Morning rose on the next day to see a group of tugboats pull a column of barges towards another sector of the city. The tugs, coming from the Rhine Forest, were just small twenty-meter long boats that lacked the endurance to set out for full voyages, but they made up for it in sheer bollard pull. Their flat bow and stern sections, with rubber shock pads on both ends, made for poor speed through the water but the construction was ideal for what they were doing at the moment: towing barges.

The Rhine’s fleet of cargo barges didn’t actually have their own propulsion. The sturdy yellow box-shaped crafts relied entirely on the tugs to be moved around the docks, but they still were pretty convenient to ferry around large amounts of cargo. Each of them could hold a respectable 380 tons, which could be either liquid or dry cargo depending on the variant they brought out of the bowels of the large black barge carrier. In this case, both Captains’ orders had been pretty clear: fill every single one of their tanker barges to the brim with fuel (and lubricants too, but they didn’t need quite as much of it). The whole load should bring them to about 7500 tons of assorted fuel (HFO for Amandine, marine diesel for Rhine). The sheer quantity should last them for a while and they might even reach the spoilage date if they didn’t sail around too much. As far as they knew, Schmitt had estimated they had until the end of November before the fuel stored in shore tanks became unusable.

The tanker barges weren’t the only ones attached to the column. Roberto had found the location of a small repair yard within the boundaries of the city; and while its dry-dock was far too small for a behemoth ship like the Rhine, they intended to strip it of every shipbuilding components they could find.

The city district they were headed to was a nautical mile or two south of the container terminal they were moored at, outside the boundaries of Copenhagen’s former layer of fortifications that protected the eastern side of Freetown and Christianshavn. Strips of reclaimed land branched out towards the sea from there, each covered in industrial buildings that were thus kept away from residential areas. The bulk of the column headed further south towards the area where they had located the city’s shore tanks a couple days earlier, all of them clustered near a power plant.

A single tug split up from the rest, the little craft pulling four barges behind it, all four of them designed to carry dry cargo. Instead of going to the tanker terminal like the rest, the tug sailed towards a strip of land a bit closer to their berthing point. The repair yard they approached was nothing particular, its size preventing it from servicing large seagoing vessels but big enough to manage river crafts and houseboats. Its thick floodgates were closed at the moment, the work area behind them dry and separated from the sea. Several tower cranes sprouted out of the weed-riddled concrete ground of the yard at irregular intervals with two more prominent ones set on rails next to the floodgates. A narrow warehouse was also built on one side of the basin while a pile of decrepit caravans next to some containerized offices occupied the other, with piles of scrap and parts all around.

“God damn; that right there is gonna be a bitch to sort through…” Carlos breathed out.

The Filipino from Amandine had been assigned to the team, his role as an electrician justifying his presence that day as he would have to pick out some of the equipment for the systems they planned to install. He wasn’t the only one from the roll-on/roll-off to have been assigned on that team: Angelo was with him, the Greek bringing with him his engineering skills and the raw minotaur strength that allowed him to wield one of their MAG machineguns as if it was a mere varmint rifle.

“We got time.” Angelo tried to reassure him. Both of them were standing near the bow of the tug as the pilot steered the craft on the last approach to the quays nearest the dry-dock.

“Time? Need I remind you we got to fill…” He counted the barges behind them. “… Four of those? That’s fifteen hundred tons!” The sulphur-crested cockatoo cried out in a squawk.

“And? Roberto never said we had to fill them all. The materials list for the Rhine takes priority, everything we take after that is just a neat bonus.” The Engineer told his subordinate.

“Won’t make it any faster…”

“Why? You need to go back to Danny now?” Angelo teased. The Filipino tried to hide it, and his white feathers would have hidden it had it not been for the slight rise of his crest and feathery ears. “Gotta put the ‘cock’ part in cockatoo to work uh?” The minotaur joked.

“Terrible pun, and that’s not it at all.” He protested. Okay, maybe it was partly true. “Just enjoying the new gaming rig is all. The Witcher 3 was released barely a week before the Event struck and I just started playing it. Man, that thing…” He shook his head. “You gotta try it, blows my mind I tell you!”

“Eh, I’ll give it a try maybe. I was mostly busy setting up a server with bots for BF4 yesterday. I even got to name one Amandine.” He shrugged. “That and I got a backlog of books to catch up on…”

The two geeks’ conversation was brought to a halt by them approaching the quays. With the tug and barges being much smaller than actual seagoing ships, they could afford to come pretty close to the quays and hop off directly to tie the mooring lines. The process didn’t take long, but attaching the entire convoy of four barges made for a mess of ropes going from one mooring bitt to another.

As long as it held, the minotaur didn’t care too much. He was an Engineer, not a deck guy. Up on the bridge of the tugboat, the barge’s pilot reported they had moored successfully over the radio before shutting down the craft’s engine. The vibrations going through the small hull ceased at once, and the pilot leapt down to the main deck.

