Chapter 49
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
April 3rd, Gregorian Calendar
Fyrenn dipped his right index talon into the viscous red liquid, and carefully began to smear a series of decorative lines onto the metal pieces before him. His new weapon, and the armor set Kephic had retrieved for him, had both received a new base-coat of paint in a shade of maroon so dark, it was very nearly black.
The color contrasted well with the brighter blood-red stripes Fyrenn layered carefully onto the titanium plating, as well as his own burgundy feathers. Bit by bit, Fyrenn finished the side of the weapon, the wing guards, chest piece, and helmet. He completed his task as the ship's clock chimed fifteen hundred.
The red Gryphon donned his new equipment swiftly, checking once more to ensure that he had removed and neutralized the armor's tracking beacon. He finished by securing his sword, and his new weapon, between his wings on the armor's magnetic equipment hardpoints.
He stepped to the edge of the machine shop's outer door, and spread his wings.
The crewmen on deck shivered reflexively, and pulled away from the side railings, as a piercing predatory war-screech rose from below, swiftly followed by a red feathery streak.
The hunt was on.
"Do you have ANY idea what you've gotten us INTO Councilor?"
The General shook his head, and slammed a DaTab down in front of Loryss, before beginning a frantic pace back and forth across her office.
"I had to dig *deep* for that file, and believe me when I say you'd have been better off leaving the girl with that Gryphon, and cutting your losses."
Loryss raised an eyebrow, and began to carefully rifle through the DaTab's contents.
"Calm yourself Branson. There is no need to exaggerate."
General Branson stopped short, and spun to glare at the Councilor. Though shorter than average, and more stocky than most soldiers, the man's uniform identified him as a decorated four-star general of the Earthgov military.
"Exaggerate? Woman, I just risked my career to retrieve this information for the Echelon. This 'Lieutenant Commander Wrenn?' He was under OUR consideration for recruitment, *twice!* Office of Special Tasks buried his action record so deep I wasn't even sure it existed anymore!"
The General tapped the desk emphatically, leaning in close in an attempt to make his point. The light from the nearest ceiling fixture glinted off his bald patch.
"This guy was part of deep, deep black-book counterinsurgency work. He, and everyone on his squad, each individually had more kills per month than most platoons do in a YEAR! Wrenn in particular was described as, and I quote, 'Ruthless beyond all categorization when innocent lives were at stake.' And all this when he was just one of US!"
Loryss sighed, and set down the tablet, folding her hands and pursing her lips.
"What, precisely, do you feel this new information changes for us Branson?"
The General's eyes widened, and he gestured towards the DaTab once more.
"Did you READ any of that? This guy once escaped capture with a fucking playing card! He killed four insurgents with it, took their K-Bars, and then eliminated every single other hostile in the compound, on his own, without firing A SHOT! He escaped full titanium body cuffs, and killed sixty heavily armed men, with AN ACE OF SPADES, AND TWO TACTICAL KNIVES!"
The Councilor sighed, and sat back, as Branson continued to shout.
"This man was one of our most effective killers, BEFORE they gave him wings, talons, and a beak! He, three of his kind, and two of the Equines, put an entire HLF ARMORED *REGIMENT* six feet under in Vancouver, with one light tank, three rail rifles, and NO support! So just what the hell did you think he was gonna do when *you* provoked him?! You've potentially put everyone in Echelon Twelve on the hitlist, for his entire goddamn SPECIES, over ONE CHILD!"
Loryss tilted her head slightly, and blinked.
"Are you quite finished? Good. Lieutenant Wrenn will not be a problem moving forward. I have enlisted the services of someone better suited to this task than your soldiers. Maintain a low profile. Enact some security measures if you truly feel it necessary. And simply. Remain. Calm. This will pass in a matter of days."
Branson shook his head slowly as he made his way to the door, levelling an accusatory index finger at Loryss.
"Your arrogance is going to get more of us killed. You mark my words. And you can be sure I'll be discussing it with your colleagues the next time we have a review board. We did not get you elected to your position so you could gamble away the entire operation, on some god-forsaken VENDETTA!"
