn drew his own conclusions from her tone. She glanced up, and offered an apologetic frown.

"I'm really not supposed to be talking to you either. I'll get in trouble, and you might too."

Fyrenn waved one claw absently.

"I'm always in trouble. It goes with the territory. Or did you think the sword was just for show?"

April giggled, and held a finger up to her lips.

"Ssssshhhh! The troopers are never far away."

Fyrenn's gaze hardened. His eyes narrowed and his ears flattened. The muscles in his wings and hind legs tensed.

"Troopers?"

April nodded.

"They make sure we don't rest too much. Or get lazy. Or make friends. Or stop running. We have to keep running. And hiding. It's how we learn."

The red Gryphon inclined his head, doing his best to pour a tone of coaxing familiarity into his voice.

"Learn what?"

In response, April squinted slightly, and raised one hand. A dull whine filled the air. At first, Fyrenn was bemused, until he realized that the small pebble had flown off the pavement, and was now doing lazily loop-the-loops around his head.

He inhaled sharply, and plucked the rock out of its flight path, noting a slight resistance as he did so.

"How is that possible?"

April pointed to a pair of tiny metallic implants above her eyebrows, then turned her body so Fyrenn could once again see the metal ribbing protruding from her spine.

As she spoke, she tried to remain nonchalant, but Fyrenn could detect a hint of anger, pain, and even abject hatred in her voice.

"The spikes. I think they use programmable nanoparticles too. They connect parts of my brain, and my blood, to an electromagnetic frequency amplifier. At least, that's what it looks like. I don't always have lots of time to search the internet, and sometimes I can't get a charging port for my DaTab."

Fyrenn exhaled, and shook his head slowly.

"Haven't you ever gone to a Policeman about this? Or come to a shelter?"

April shook her head adamantly, a mask of horror twisting her lips and eyes. Fyrenn winced. He had seen the expression before, on soldiers whose minds had broken from the trauma. It had no place on the face of a child.

"We can't go to anyone. The troopers will kill them!"

She paused, and pointed to the end of the alleyway.

"You should go. Sonya will be angry, and the troopers might come after you too..."

Fyrenn took his turn to shake his head adamantly.

"I've faced worse. Small men in their shiny little metal suits do not scare me."

April winced, her voice taking on a pleading aspect.

"You don't understand, they have guns, and drones, and---"

Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, and cut her off gently.

"Look at me. Do you think I would have any problem ripping one of their drones in half and sending the pieces back in little boxes?"

The Gryphon reached out, and gingerly, but firmly, took April's hand. He brought the tiny palm first to the cool, sharp sides of his talons. Then his beak. Then the rippling muscles on the leading edge of one wing.

Finally, he laid the tiny hand to rest on the feathers of his chest, letting April feel the cacophonous roar of his many-chambered heart.

"I am not so easy to kill."

April shook her head again, and frowned.

"But Sonya is going to---"

Fyrenn interrupted again, pulling the child close to the comforting warmth of his chest.

"You let me worry about Sonya. All you need to know is that I can protect you, and I can protect her. You can stop running if you come with me."

For a moment, Fyrenn thought April would object. She stared up at him with pleading eyes, and he stared back with as much surety as he could.

At last, she collapsed into his chest, stretching her arms to their limit to pull him into a tiny embrace.

Fyrenn wrapped both forelegs, and both wings around April, enveloping her in a protective encasement of red feathers and fur, gold scales, and gray armor plates.

She whispered quietly up into one ear.

"Will you really help us?"

Fyrenn nodded firmly, "You, and anyone else like you. I have good friends with kind hearts, sharp swords, and strong influence. Whoever these 'troopers' are... I'm going to slice every last one of them to ribbons and send them home in matching boxes."

The red Gryphon stiffened as a new sound reached his ears. April felt the change, and pulled away, glanced down the alleyway furtively.

She sighed, smiled, and took off towards the emerging figure at a dead run.

Fyrenn rose, and crossed the distance sedately. He arrived to find April smothering an older girl in a tight embrace of her waist and legs. He smiled, and dipped his head in greeting.

"Sonya I presume?"

