Up North, the hunt for the convergence point continued.

They decided to split up in two groups. Louis and Mikhail would escort Derek up the so-called ‘sacred path’ so the mage could make his observations. As for the rest, namely Elaena, Alejandro and Radiant, they’d stay at the farm to keep an eye on Sirocco and sift through her cargo hold for anything they could give Gunnar.

The farmer remained vehement about not coming back to Denmark with them. The farm was a family heirloom, and he had spent far too long tending the cattle and the vegetable patches to just abandon them. His ‘deal’ with the expeditionists remained the same: they’d take him to Narvik so he could replace his sunken speedboat (probably with a sailboat) to get a link between his farm and the rest of the region. They also shared Amandine’s satellite phone number with him, if the reindeer ever changed his mind.

Elaena also elaborated on Gunnar’s theoretical flight ability.

“Wait, like a Christmas reindeer?” Alejandro did a double take when she said that.

“No clue what Christmas is, but I know reindeer tribes fly over to Equestria each year for Heart’s Warming Eve. The lack of wing never seemed to bother them, they just… hover above ground.” She explained whilst digging through book-filled crate. “There it is!”

Alejandro peered over her shoulder to see her pull a thin book from under a stack of papers. It had a picture of a Pegasus mare with a pith helm posing for a picture with a demure reindeer doe. The snowy background also seemed to feature a village of thatch huts covered in snow with more reindeers around, all clad in vivid blue and red garb similar to Sami clothing. It had a title in English (or Equestrian, same thing really): ‘Daring Do’s nonfiction: Preindustrial Civilizations of the Northern Realms’.

Considering how Sirocco’s planned route would take her south once she was done with the sailors, giving Gunnar the ‘manual’ on his new species wouldn’t hurt. He was probably the only reindeer they’d cross path with. Elaena was also pretty damn certain Roberto had scanned and uploaded it in Amandine’s database already.

“Maybe I can fly, doesn’t change much.” Gunnar shrugged after accepting the book.

“Why so?”

“Alright, flying… gives me one way out of here. But I can do that already.” He pointed a cloven hoof at the mountains above them. “Plenty of trekking paths up there. But it’s no good for supplies.”

And flying wouldn’t be any better. What he needed to actually salvage stuff from nearby Narvik was a way to get a vehicle (with a load of cargo bigger than a backpack) from town to his farm; which only left him with boats as an option now that the main road had collapsed.

Maybe it could be fixed eventually, but that certainly wasn’t something that could be done by one man… or one buck in his case? Regardless, boating was something he’d have to resort to from now on.

All things considered Gunnar honestly wasn’t doing too badly as a survivor. He had food, water, a healthy stash of medicine in his bathroom’s cabinet… Power could easily be solved once he brought back some stuff from town with a salvaged (not stolen) boat. In fact, the biggest hazard so far probably came from the rocs.

“I’m not afraid.” Was all Gunnar said about the bords as he showed them the insides of his farm.

It wasn’t a bad place to live in. Very utilitarian, but the vast amounts of varnished wood and thick carpets did bring a cozy feel to the place. Gunnar went to an L-shaped couch near a coffee table, lifting the cushions off with his telekinesis.

“I can throw tools with my mind… drives them off.” He began, one cloven hoof lifting the lid off a concealed compartment under the couch. “But I got better if I need it.”

There was an olive green box under the couch. Gunnar casually flicked the code lock on it, to reveal the guns inside. A hunting shotgun and a bolt action rifle. Yeah, he may not necessarily use them, but he was covered in the arms department. If his guns were enough to drop a moose, then he had no reasons to fear the slate-feathered birds if they suddenly grew a pair.

At about the same time, Derek’s group had reached the edge of the forest.

Mikhail was with the group, and frankly right then the Ukrainian dragon could understand why Gunnar told them his dog was scared of the forest. There was some sort of weight hanging in the air, pressing down on his throat and ears with a soft thrumming.

“Sidereal was right…” Derek whispered in awe, the foci in his forearms crackling just from the ambient magic. “That convergence point… it’s something ancient.”

They had left the farmstead behind them, with its greenhouses, wooden fences and the cattle pens. Ahead was the forest, with its tall pines and the bushes that formed a barrier in front of them.

Derek pushed past the bushes and into the forest proper. They were on a narrow dirt path that snaked its way up the slopes towards the mountains, following a small mountain brook that likely supplied the farm with fresh water. The scent of pines and tree sap hung heavily in the air, filling their nostrils with its sharp smell.

All around them, tree trunks rose up perfectly straight along the slopes, the ground colored a dark orange from fallen needles. Bushes and nettles sprouted here and there, green splotches of color against the orange and brown of bark and fallen needles. The ground visibly sloped at a shallow angle, steadily climbing up the mountainside.