Commodore Danica Sievers was tall, thin, and commanding. The woman responsible for Earthgov's Atlantic coast shipyards seemed perpetually cheerful from afar. Any officer who worked with her for a protracted period, however, could testify that the smiles and laughs were all part of a carefully constructed façade.
Beneath that mask was a hard, cold, no-nonsense woman with a talent for logistics, and a stark lack of scruples.
Sievers grunted, and tapped away dutifully at her workstation's keyboard, carefully assimilating a series of after-action reports, and noting down the necessary repair orders to get the relevant ships back to their duty stations.
Danica squinted, and sighed. Her desk lamp, and the late afternoon sun provided the only illumination in the officer. She found that the overhead lighting interfered with her ability to read text on the screen for long durations.
The Commodore shifted in her seat, and glanced up, gripped momentarily by the feeling that she had seen something flit between the shadows in the corner of her office.
She shrugged, returning her eyes to the screen. Only then did the voice issue forth from the shadows, causing the woman to jump several inches reflexively.
"Danica Sievers. Born November twelfth, twenty seventy three. Enrolled in Naval Officer School March ninth, twenty ninety five. Commodore rank achieved August fourth, twenty one twelve. Officer in charge of all Atlantic Naval Shipyards Drydocks and material logistics."
Fyrenn moved slowly, purposefully out of the darkness, allowing the desk lamp to accent his features; Glistening beak, tense wings, sharp talons, and the menacing red streaks of his armor's war 'paint.'
Sievers tensed, and reached for a control panel embedded in the right hand near-corner of her desk. The red Gryphon shook his head slowly as he circled the writing surface, bringing him face to face with the Commodore.
"Pointless. I severed the external comm-lines before entering the room."
Danica stood, and carefully smoothed her uniform jacket, doing her best to adopt the imposing stance she was known for.
"What do you want, and who are you?"
Fyrenn slowly drew his sword, allowing the sharpened alloy edges to rasp menacingly against the inner lining of the scabbard. He carefully placed the weapon tip-down against the floor, and leaned casually on the hilt.
"Yesterday I had the distinct displeasure of meeting one Commander Ward, former executive officer of the UES North Carolina. This afternoon, right before I tore his body into five separate pieces, I extracted some important information from Ward. Including your name, Danica."
The red Gryphon leaned forward, and smiled slightly. The expression was grim, menacing, and in no way humorous.
"So tell me Commodore... When did you become part of this 'Echelon Twelve?' Before, or after you were given your position in this office?"
Sievers tensed, and took an involuntary step backwards. Fyrenn watched, as the creases around her eyes went taught with fear.
"You're the one they put the kill order on! The Gryphon who's been---"
Fyrenn nodded, interrupting smoothly and nonchalantly.
"Executing members of Echelon Twelve one by one. Yes. Well everyone needs a hobby. And you? I'd wager you are one of several key members that afforded E12 the necessary connections to float an unregistered Arsenal Ship from the discarded hull of a canceled Battlecruiser."
The red Gryphon raised an eyebrow, and inclined his head.
"So how much do you know about the Children? About my reasons for doing what I'm doing. And what I'm about to do?"
Danica crossed her arms, and glared. The woman took another shuffling step backwards as she did her best to keep a firm tone.
"If you're looking to find them? I wouldn't help you, even if I could. A warship. A Battalion of soldiers. Political influence. All well and good... But you're present and living proof that the unaugmented Human body is obsolete on the battlefield. Even the HLF understands that, deluded as they may be."
The Commodore blinked, and her tone became bolder.
"Those children represent our only chance to regain a favorable balance of power for Humanity. It can only be a matter of time before there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between an Equestrian race, and the Human race. What then? The most optimistic predictions all end in global Human extinction. How do you expect us to react to being reduced in political and military stature, to a backwater lackey?"
Fyrenn lifted his sword, and leveled the point at Danica's chest.
"The age of the planet Earth is over. Anyone with the tiniest grain of wisdom sees that. People like you aren't any saner than the Human Liberation Front. At least they're only brutalizing adult volunteers... You people experiment on non-consenting orphan CHILDREN! And for WHAT?!"
The Commodore jumped, and stepped back once more as Fyrenn's last word shook the room. Sievers abruptly found herself pressed against the glass of the room's picture window.