The older girl pushed April into a protected position behind her, and raised both hands menacingly.

"Who are you?!"

Fyrenn raised a claw.

"Relax. My name is Fyrenn. I can help you."

Soya glowered, and squeezed both hands, generating a high pitched whine and a peculiar distortion in midair.

The red Gryphon remained unaffected, raising one eyebrow impassively.

"That isn't likely to do you much good with my kind. You might have better luck throwing something at me, but I'd just as soon you didn't."

April forced her way out from behind her sister, and ran to Fyrenn, ducking into a protected position under one wing.

"He can help us Sonya! Please don't be mad!"

Sonya hissed, and beckoned sharply, her brow knitting as she glanced over one shoulder.

"We don't have *time* for this April! We've settled this point already, and if you---"

Fyrenn interrupted the tirade with an explosive blast from his pistol. The red beam snaked within inches of Sonya's right ear, travelling on for several more yards before striking its intended target directly in the visor.

The soldier's head pulped in a cloud of bone and kevlar dust.

Fyrenn drew his sword in his right claw, switching the laser pistol to his left with a deft toss.

"Down the causeway, take the first left into the drainage pipe, and wait for me on the other side!"

April and Sonya stared at the dead soldier in abject shock. Fyrenn allowed a harsh edge to creep into his voice.

"NOW!"

The pure force of the command seemed to galvanize the sisters. The pair vanished as quickly as Fyrenn had ever seen a Human run.

He pivoted his sword in a graceful arc, bringing it into a defensive position as he placed a withering pistol blast directly into the eye of the next soldier to round the corner.

Fyrenn realized the weapon would do him little good at extreme range if the fighting thickened, so he cycled it to its highest power setting, discharged it once more into the chest of an oncoming trooper, then tossed it aside.

As he leapt forward, sword extended, to impale the man through his shoulder joint, he examined his equipment.

The soldier's vest and shoulder pads were completely unmarked, and jet black in color. His half-helm was similarly constructed, and had a semi-transparent visor that covered half of the face.

Fyrenn recognized it as a slight variation on standard Eathgov medium urban pacification armor.

The man's weapon was also clearly government issue. A new-model RAC-7 with the full tactical attachment suite. Fyrenn calmly relieved him of the carbine as his corpse dropped to the pavement, raising the weapon in his right claw, and switching his sword to his left.

In the span it had taken him to disarm and eliminate his opponent, five more soldiers had dashed into the causeway. Fyrenn easily sidestepped their first volley, discharging the grenade launcher at the bottom of the RAC as he did so.

The small frag device detonated on impact, partially damaging two of the soldiers' chest plates.

By the time the other three men were prepared to react, Fyrenn had already split the first from shoulder to thigh with his sword. The second he riddled with an entire clip of the RAC's armor piercing munitions.

The third had time to raise his weapon, but by then Fyrenn was already on top of him. The man swiftly found his own weapon's stock firmly embedded in his neck.

Fyrenn dispatched the last two soldiers just as they regained their footing, hurling his sword in a glittering arc that bisected the first man's helmet perfectly, and finishing the second with a series of lateral swipes from his talons.

He raised his left claw just in time to snag the hilt of his sword as the soldier fell lifelessly away, and wrench the weapon free.

"That is *impressive!*"

Fyrenn kicked the nearest RAC up from the duracrete, snatching it out of the air with his right claw, and pivoting to bring the voice's source into his sight picture.

The man stood smugly on the upper lip of the causeway, flanked by several more troopers. April's stiff unmoving form was rooted directly in front of him at gunpoint.

As Fyrenn adjusted his aim to avoid hitting the child, the man raised a finger and waggled it.

"Ah ah ah. I wouldn't. I've set her failsafe. Her sister's too, if you care. If my vital signs terminate, or if I just think I've had enough, and I flip the switch... You'll be scraping up what's left of these little beauties into hazmat sample tubes. Am I making my point clearly enough for you?"

Fyrenn tightened his grip on the weapon, idly twirling his sword with his left claw.

"Yes, and then what? You kill them, and there is nothing to stop me putting the last five rounds in my clip through your left eye. Trust me when I say that you can't outrun me, and I'm not in the habit of missing."