The pilot in question was definitely something worth noting, in particular to Angelo because she was none other than Nikolaos, the minotaur cow that had been injured the day of the Rhine’s return to existence. She still was very much injured, with several bandages wrapped around her, but the wounds were clearly not enough to stop her. She had managed to adjust a set of coveralls to her tall, muscular frame since then, but had only achieved a form of chest wrappings to hold her breasts.

Which Angelo definitely didn’t ogle, no sir, not at all.

She also didn’t appear to have had the time to modify one of the combat vests they had brought back from the expedition in Slagelse. Instead, she was wearing a cobbled together net made of web strapping to which she had attached just enough pouches to put ammunition for her own machinegun (a MG3 as they were called, some modernized version of the famed Nazi MG42) and some other tools as well as her walkie-talkie.

“Everything in order?” She asked one of the other sailors that accompanied them, making a show of ignoring Angelo.

Two more sailors from the Rhine made up the team: Mikhail and Yancy, respectively a purple dragon that looked like a bipedal version of Spyro the dragon and a blue and gold macaw. The former was there as their main combat specialist, being a veteran from the Ukrainian army, and the latter was there to assist Nikolaos with steering the tug. Both were armed with Canadian M4 and M16 guns they had retrieved for the Rhine, each weapon sporting rails to fit accessories and optics that Amandine’s collection of FNC’s lacked. Hell, Mikhail even boasted a grenade launcher on his M16 (or C7 as someone would later tell Angelo).

“Tight against the quay, ‘would take a hurricane to rip off those lines.” Mikhail told the minotaur cow. “We good to move on to the ‘yard?”

“Yeah.” She said, rolling her shoulders before motioning towards the warehouse with her snout. “Mind coming with me to see if we can find some forklifts or something? Those cranes don’t cover the whole yard. Yancy, think you can watch the ship while we’re busy? Keep an eye on the radio too.”

The moment said parrot gave her his OK; she leaped over the tug’s railing and started marching towards the warehouse without even acknowledging the sailors from Amandine. Mikhail followed closely behind her, the purple dragon offering Angelo an apologetic look before jumping over the railing after his superior.

“Is it me, or is she pissed at me for some reason?” Angelo asked.

“I wouldn’t say pissed at you in particular… just pissed that you got to keep your dick while she’s stuck as an Amazon of a cow.” Yancy told him offhandedly. “That and the Captain’s new thing about entire fleet.”

“Danny doesn’t seem to care…” Carlos muttered.

“Irrelevant at the moment, but cute.” Angelo smiled, giving his friend a small (by minotaur standards) tap on the back that pushed the much shorter parrot half a meter forward. “Maybe I’ll confront her about it, maybe. Come on now, we got some work to do.”

As it turned out, a couple river barges had been in the process of being refitted in the basin before the Event. The narrow crafts were propped up on struts amidst various piles of plates and parts, their mechanical guts splayed out beneath them. The boats were surrounded by open sided tents that protected pallets of components from the weather, the pallets serving both to transport and to protect them from rusting away in the numerous puddles of seawater that dotted the basin every time the concrete floor dipped.

None of them encountered a monster that day despite the tanker teams announcing over the radio that they had found a demonic circle close to a recycling plant. Where the monster had gone off to, they didn’t know, but it didn’t turn up while they were busy.

The process of loading the barges at the repair yard was a tedious one. They had to pick which parts were usable for the planned modifications, move the pallets closer to the quays, start up a crane to transfer them on the barges and then secure every single one of them inside the holds. Many of the plates and I-beams they found lying around lacked a paint coating to protect them from corrosion which lead to them being discarded: shallow rust could be fixed with some grinding, but deep pitting forced them to abandon the parts. Having to check whether or not a plate was corroded too much made them lose a lot of time, though Angelo’s ability to lift entire pallets of steel with little effort may have gained as much time as they had lost.

The other minotaur on the repair yard couldn’t afford such physical effort yet, she was still recovering from her injuries. Nikolaos could see Angelo lifting pallets from her position on a walkway in the warehouse, the sight of the bull making a sour look appear on the cow’s muzzle. She knew she wasn’t treating the other Greek fairly, the guy was in no way responsible for her own fate… but it just wasn’t fair. How could he get stuck with a transformation that just made him ridiculously muscular while she got stuck with massive udders on her chest? Granted she wasn’t that bad herself in the muscle department, and she was even taller than the bull, but still!

Her mood wasn’t helped by her new body’s reaction to the sight of Angelo either. She wasn’t exactly surprised to have wound up with an adjusted sexuality after the change, such was the case for most of the genderswapped sailors in the fleet, but the lack of surprise didn’t make it any more pleasant. With a very bovine snort, she turned away and hopped down to the area where they had found spools of electrical wire.

“Still pissed off?” Mikhail asked her casually.

The dragon had just entered the warehouse with a forklift he had fixed. The little loader’s engine had sputtered a bit at the start so he had used the batteries of the tug to jumpstart it. Except for a nasty black cloud from the exhaust, which didn’t even faze the purple dragon, the thing was running mostly fine.

“And why wouldn’t I be?” She growled, piling a couple spools of wire on an empty pallet. “Try to imagine the transformation making you gay, doesn’t sound that funny now uh?”