Fyrenn took another step forward, and allowed his sword's edge to rest on the woman's throat.
"Humanity's legacy is already secured. In the stars above, and In the hearts of future Equestrian generations... In people like April. The young life you so rabidly want to cut short in order to cover for your sins. You've done the worst things imaginable to her, and by some sovereign act of grace, she's become the best that she could be, through that crucible."
The red Gryphon lowered his weapon, and his volume gradually.
"I empathize, on some level. It is hard to lose a planet like this. No one is debating that. And yet, it is the hand we were dealt. And we were mercifully not left without good, solid options. Like you said; I'm living proof. But you just couldn't leave it alone, could you?"
Just as Danica began to relax, Fyrenn rammed the sword into the floor, and snatched the woman with both claws. In a flash, he had the Commodore by the neck, talons mere millimeters away from severing all her critical blood vessels.
"YOU WANTED A WAR?! WELL GUESS WHAT?! YOU'VE BLOODY WELL *GOT* ONE NOW!"
Sievers gagged, and pulled away from Fyrenn's right forearm gauntlet reflexively, choking out her words as shrieks, eyes fixed on the red battle stripes adorning the metal.
"Is that... ACK!! BLOOD?!"
Fyrenn nodded.
"Yes. Ward's, in fact. Old Gryphon custom for times of unbounded war. We decorate our armor with the remains of our enemies, adding to the designs with each new victory. It has a wonderful demoralizing effect, which your loss of bowel control has just beautifully demonstrated. Now..."
Fyrenn wrenched the woman's head up so she could see her computer terminal, and bent low to bring his beak alongside her left ear.
"You're going to send an encrypted transmission to your point of contact in the Echelon. You're going to request that he pick you up for emergency extraction in exactly one hour. Tell him I've threatened your life. It's the truth, after all. If you follow my instructions to the letter? I will let you leave this building alive. If not? I'll throw you out the window and you can argue your false morality with the other Isaac, and his laws."
The Commodore winced, squeezing out her words around the obstacle of Fyrenn's claws.
"I... Thought you said... You cut the comm... Line..."
Fyrenn snorted, and growled through an enraged smirk.
"I lied."
"General Lantry... Before we begin, I'd like to formally note that I feel uncomfortable doing this type of psychological profile on a soldier without his consent."
Lantry nodded slowly, then rapped on his desk with the knuckles of his right hand.
"Objection noted Doctor Ethos. Please continue. I shouldn't have to remind you that lives are at stake."
The Unicorn sitting opposite the General's desk shook her head, and frowned, her ears flattening reflexively in a sign of anxiety.
"Oh there is no doubt about that General. I have to admit, I haven't had as much chance to study Gryphons up close as I'd like, but I've had more experience with them than virtually any other Equestrian psychologist."
Lantry nodded, and sat back, the tension of worry visible in his eyes, and lips.
"So after reading his file, and reports on his recent behavior, what can you tell me about Fyrenn?"
Acumen Ethos shifted, and blew a strand of her graying mane away from one eye.
"In short? You have, through ill-advised action and inaction, created something so dangerous that the Humans I work with have a special term for it. It's called 'redlining.' And if you want my advice? You should resign yourself to some extremely serious consequences."
Lantry leaned forward, and steepled his fingers, narrowing his eyes.
"Define redlining in terms an old soldier will understand."
The Unicorn sighed, and bit her lower lip.
"It isn't limited to the Gryphon species by any means, but it is most readily created, and visibly seen in them. 'Redlining' is the Human term for a situation where an Equestrian's negative emotions and fight-or-flight instincts are pushed past a critical brink."
Ethos' eyes brightened as she hit upon an illustration she knew the General could relate to.
"You may have seen it most commonly in fringe cases of forced Converts. While the Human adaptable spirit usually meshes well with Equine optimism, resulting in eventual catharsis in spite of the trauma... There are some who are so embittered by the experience, that their negativity overpowers them, and governs them. In these cases, they 'redline' malaise or depression, often leading to suicide, or a total inability to function."
Lantry raised an eyebrow, and shook his head slowly.
"And what makes this different from conventional depression?"
The Doctor shifted once more, and cast her eyes downward.