The man threw up both hands, and shrugged.

"Oorrrrrr... I could just kill one of them right now if you refuse to comply. I know you don't have the resolve to watch them both dissolve one after the other. Those pleading little eyes would tear you up. And trust *me* when I say that your five little executioners can't outrun my failsafe."

The man gestured, and Fyrenn glanced swiftly over one shoulder to see more soldiers carefully escorting Sonya to the opposite lip of the causeway.

The man sighed, straightened his jacket, and sniffed.

"It smells like rain. I really don't feel like standing around out here in a downspout, so I'll give you to the count of three to put down your weapons. Then we're going to take a short ride back to my place, and we can talk about the situation."

He shrugged, and one hand casually strayed towards his pocket.

"I mean, unless you want to have some real fun. I'm not shy if you want to tango. One..."

Fyrenn paused to examine his options. He knew he could make the shot easily. Five rounds through the center of the man's throat before the word 'two' could even leave his lips. He wouldn't even have time to flinch.

The other soldiers would certainly open fire on him, but that was of no concern. They would need ten times as many men to have even the tiniest hope of landing just one shot accurately.

More concerning was the idea that the men might fire on April and Sonya. Fyrenn wasn't sure their reflexes were sharp enough to evade so many incoming rounds at such close range.

Lastly, and chillingly, there was the threat of the 'failsafe.' For all Fyrenn knew, it might be a bluff. But if it was, it was certainly the most well played bluff he had ever encountered. In his experience no Human, even the most broken and psychotic, could bluff so calmly when faced with such a sure death.

More tellingly still, Sonya and April were frozen in place, their expressions locked in mortified positions of terror and hate. Their behavior implied strongly that the man wasn't bluffing in the slightest.

All things considered, Fyrenn knew there really were no options. Not from his standpoint.

He calmly let the RAC fall to the pavement, turned his sword point-down, and drove it several inches into the pavement.

He held up both claws, and tilted his head.

"You're welcome to relax, if you think that's wise. But you can't remove the weapons God gave me. And if I were you, that would give me pause."

The man nodded, and gestured sharply with one hand.

"I've seen the briefing videos big red. I know what your kind is like. I also know that you'll do anything to protect these two precious little dolls. So I'm only gonna pause long enough to remind you that if I die, they die. Instantly. And it really is just that simple."

He paused, then beckoned to Fyrenn.

"Come on up. And bring that sword. We wouldn't want anyone to start asking questions. That would be bad for their health."

Fyrenn yanked the weapon free, and vaulted to the lip of the causeway in one elongated maneuver.

The man seemed unfazed. He gestured to the back of an open APC, as his men frog marched Sonya and April into the compartment.

"Where are my manners. I'm Minos."

Fyrenn pressed his sword into the hands of the nearest soldier, brushed past Minos gruffly, and made his way towards the rear of the unmarked troop transport.

Minos broke into a jog, and came up beside him.

"Now now. It isn't nice to keep me at a disadvantage. Who are you?"

He extended his hand to stop Fyrenn. The red Gryphon growled, and before anyone could react, snagged the man by his shoulders, digging his talons deep into the weak spots of the armor, and the flesh beneath.

As a symphony of released safeties assailed his ears, Fyrenn pressed his beak as close to Minos' face as he could, speaking in a low growl that practically vibrated the pavement beneath his back paws.

"I'm death, and I'm here to collect your body. It's just a matter of when, and where."

Fyrenn released Minos into a groaning heap on the pavement, and squeezed into the back of the APC, tossing off his last words as the door irised shut.

"It really is just that simple."

Author's Note:

Tracks:
-----------------
"Oxidization" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qed7toDOcKo

"Royal Reunion" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O1tkhBgW7w

"My Lighthouse" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSn9HW5P-sA

"Just that Simple" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5EC9PmnYWo

Comments

[Xzeron2000]

How 'bout that, they did a music! Of all the things I expected, that was probably the least expected. Bravo, Bravo!

These children are destined to become Gryphons, I can smell it.

[Keystone Gray]

5298087

I had that sense the moment they were introduced, yeah. That's fair.