“I’d argue about the gay part.” The dragon shrugged. “By all definitions, you really aren’t. And even then I don’t think the biggest conservative on any of the crews would be dumb enough to dislike the genderswapped folks for it. You’re your own worst critic as they say; I doubt you would find anybody that gives a shit ‘bout it ‘cept for you.”

The barge pilot glared down at the shorter dragon.

“Don’t give me that look.” The Ukrainian told her. “I don’t… approve of homosexuality myself.” He admitted with a sheepish shrug. “But if you think for one second that I’d give a hoot about what you --or any other genderswapped crewmembers for that matter- do with your new situation, think again. You have my sympathy, but don’t expect me to care more than that unless someone tries to shove a dick up my arse.”

Nikolaos quirked an eyebrow at that.

“… A dick up your arse?”

“I ain’t ever going to Sweden again, that’s all ya’ should know.” The dragon said, pointing a bronze colored claw at her, trails of smoke escaping his nostrils. “As for Angelo, whether you hate him or not, you gotta at least try to cooperate. Christ, you haven’t even talked to him as far as I know!”

“Fine, I’ll give the guy a chance.” She said, rolling her shoulders. “Now if you could move that forklift over to that end of the warehouse I think I spotted a couple rubber sheets for the seals.”

“Tak.” Mikhail concluded before hopping back on the forklift.

They still had plenty of components to retrieve, and the longer they took, the longer the works on the Rhine would be delayed.

Further North near the ships’ berthing place, two of Amandine’s trucks were seen leaving the container terminal and heading for a large white warehouse not a kilometer away from the vessels. Both were red Volvo eight-wheelers equipped with a hooklift and a little crane that allowed them to pick up any kind of cargo they may find, though they lacked the capacity of the more common lorries Amandine also had in her holds. This was no big deal to the team of five spread out across the two trucks considering they were so close to the terminal that they could easily make multiple runs fairly quickly.

Vadim, Boris and Nguyen were in the lead truck that passed the exit checkpoint of the terminal. The team that was on guard duty had received one of their new .50 cal machineguns just in case. The heavy weapon –now installed on a tripod close to the guards- would ensure nothing short of a tank of a monster would make it past them. Overkill? Probably, but then again there were no morals to speak of when it came to bloodthirsty otherworldly creatures.

The truck following them was occupied by none other than Camille and Anton, the female griffon Angelo and Aleksei had met during the Rhine’s rescue. Camille still had a broken arm, but considering the possible contents of the UNICEF warehouse, they would need as many medically trained personnel as possible.

Less than a minute later, the group was already on site and dismounting their trucks. The supply depot sure was an imposing sight from up close. It rose high up in the sky with the blue letters and logo of UNICEF displayed proudly on its façade. There were some office buildings and loading docks for trucks adjoining the main storage building, as well as a very modern looking lobby whose appearance was only marred by the weeks of seaborne salt that had accumulated on its windows in the absence of maintenance personnel to wash it off. There was also a container bay behind the building that held stacks of blue and white containers, some with UN logos on them, others with a Red Cross or Crescent.

Vadim had them stop the trucks on the parking lot near the lobby. First he wanted them to explore the building and figure out what they would pick… though he figured they would take a lot of the warehouse’s supplies before the day was over. Talks of humanitarian assistance to survivors were going down the chain of command and he was pretty sure most if not all of what they would need for that particular task would be found in that very building.

By his side, he heard Camille whistle as she took in the full size of the building. The orange hippogriff was forced to hop around on three limbs because of her plastered arm. The Doctor couldn’t carry a rifle because of her injury and she had admitted to being repulsed at the idea of carrying a gun, but Captain Gerig had at least convinced her to take a pistol for self-defense.

As if they went around shooting survivors in the first place…

“Impressed?” Vadim asked her.

“Oui, I did humanitarian work in East Africa five years ago. Seeing where this comes from…” The French hippogriff shrugged with her wings. “It’s just so damn big.” She told him with a hint of awe.

Vadim turned an eye towards the trucks. He felt like they needed to keep an eye on them but then again… they were still in sight of the checkpoint so he just radioed the guards to ask them to keep an eye on their vehicles while they were inside.

“Guys… just remember that monsters can spawn inside buildings too.” Nguyen warned them, the brown furred cat having direct (and painful) experience of such a case.

“Duly noted cook, we’ll remember to be careful.” Vadim acknowledged his worries.

“Just remember to mind your stun grenades.” Boris joked as he passed the bipedal cat and entered the building, much to Nguyen’s annoyance.

“They tasered me mid-throw!” He cried out in protest.

“Or so you say.” The Russian chuckled before Vadim sent him a warning glance.

He knew his medical assistant liked to get under people’s skin, but there was a time and place for everything. Much as he hated stopping banter like that, an expedition in unsecured territory was not the moment to start antagonizing the cook of all people.

And he was doing the griffon a service too: Nguyen may not be particularly vindictive, but once Rahul got word of somebody laying it into his kitchen colleague… He knew the Chief Cook wasn’t above ‘spiking up’ certain sailors’ plates. That much the Russian should already know.

Never get on the cook’s bad side.