"Redlined emotions can not be reversed by any means chemical, mental, spiritual, or magical until, or unless the source of the problem is eliminated. In the case of a forced convert, nothing can really be done about it, within the existing realms of science and Thaumatics. Not yet in any case."
The General sat back, and folded his arms as he spoke.
"Fyrenn doesn't seem depressed to me."
The Doctor shook her head emphatically, and gestured with one hoof.
"Redlining is different for each emotion within each species. For example; When a Diamond Dog redlines their malaise, or depression, it turns into a form of consuming greed so powerful that they abandon even their basic bodily needs like food, or water, mindlessly working themselves, literally, to death in pursuit of wealth."
Ethos sighed, and her muzzle drooped.
"Fyrenn has redlined his rage. It is the most common form of emotional redline for both Gryphons, and Dragons. And in both cases, it is something to be justifiably feared."
Lantry raised an eyebrow, and gestured with one hand for the Unicorn to elaborate. She sighed, and sat back, her eyes going hollow as she conjured up images that she had no desire to dwell on.
"Gryphons mostly achieve this state through severe emotional trauma. It is most potent when it stems from loss of family, fear of loss of family, or a combination of both. Normally, Gryphons have a serious psychological weakness in unchecked anger; It can shut down their higher reasoning and leave them vulnerable to bull-headed mistakes."
Lantry inclined his head and his tone edged from exhausted, to concerned.
"But in this case... No?"
Ethos shook her head once more.
"No. Once a Gryphon passes the redline of rage, they enter a state of heightened clarity. Just the opposite of a blood wrath in that sense. Their body's safeguards against self-inflicted short-term damage shut down temporarily, and their bloodstream floods with battle chemicals in concentrations even higher than normal for a fight to the death."
The Unicorn fixed Lantry with a desolate, sad, fearful stare.
"It results in even greater speed, heightened stamina, a total loss of ability to feel physical pain, and sometimes heightened access to the brain's latent intelligence. Reflexes quicken, instincts sharpen, and..."
Ethos paused, and winced, as if recalling something particularly disturbing.
"...They lose all sense of empathy, respect, or caring for anyone or anything outside their species, their closest friends and family, and those they would deem truly innocent. Everything else becomes at best irrelevant, or at worst another target. There is no other middle ground."
She nodded towards a DaTab on the edge of Lantry's desk, containing images of both Fyrenn's Human, and Gryphic visages.
"As I said, this is most commonly seen when a Gryphon feels a family member is threatened, and especially if someone under their care has been killed. As in his case. The effect is so powerful, for both Gryphons and Dragons, in their own unique ways... It is quite literally a culturally ingrained instinct in all the other races that it is better to die than to cross even a single fledgling, whether scaled or feathered."
Ethos nodded once more towards the DaTab.
"I'm not sure if you're familiar with some of the relevant historical events, but I took the liberty of bookmarking them for you. To shorten a long story? The Gryphons reduced what you might call a 'superpower,' to a fractured cowering backwater, over the kidnapping, attempted enslavement, and execution, of just a few dozen fledglings, by one rogue Diamond Dog clan."
Lantry shook his head slowly, and grunted.
"That sounds... Unusually barbaric. Even for them."
The Unicorn inclined her head slowly.
"That is the nature of redlining. Don't misconstrue. They are still fully bound by their built-in morality, in every measurable sense. They can not and will not harm those they view as innocent. But concepts like empathy, mercy, respect for other culture's laws and customs, fear of enemy force or punishment, respect for equals... These simply cease to *exist* in any quantifiable sense, for a redlined Gryphon, until such time as the effect is dispersed. All that is left is the drive to protect their own, and the drive for pure unchecked justice. It is nothing so much as actual programming, like a combat AI."
Ethos sighed, and glanced down at the desk's faux oak surfacing.
"You want to know what to expect from Fyrenn?"
She paused, and stared deep into Lantry's eyes, until the man shivered reflexively. Only then did the Unicorn continue.
"Tartarus unleashed, General. When the Gryphon Kingdoms first attacked the Diamond Dog Clans, they offered them one warning, and one chance. They demanded the ruling Alpha of the overclans disavow the actions of the kidnappers, and sign an affirmation legitimizing the Gryphons' execution of the directly-responsible parties..."