Unsurprisingly considering the number of still functioning wind turbines; the building still had power running through it. They had no problem retrieving a set of keys from a security office in the lobby that allowed them to traverse the hallways unimpeded. The team of five walked past the office sections of the building before emerging into the actual warehouse part. The ground dropped down one floor, leaving them on a balcony that looked down on extensive sorting equipment made out of conveyor belts and robotic cranes that connected to the loading bays. Beeping lights here and there coming from the equipment along with the constant whirr of ventilation above them told them work was ready to resume at a moment’s notice.

“Never seen a warehouse like that from inside… can’t say I expected it to be this…” Vadim hesitated.

“High tech?” Anton suggested.

“High tech.” He nodded.

Deeper inside, they could also spot towering shelving units loaded with pallets and cardboard boxes, each bearing the logo of one or another known humanitarian group. Boris had the bright idea of booting up a computer next to one of the conveyor belts, which showed them the inventory list as well as the location of every single item in storage. Camille quickly commandeered the computer and started scrolling through the menus after pulling a desk chair close to the computer.

“Any idea what we need to pick?” Vadim asked her.

The hippogriff swiveled around in her chair to face him, the motion making her crest feathers bob up and down despite the scrunchie that held them behind her head.

“Absolument.” She said, a smile starting to creep up on her beak. “Gather up people, it’s planning time!”

Thanks to the still functional status of the equipment inside, the Doctor was able to give each of the four sailors that accompanied her datapads linked to the warehouse’s systems. From her position behind the computer, she could direct them to a specific spot where they could pick up any item she selected on the computer, either with a forklift or on their own. The items could then be transported to the loading bays and loaded on pallets (if they weren’t already on one) where they would later load them on their trucks.

Considering the sheer volume of supplies the hippogriff had them pick up, the task was disturbingly easy to achieve. Camille made them take nearly every type of supply available: medicine, sanitation equipment, shelter tents, even crates of vaccines which they extracted from a refrigerated section of the warehouse. If the item could be of some use for humanitarian aid, she would take it. They also loaded more advanced equipment such as disassembled solar panels and small wind turbines, or even lab equipment for the lab Camille wanted to have installed on the Rhine. Over the course of many hours and even more trips with the trucks, they loaded the supplies inside Amandine’s cargo holds where some sailors made sure they were secured tightly against the decks. The sheer volume they took was considerable at first glance, but it was a testimony to Amandine’s sheer cargo capacity that the amount they loaded barely put a dent in her available cargo space. By their estimations in how she sunk down in the water during the loading, they came just above a thousand tons worth of supplies, less than a tenth of the cargo vessel’s deadweight.

Sooner rather than later, the team moved on to the containers stacked behind the building to figure out whether or not they could be useful.

And they couldn’t have made a better find that day.

The containers they found weren’t actually meant to carry cargo. That was what the loading bays in the warehouse were for. These containers were modular units. In other words: a container with its insides modified to become a room. Which was exactly what they had planned to install on the Rhine once the modifications were done. The container bay held all sorts of containers for various roles, all of them ready to be shipped anywhere in the world in case of disaster.

Guess now it was up to them to get to said disaster site. Not that they knew where the survivors were at the time, but Camille was pretty sure the responsibility should fall on them now that all of the regular humanitarian groups were gone.

The variants they found ranged anywhere from simple housing units they might be able to use as extra cabins to more advanced labs, clinics, communication centers, mobile generators and even some laundry containers and water purifiers. All of these wrapped up in the standard-sized package of twenty and forty-foot containers. They transported all that gear to the quays next to the ships where they would later sorts out which of them they would use as mobile camps mounted on trucks (meaning they would go on Amandine) and which of them would make up the new compartments for the Rhine Forest. There was plenty of time to figure out what to make of them, considering they hadn’t even started the modifications yet.

As they were loading the last container on their truck, Vadim spied Boris looking at a certain female griffon on their team out of the corner of his eye. Now, he would himself admit she wasn’t unpleasant to look at, her lithe snow leopard half being in no small part responsible for that. After he secured the truck’s hook to the container he nudged the other griffon in the ribs.

“Enjoying the sights now?” He whispered in Russian.

The goshawk griffon’s feathers fluffed up at the remark.

“So what if I do?” He replied defensively, only half turning to face his superior.

“Nothing really.” Vadim let out an amused trill. “At least I know you’re healthy. There is just this one little thing…” The Ukrainian cocked his head in fake hesitation. “… Something about you taking the piss on Ukrainians. Would have never figured out you could have eyes for one now, katsap.”

“Can’t you stick to Micha and shut it you jackass?” Boris glared at him. Vadim ignored the jab and shook his head ruefully.

“You could at least give her a few days to get accustomed to the change; they reappeared less than a week ago unless you forgot.”

“Officer,” Boris ground out. “If you could kindly mind your own business that’d be great. What do you know about Ukraine anyway? You spent nearly your whole goddamn life in Poland!”

“That’s not the point; but fine, do as you please if you wish to. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.” Vadim walked off and went to the truck’s hydraulic controls. “Just one last thing… you may want to watch your tail you amorous catbird, change or not body language is still a thing, and yours is a big tell.”

Boris growled at him before angrily stomping towards the truck’s cabin, Nguyen giving him a confused look, not having been able to follow the conversation.

Dilip watched the first group of tugs bring back a batch of fully loaded barges. A sailor climbed inside the cabin at the top of the Rhine’s gantry crane and rolled it aft of the vessel where it started picking up the yellow painted lighters and stacking them in their proper bays where another sailor would hook the tanker barges to the ship’s manifold and power grid. The system wasn’t that necessary when used for less viscous liquids, but they had taken in a fair amount of heavy fuel oil for Amandine’s main engine, and the substance needed to be kept warm at all times unless they wanted it to clog up the tanks.

“First barges back?” Raimund asked him.

Dilip just nodded, not turning away from the window. They were both inside of the German Captain’s office while they waited for the HPI’s next call. He had made sure to switch to a clean shirt and even groomed his fur before coming, along with bringing all of his research files and the first reports on the humanitarian supplies they were still busy loading on board. He could see the stacked containers on the quay next to the barge carrier, with Alejandro and another Officer from the Rhine he couldn’t recognize busy discussing which ship would take which container.

“Is the computer ready for the call?” Dilip asked nonchalantly.

“Jawohl, all files are ready, the antenna is broadcasting just fine. We just have to wait for the agent to contact us. You think this will work?”

“Chances are it will if it’s the same agent I already talked with.” The dog said as he stroked the underside of his muzzle pensively. “He might react… oddly to your predicament though. I don’t recall telling him about the age regression effect of the change on certain individuals.”

“Haven’t you rejuvenated a couple years yourself?” The unicorn tilted her head, one ear twitching.

“Yes, but my ship hasn’t suffered from any case as bad as yours. Probably because it’s a smaller population sample…” He mused. “How many cases are there on the Rhine already?”

“Two; me and one of my bosuns.” Raimund frowned. “How old are you supposed to be in the first place?”

“Fifty-four, I think I gained about twenty years of life. You?”

“I was sixty-one before…” She waved a pink forehoof at her whole body. “That.”

Before they could go deeper into the topic of being young once more, the Deck Officer that was on watch on the bridge called them saying he had just received a call for them. Raimund ordered him to patch it through, and soon they were staring at the face of one certain Indonesian HPI agent. Eko was much like Dilip remembered him: dark skinned (by Indonesian standards) with grey hair and a pair of rectangular glasses on his nose. He had the beginning of wrinkles here and there, which was further enhanced by him appearing to be quite tired. On his shoulders was en executive suit with subtle hints that denoted his position within the HPI’s hierarchy. If Dilip’s memory was correct, he appeared to have progressed through the ranks since the last time he had seen him.

The agent appeared to be sitting inside of a dimly lit office, the camera conveniently oriented so as not to let them see anything they weren’t supposed to.

“Good evening Eko.” Dilip nodded curtly before motioning towards Raimund with his paw. “This is Captain Gerig of M/V Rhine Forest.”

The HPI agent stared dubiously at the young mare across the screen, but tactfully chose not to comment on the appearance of what his intel told him was supposed to be an elderly German.

“My greetings to you both.” Eko said politely. “I believe Captain Prateek has already conveyed to you most of the relevant information about my organization?” He asked Raimund.

“He has.” She nodded.

“Then you will not be surprised to hear I wish to extend the same contract we have with Amandine to your vessel. The terms are the exact same as those of the first contract and I will send it once this conversation is over. Does that suit you?”

“Ja, it does.” The pink unicorn had a hard look in her eyes when she looked at Eko, clearly having doubts about his intentions.

“Excellent. I suppose you will be glad to hear my superiors have deemed it worthwhile to invest resources in third-party… retrieval teams, so to speak. From now on I am to be considered the liaison agent with any and all non-HPI groups with which we have ongoing contracts.” There was a hint of pride seeping in towards the end of the last sentence, Dilip noted.

“Should we thus believe the HPI has long-term wishes of cooperation with us?” Dilip asked.

“As long as I occupy the position, consider it within my direct interest to maintain such activities and justify them to the upper echelons, yes.” Eko told him.

“If I may…” Raimund inserted herself in the conversation. “While I am certainly very glad to have a contract which allows us a source of parts for our ships, I do need to remind my colleague…” She glanced towards Dilip. “… That we also have certain ideas we wish to bring forward.”

Dilip caught on quickly what she was referring to and made of show of pulling out his latest research files for the agent to see.

“These files contain all of my recent research and the data my crew had gathered on the Event up to now. I have included data on the new species people changed into, observations on the wave that preceded the cataclysm, reports on demonic circles and monsters.” He tapped the pile of papers with the palm of his paw. “And there is more on the way. The Rhine’s resident Doctor and my own Medical Officer are working on more advanced research which should be available as soon as we can get a lab running.”

“And you wish to trade this data to us.” Eko guessed. After receiving a nod from both Captains he continued. “This… I can say it is certainly valuable, though I would have to submit it to the R&D department for appraisal.” He idly drummed his fingers against his desk. “Yes, I think they would be interested and might even ask you to run experiments they can’t do themselves. Do you wish to trade all this for extra credits?”