Lantry sat back, and his eyes widened, as realization dawned. He murmured quietly in the general direction of the ceiling.
"They refused, so the Gryphons treated them..."
Ethos nodded, and exhaled slowly, and raggedly.
"They treated them as complicit. Since Diamond Dogs pass down everything through the pack structure, if the leaders of the overclans were legitimizing the crime? Then it was inevitable that more kidnappings would follow. Every single Troll irrespective of gender, age, or temperament, with only exceptions for the very young, became a target. Because any of them could, and would, eventually become an egg stealer, or a fledgling murderer, as far as they were concerned."
The Unicorn breathed in and out for several seconds, trying to dismiss the images of violence from her mind.
"The overclan Alphas, due to their unique situation and standing, spoke for the vast majority of their species. And condemned most of them to death in the process. By the time they realized they had invoked what the Gryphons call 'total, unbounded warfare,' they were already committed. They had no desire to lose political face. By the time they realized that their vastly superior numbers and war chests were no match for Gryphic fury, let alone fury paired with better discipline, training, and technology..."
Ethos stared dolefully up into Lantry's eyes once more.
"They had been reduced from the largest empire, and military, in our world, to third class citizens. Barely above animals in standing with most people. No central government. Hardly any defining culture. No unified military. Not much of an economy to speak of. Many brave Gryphons did fall, true. They lost almost a third of their kind, and their numbers to this day still haven't quite reached the previous peak..."
Ethos snorted, and tossed her mane out of her eyes.
"But the Diamond Dog Trolls were decimated to less than one eighteenth of their original numbers. And those mostly the genetic detritus of the subspecies, because they press everyone into combat service except for the crippled or mangled. Even now, the Trolls suffer decreased intelligence overall due to the culling of their lifecode tree. The Gryphons even locked away any and all historical documents taken from the ashes. They denied the remaining clans any ability to verify the royalty of existing Alpha bloodlines, or reclaim their heritage, which is heavily family-lineage focused, thus denying them the ability to organize and unify again politically, or even reclaim their cultural dignity. They devolved them by force."
The Unicorn stood, and tapped the DaTab with one hoof.
"Fyrenn may be just one Gryphon, but he is, in this state, willing and able to reduce whole armies of lesser-bodied species, like yours, to unmarked mass gravestones. Or die trying. He believes there is an organization at work here... If he is right, then he will not drop out of his redline until every single last one of the people he considers guilty, or complicit, are dead."
Ethos shook her head slowly, and glanced away.
"He will stop at nothing, short of committing truly evil acts, to accomplish his goals. He will cut down anyone or anything that stands in his way. Everything from a close friend, to an entire government, if he feels he must. He doesn't care... He *can't* care, about issues of political stability, or respecting local laws. Let alone your authority. In this state, he is incapable of perceiving you as an authority at all. The battle with self-control is already lost at this point. Nothing will restore it, except closure."
The Unicorn moved to the office door, and paused with one hoof raised towards the control panel.
"Don't mistake his quieter days for a resciendence of this state. He can still interact almost normally with his own kind in the more still, silent moments... But if I were you General, I would cease any and all half-measure efforts to stand in his way, or even to reason with him. You will more than likely lose your life in the process. You either get out of his way? Or you deploy force capable of annihilating him, and any Gryphon with any measurable relationship to him."
Ethos pressed the door open, and glanced over her shoulder.
"I don't pretend to understand your politics, or to know all the 'classified factors,' but let me lend you some advice, based on what I've just read."
The Unicorn turned, and swished her tail in agitation.
"Right now, this is about a small number of subversives, one Gryphon, and one Convert. Leave him be? It will all be over soon enough. You will face political and legal fallout, but you'll be free to do damage control in whatever way you see fit. As soon as all his enemies are dead, he will likely not only be prepared to step back, but will want to distance himself from the issue due to exhaustion and latent disgust."
Ethos' gaze darkened, and her eyes narrowed.