“Actually we’re in need of intel ourselves.” Gerig said.

Eko raised an eyebrow but otherwise remained silent.

“You see, we’ve come into possession of a great many humanitarian supplies and manuals from UN-related agencies in Copenhagen. It is our wish to seek out survivor groups and offer assistance.” Gerig explained. “But for that we need their location, and I am positively certain your organization does know the location of certain survivors.”

“I can’t picture either of you two as a bleeding-heart humanitarian. I’d wager there is an intent behind this, isn’t it?” Eko asked calmly.

“Aye, we think assisting them in setting up like that will allow us to restart certain industries and food production. Trade routes, oil refineries, anything that’s necessary to save civilization from fading away.”

Yet another idea Eko felt like he could use bring to his superiors to possibly scale the hierarchical ladder. He closed his eyes in thought, trying to figure out a way to work out the deal for a second. Once he felt like he had a viable plan he opened his eyes and addressed the Captains a polite smile.

“A worthwhile endeavor then.” He said, clasping his hands together. “We do have hints of survivor presence in certain areas of the globe, and we can send you this data at the same time as the Rhine’s contract. As for your research data, do you think you can send it this evening? I will need to ask around to the head researchers tonight to see if they have any uh… specifications. Is this feasible? Naturally the data you will be sent will be dependent on the quality of your own research data.”

“This should do.” Dilip agreed.

What came afterwards might as well have been equated to mere courtesies once the bulk of the deal was done. Eko asked them how they were faring and what they had already retrieved to trade to the HPI later, which evolved into some idle talk about European art and certain pieces they knew of and wished they could go out of their way to save. Dilip did try to ask him if he had any idea where they would have to deliver the goods once the HPI had improved their shield tech, but there was nothing Eko could tell him about it yet except that it would be on the East Coast of the United States. Research was progressing, but they still weren’t able to miniaturize the tech sufficiently. Soon enough, the Indonesian agent excused himself before signing off, the computer’s screen turning dark.

“Decent guy for a spook.” Raimund admitted.

“Only to us, he was rather dismissive of my subordinates when they had to take guidance from him; and even we have to read between the lines. You saw his reaction to our plan right?” Dilip told him as he stood up and cracked his broad neck.

“He’s got ideas of his own. What they are, I’d very much like to know.”

“So do I, so do I…” Dilip sighed.

Warning: explicit sexual content is present in the next scene

Micha and Vadim had continued training their flight abilities every chance they could. Boris had come along one evening to glide with them but he hadn’t joined them since then.

Vadim was secretly glad he didn’t, he very much enjoyed being able to relax with Micha without the Russian overhearing what they were talking about.

Progress was still slow for both griffons. They had gone back to their spot between the container stacks to keep hurling themselves off of them and into the pile of mattresses and cotton. The materials genuinely felt like a nest of sorts for the two avian chimeras, and if Vadim was entirely honest he may enjoy crashing down into it a bit too much. He definitely should be working on his landings more than simply plowing through the pile of soft materials much as he loathed admitting it.

By then, Micha’s fears of jumping had been completely forgotten and she kept jumping from the highest available stack with little to no worry. The Pole wasn’t actually so much scared of heights as she was restrained by her own justifiably strict safety culture. Vadim was aware of what had happened to her father in the past, he could understand how accidents like that would make someone cautious. In most cases on board, this was a good thing.

Not so much when it came to training a natural ability that conflicted with Micha’s still very human-oriented perceptions of what was safe and what wasn’t. Nevertheless, the bald-eagle female griffon had gotten around that issue and was now enjoying the gliding experience as much as he was. From his position on top of a container stack, Vadim observed her lithe form descend down to the ground, her wing positioning starting to become more natural and controlled which allowed her to vastly extend her flight time compared to her first day of training.

Yeah he definitely was staring at her rump on the way down. So what?

Vadim himself was perched on top of another stack a bit further away from the ‘landing pad’. He had chosen this stack in particular because the path forced him to take a turn and he was pretty sure he had gotten the turning technique down. Clenching his claws around the edge of the container he checked the path ahead of him. The multicolored containers formed a narrow corridor in front of him which veered ninety degrees to the side before leading to the landing pad.

One push of his hind legs later, the griffon was airborne. The sensation felt exhilarating, making him feel… whole. He could feel the push of the air against his wings, the wind in front of him that ruffled his coveralls and feathers, the ever so subtle motions of his tail behind him which he had discovered helped him manage his trim. Vadim let out a happy squawk as he built up speed on the way down. Never in his life had he done something so exciting. He beat his wings a couple times to try and maintain his altitude, but his wings weren’t trained enough to keep him aloft yet. His technique wasn’t perfect, and he still didn’t quite know how to position his legs during flight, but he was starting to figure it out.

Three containers after his leap, the griffon angled his body and wings to the side, the motion making him take a soft turn and lining up with the landing pad in which he could see the lounging form of his friend.