"But If you obstruct him...? If your government fails to lend some form of legitimacy to his concerns... Fails to disavow the guilty parties? Then you are running the risk of placing your entire military and government into the crosshairs of the deadliest warrior races in either world. He has direct top-level connections to the Gryphic Royal family. If they become involved, the entire race does. If the Gryphons do? Then the allied Golden and Silver Dragons will as well. And their allied Lupines. And anyone else who wants to court political favors from any of those parties by bringing tributes of Human heads on pikes."
The Unicorn gestured with a hoof, and sighed.
"Working on this planet, I've seen your military. I've also seen, first-hoof, what angry Gryphons, or Dragons, can do to species with far stronger bodies, and convictions, than yours. A massacre of some description is inevitable now. But you still have a chance to determine how swiftly the bloodshed ends. Don't waste it."
Fyrenn lay prone on the rooftop, the setting Earthly sun to his back, concealed as always by the opacity of the atmosphere. Spread out below him was one of the last bustling, living, thronging places in the city save for the Bureau.
The office of the Navy.
Officers, personnel, and workers were busy moving crates of supplies, furniture, DaTabs and various sundries in preparation for the final evacuation. Fyrenn glanced up at the window to Sievers' office, and noted that she had left her desk. Precisely on schedule.
The moment Fyrenn had departed, Danica had summoned security, filed a report, and turned out half the building's guard force looking for him. The actions were all part and parcel of the behavior he had hoped to trigger in her. Total panic.
The red Gryphon gazed down the iron sights of his weaponized creation. The sniper rifle was so large, that even he found it something of a chore to carry in its fully assembled state. When the lengthened barrel was removed, it could double as a heavy assault RAC, and fully collapsed it fell just within the range of bulk and weight he could stand to carry between his wings for long periods.
The rifle had received a coat of red paint, and Ward's blood, just like his armor. Fully assembled, from the rear of the stock to the end of the rail armatures, the device was almost seven feet long.
Fyrenn had clocked its weight at nearly three hundred and seventy five pounds. Most of that stemmed from the capacitors, which were incredibly dense owing to the way he had assembled them for maximum speed of charging, and maximum capacity.
Unlike every other railgun Fyrenn had ever seen, the monstrosity was built as a bolt-action weapon. He had tried to utilize a traditional automatic maglock feeding cartridge, but the force of the armatures was so great that it had a tendency to rip the entire breech, and clip, to shreds.
Far to his right, out of the lateral range of the directed firing field, lay five immense rounds. The twenty millimeter cartridge, like the weapon, was custom made. Fyrenn had several hundred in his satchel, of which twenty five, including one of the five on the rooftop, were marked with a red caution stripe interspersed with white bars.
The rounds felt almost normal in his claws. Though ridiculously outsized for a Human-portable weapon, they reminded Fyrenn of the way a fifty caliber slug had felt in his Human hand in terms of relative scale.
Fyrenn redirected his attention to the circle of roadway adjacent to the tower's front steps. Directly on the hour, a heavy APC pulled up, flanked in front and back by four up-armored jeeps.
The red Gryphon smiled grimly, as Commodore Sievers exited the building, flanked by no less than twelve armored guards. She dashed across the courtyard accompanied by the phalanx, and leapt into the waiting APC.
Fyrenn focused his eyes on the vehicle's reflective slit window, and identified the other occupants. Four guards in unmarked black armor, two of whom were Diamond Dog Trolls. And a five star Earthgov General whom Fyrenn recognized from his after-action debriefings in Seattle.
He tapped his helmet's transmit key, and chuckled, sending the sound out to all nearby military frequencies. He knew that the General, and the Commodore were receiving, given that they stiffened and blanched.
"General Inselm Warluf. I'm sure Danica has informed you about me, but think back just a little further. We met in Seattle. After Vancouver."
The man paused, then leaned forward, and took the headset from one of his Human bodyguards, holding it up and depressing the transmit key as his eyes narrowed.
"I don't care what species you are son... I will have your head blown open like a melon if you keep this shit up."
Fyrenn made a clicking sound deep in his beak, masking the sound of the rifle's bolt as he threaded in one of the unmarked shells, and locked it firmly into place.
"Funny you should use such an apropos metaphor."
The general gestured emphatically to his driver, and the convoy peeled out, traversing the majority of the circular drive quickly.
The red Gryphon shook his head, and moved his right index talon onto the trigger. With a roar that hurt his ears, and shattered nearby windows, the rifle discharged the slug at a speed approaching twenty three times the speed of sound.
The round flew from the rooftop and struck the front jeep in the convoy at such speed, that even under maximum time dilation it seemed to happen within a matter of seconds to Fyrenn.
The vehicle disintegrated under the stress of impact, blowing apart into several large chunks, which brought the remainder of the convoy to a swift, jarring halt. Fyrenn waited patiently for the remaining vehicles to kick into reverse, as he loaded another shell calmly.
As soon as the convoy had made it halfway back around the circle, he casually blew away the rearmost jeep, causing the next in line to collide with the debris, and flip several times.
The concussion wave knocked people standing on the building's steps to their knees. Metal and glass flew in all directions like a silvery cloud of snow.
With much greater speed, Fyrenn quickly dispatched the other two jeeps, leaving the APC completely boxed in by huge chunks of flaming wreckage.
As the echoes of the discharges, and the impacts, died away slowly, he spoke into his headset with a deadly calm monotone.
"Surrender or die."
Fyrenn drummed his claws absently on the gravel beside the fifth, marked, final shell. At last, Warluf's voice came back over his headset, laden with fear and desperation, and completely devoid of the arrogance it had once held.
"Alright! Alright! What do you want?! Information?! For us to call off the hounds?! What are your terms?"
Fyrenn sighed, and threaded the last shell, leaving his microphone on vox setting to ensure the sound carried across the airwaves.
"Unfortunately for you two? I have simpler ways of getting the information I require. And I most certainly do not fear your hounds. I have only one condition. Die."
Fyrenn squeezed the trigger, lurching slightly as the weapon's immense kickback was diffused into his body, and the rooftop.
The final shell took almost a picosecond longer to cross the three and a half miles from Fyrenn's rooftop, to the Naval offices, and reach its target. Due mostly to the added weight of its contents. The forward part of the device split like a peeled orange as it passed perfectly through the armored window in the APC's side.
The shell continued totally unabated, until it encountered the exact center point between Warluf's eyes. In an ironic twist on his earlier word's the man's head split like a melon. And then the shell exploded.
The round's white-phosphorous content spewed everywhere, autoigniting from the sheer leftover kinetic energy of the shell.
Fyrenn had carefully mixed the raw substance with a series of basic compounds that Gryphons used to mediate black powder reactions for tempering steel, and alloy. As a result, rather than simply burning off instantly, the substance behaved like a twisted combination of solar gases, and sticky napalm.
It adhered to every single surface inside the APC; Armor, wall paneling, and flesh. It burned with an intensity so great, that there was no time for pain, nor torturous gruesome injury. Everything was reduced within seconds to a molten, indiscriminate, colorless sludge.
Thousands of degrees of cleansing white fire reduced all to completely unidentifiable ash, and slag. Fyrenn was not concerned. The conversation had taken place on an open channel. The event would assuredly become a matter of military record, for better or for worse.
The white phosphorous hybrid substance ate halfway through the outside armoring of the APC itself before exhausting the majority of its chemical energy, setting the remainder of the vehicle on fire with such heat, that Fyrenn could see it melting the glass of windows ten yards away.
He rose, checked the rifle, and patted the stock lovingly.
"Not bad for a home baked remedy."
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0.o. Oh boy.
I get the feeling he meant to say "Surrender and die."
5276131
No no, he said 'or.' He's a tad bit sadistic that way.
5274352
Yeah, that about says it all... And we're not even half done with this party.
5276139
Like you explained, the griffon mindset at this point is firmly "Kill them all, let God sort them out."
*pouts* I want one of those rifles. Stupid barier keeping all the fun toys away. TIA! Do you think Twilight could figure out how to make a magical rail gun?
I hope that none of these people are hiding in the genesist group. That would be sucky for humanity's extra planetary options.
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Given that an argument along the lines of "But with this we could ensure that everyone on the ships will survive!" is possible and admittedly sensible, it's a possibility.
He strikes me as the guy who made gunpowder when he was a child.
5276196 *BEEP*"Twilight cannot come to the thaumaturgical phone right now, as she is currently reverse engineering hydroelectric dams! Please leave a message after the tone..."