Sharp raptor eyes spotted the bottle of vodka in Micha’s claws, the other griffon lazily taking sips from the bottle and not looking in his direction. A mischievous smirk appearing on his beak, he opened one gloved claw and twisted his wings ever so slightly.

Micha didn’t know what hit her. One instant she was resting her arguably tired wings and enjoying a bottle of liquid joy; and the next an orange clothed blur shot past her ripping the bottle from her talons and crashing down in the pile of cotton, bits of white material flying in all direction.

“You’re an ass.” She growled, leveling a mildly annoyed glare at the other griffon.

“’Felt like celebrating my most recent success at turning.” Vadim shrugged with his wings before wincing. They had been at it for a while now; he was starting to feel the strain in his wing muscles now. The sun had even settled by then.

Taking a long gulp of liquor from the bottle, Vadim idly noted they had already gone through two thirds of that bottle. Of course there were another two empty ones lying… somewhere below all the cotton.

“You still up for a few jumps?” He asked her. Not that he felt like he was himself, he just wasn’t willing to be the first to quit.

Not after she pounded him in the ground in their last round of wrestling. Human females may not be as strong as males; but griffons were equally matched. That much he had learned quickly, the two of them currently being tied regarding who could pin the other down the most.

Micha stood up, extended her wings and flexed them a few times with a wince on her beak. Vadim could smell her scent across the short distance that separated them, the female griffon having sweated quite a bit from all this exercising. Not that he was much better… although her scent was actually quite pleasant to his nostrils. Beyond layers of seawater, grease and gunpowder he could smell hints of pine and forestry, the scent of which instantly soothed his nerves.

“Nah I’m good for tonight.” She told him. “Pass the bottle, I don’t like to leave then unfinished.”

Unbeknownst to Vadim, Micha had noticed her friend’s scent as well. And if Vadim’s shared hints of seawater and grease like her own, it was also laced with the smell of medicine from his work in the infirmary along with a deeply smoky scent. She was just as affected by his smell as he was by hers, the effect not being helped by the alcohol they both had in their bloodstream.

Both of them extricated themselves from the pile of mattresses and cotton, Vadim fluffing up his wings and setting a few primaries back in place using his beak once he was out.

“You use your beak?” Micha asked incredulously.

“Well, duh…” Vadim deadpanned. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it. Don’t tell me you were using a hairbrush or your claws now?”

“But that’s…”

“Perfectly natural! No wonder your feathers are fussed up like that, your beak is made to take care of them, and you’ve got preening glands at the base of your wings to wax your feathers.” Vadim explained. “It’s… important you know, for insulation, for hygiene, for flying. You won’t ever get a good airflow with messy feathers.”

“How do you even know that?” She cocked her head in wonder, the motion jostling her a bit too much because of the alcohol.

“Got an ornithology book from Schmitt.” He slurred, the alcohol was starting to get to him as well. “I experimented.”

“Could you maybe… show me?” Why the request brought a blush under her feathers she didn’t know.

Vadim happily accepted the request. The two of them silently made their way to Vadim’s cabin; Micha accidently bumping into the other griffon’s side a couple times on the way.

Maybe she had slightly overdone it with the vodka.

Vadim took off his shoes and gloves when he entered the room before hopping on his bed and sitting down on his haunches. He eagerly motioned for Micha to come sit next to him, which the pole did after getting rid of her own shoes and gloves.

“So how do you do it?” She asked.

“First off, open up your wing. I need to show you your preen glands.” He began.

The bald eagle griffon opened one of her large brown feathered wings for the Ukrainian to see. The primaries were indeed messed up somewhat, which would explain the slight difficulties she had been experiencing during flight training. They also had lost the sheen she had started off with the day of her transformation, something which made the more instinct driven parts of her mind reel in outrage.

Sensitive as wings were, Vadim was particularly careful not to be too rough in his handling. His claws gently ran over the edge of Micha’s wing which sent shivers running down her spine and towards her loins. Unconsciously, her tail flicked to the side and intertwined with Vadim’s. His talons crept closer to the base of the wing, one of them give a gentle tickle on a little nub at the base of her wing. The simple motion made her let out a slightly aroused gasp, which Vadim didn’t seem to notice or acknowledge.

“That’s your gland.” He told her softly as he stroked the back of her wing with one claw. “You… sort of nip it with the tip of your beak and then coat it with some wax. Then you run your feathers through your beak, easy.”

Micha turned her head and found herself staring in Vadim’s yellow-green eyes, both of them entranced for a second before he snapped away with a polite cough.

“Can you show me how?” She caught herself blurting out before she could stop the words coming out of her beak. Behind her, her tail squeezed around Vadim’s, the other griffon obviously catching the gesture.

“Yeah!” He cried out. “I mean… of course I can.”

Vadim undid the zipper on his coveralls up to his midsection, motioning for his friend to do the same. He needed to keep his feathers uncovered and had discovered that fresh wax tended to stain the fabric of the coveralls. The front half of the suit was pulled back, the sleeves tying it just behind the base of his wings and exposing his coat of fluffy light grey feathers for Micha to see.

Before he had time to open his beak he was pinned on his back by Micha, the female fixating him with a hard stare… though he was pretty sure he could spot a lustful glint in her yellow eyes.

“And what say we stop beating around the bush?” She whispered in his ear, leaning down. Behind her, her tail was quickly swishing from side to side and her paws were kneading the blanket. Vadim caught a whiff of her scent, his mind starting to fog up.

“Are you sure? I mean you were…” But she cut him off by clasping her talons around his beak.

“I am sure. I want you Zinoviya.” She purred, keeping her head close to Vadim’s.

The Ukrainian’s response was to rub the inside of her thighs with his tail, the gesture making the female melt down in his arms with a soft coo. By then he was pretty much going in blind following his instincts. Griffons were not suited for kissing, but they did make use of their beaks for foreplay, each of them running their beak through their partner’s feathers while they used their claws to caress each other’s wings. Their tails were intertwined together once more, one or the other moving to brush against the sensitive underside of the other.

Both of them could feel the heat starting to build up, electric feelings rushing through their nerves and buzzing around their bodies at each stroke of their partner. At one point they switched positions and shrugged off their coveralls, Vadim winding up on top with the both of them wrapped in a tight hug. Neither of them had ever experienced anything quite like it, not even with their former partners before the Event.

Micha rubbed her beak through the darker feathers on the back of Vadim’s neck one last time before the Ukrainian pushed on his arms, lifting himself up slightly and breaking the hug. His mind completely fogged up and running on automatic at this point, he gazed down lovingly at his partner. The white feathers on her head were all fluffed up and she was panting now. Her scent was all over the male griffon’s nostrils, wiping away everything around him but her, the situation being just as true for the female below him. She could feel the radiating heat of Vadim’s member pressing down against her nether regions. She nibbled at his neck with her beak and stroked the base of his wings which stood up straight at her touch.

Not able to wait any longer, the female bucked against Vadim which made the male griffon fall on his side. She pinned him to the bed with her talons and straddled him, hind legs tensed up and her rump bent so that her cloaca hovered just above her partner’s now very hard member. Vadim saw her hesitate a moment, both of them way too out of it to even think about contraception at the moment.

The fur between her thighs was now dripping wet from arousal, heat radiating from the region and instincts screaming at her to take the plunge. And she did. Slowly, the recently-made female lowered herself closer to her partner’s member, Vadim letting her take it at her own pace. The feeling of his warm, erect dick parting her lips felt… alien to her mind but she relished the feeling. Having a foreign object enter her most private area and rub oh so pleasantly against her insides made her start purring in delight. She bent down on her arms to embrace Vadim tightly, the other griffon returning the gesture and wrapping his wings around her, encasing the both of them in a dim, cozy cage of light grey feathers.

Micha gasped as she finally felt her hindquarters meet Vadim’s. She could feel every pulse or vein of his dick inside of her cloaca, her walls wrapping tightly around him in the most intimate of embraces with her inner muscles twitching intermittently. Every little motion either of them made sent little electric shorts echoing through her nervous system. Vadim wiggled his hips slightly which made the shocks increase in intensity.

This was no human sex. This was something else entirely. Both for Micha and Vadim, the nerve endings in their nether regions would send stimulations coursing through their entire body from the tip of their tail to their beak at the slightest movement. This was a lot less rough than anything either of them had ever done as humans, and surprisingly gentle for a species like griffons.

Both of them clutched the other tightly in their claws as Micha rocked her hips slowly. Both of them were staring deep in the other’s eyes, now completely entranced by their instincts. Their motions were slow, deliberate. They needn’t hurry or be rough during the act, small motions being enough to bring them to new heights.

They kept going at it for what felt like hours, Micha making a back and forth motion with her gyrating hips and falling to the side after a while. Still connected and on their side, they kept the motion going while their claws explored each other’s body and their tails twisted and rubbed against the other’s. Under them, the blanket was damp from both their sweat and Micha’s female juices, neither of them minding the slightest. Close to each other as they were, they could feel the other’s warmth and heartbeat even through their thick plumage.

And then they felt it coming. The beat in all four of their hearts increased rapidly, the intensity of the pulses going through their nerves rising threefold at once and making them break eye contact. The sensations robbed them of their breath, both completely whiting out from the rush of overwhelming feelings. Vadim felt his member start twitching in a fashion he was actually familiar with, though unable to react to at the moment.

They both climaxed at once, Micha’s cloaca tightening suddenly around Vadim’s pulsating dick. Even if his body hadn’t overwhelmed his nervous system like that, the male griffon still wouldn’t have been able to free himself from his partner’s grip. Not that he wanted to in any shape or form at the moment. His member spurted its life giving seed inside of his partner before slowly starting to soften.

As the intensity of the moment decreased and both griffons could feel themselves drifting away from the exertion their bodies had inflicted upon them, Vadim mustered enough energy to bring a wing against the side of Micha’s head. Gently, he brushed the underside of her beak with his own.

“Kocham cię.” He told her with a smile before drifting away happily, soon followed by Micha, both still cradling each other.

Author's Notes:

So I'll call dibs on calling this one:

Relation-ship

I'll just show myself out...