There were also rocks emerging from the ground in places, most of them covered in moss, some not, closer to the farm. Those were most likely stones Gunnar had removed from his fields and tossed in the forest.

The trek up the slope to the start of the ‘sacred path’ wasn’t too long. After a climb a couple hundred meters uphill, they reached a short cliff. It wasn’t particularly big, only three to four meters in height and with the forest already encroaching upon it. It ran for a couple hundred meters along the path, the carved cliff on one side and the brook on the other.

But what the cliff face showed… that made them certain they had reached their target.

Dozens –no, hundreds- of carvings both small and large covered the stone, every single one of them glowing softly in various shades of blue. Sparks of light flickered at random intervals on the carvings, as if the Event had supercharged the site and given it a new burst of energy. But there was more than just the glowing carvings…

The more they approached them, the more… vivid the world seemed to become around them. Colors became more intense, the sounds of birds and the wind in the trees became sharper, even the brook the path was following appeared to take on an unearthly sheen.

And then was the ever-present thrumming against their eardrums.

Derek was the first to approach the carvings, the gargoyle quickly conjuring up his mage sight as his hand carefully hovered above a line of runes.

“Fascinating…” He whispered. “I’ve been to several convergence points in the past. None of them were anything like this.”

Mikhail warily looked around. The place felt… weird. Far more intense than any mere carving had any right to be. A dry pine needle fell down from a branch above them, and the purple-scaled dragon watched the intense magical field wrap it in a blue glow mid-fall, gently accompanying it the rest of the way, like a snowflake in winter.

“So?” Armiger crossed his arms after he joined Derek next to the carvings.

“As I said Sir… The underlying magic here differs far more from Equus’ own magic than I’d first thought.” He frowned. “It’s like… back home we build sites and shrines on the convergence points and when you look at it, you can see there is a difference between the site itself, and the surrounding flow. But here? The magic’s a perfect match.”

The implications behind it were… puzzling, to say the least. Usually some civilization –or lifeform- would pop up on the convergence point to profit off the increased magic in the area. In each case, there was at least some measure of difference between the convergence point’s magic and that of whatever building was found there.

In the case of these carvings however… Derek had a perfect match in front of him. As if the carvings had been chiseled out just as the convergence point formed.

The thing was, as he fiddled with the tunings on his mage sight spell, he could see the difference between the original magic of the site –the humans’- and that which came after the Event. It was like… the new magic was a liquid, the convergence point a river, but now the riverbed was filled with seawater instead of freshwater.

“I need more observations.” Derek stated after he recorded his readings on a blank quartz gem. “The reindeer, he did say the path goes up to the mountaintop, right?”

“That he did.” Mikhail nodded. “You think we’ll need to go that far?”

“We’ll see.” He shrugged. “I need to look at the history of this place to figure out more.”

And look at its history he did. Together the three of them marched on uphill, through the forest that they soon left behind. All along the way they’d stop at regular intervals so Derek could take a look at some more carved stones, or an old cairn built alongside their path. They all kept that eerie blue glow about them, the energy in the air still palpable even when they left the forest.

Bushes and lichen traded place with the pines, rocks slowly starting to become more prevalent the higher they got. But still, carved stones with runes and drawings of the men of old popped up along the way. Derek would sometimes stop just to take a look, other times he’d take a blank gemstone from the pouches on his rig to record a magical reading or just write something down in a thin leather-bound book.

The oddest thing was… even though they were now pretty high up and still going, none of them experienced any difficulty from the effort. As if… well, come to think of it the convergence point probably did energize them. That would go a long way towards explaining how they could casually trek halfway up the mountain without getting tired.

Mikhail paused to look back. Way down below them, the tip of the fjord and Gunnar’s farm were now nothing but a blotch, with Sirocco’s balloons hardly distinguishable from the herds of cattle around it at this distance. Normally he’d probably be concerned about the cold at that altitude, but he was a dragon now. They ran hot.

Very hot. He could do just fine with his plate carrier and coveralls above his scales despite the cold mountainous weather. Derek and Armiger however, both paused just long enough for the gargoyle to cast a quick warming spell.

“Anything new here?” The dragon quickly asked, turning his eyes uphill to the steep path that still awaited them.

If Derek was willing to carry his boss, they might be able to just glide back down to the farm when they reached the top.

“Sort of.” Derek looked up from his notebook as he finished copying a few lines of runes. “I’m starting to get the gist of this place’s history.”

“Well, don’t keep us in the dark. Shoot.”

“So I have this theory…

The ‘new’ magic from after the Event doesn’t match the original. That rules out the Event actually being a resurgence of magic. It’s completely different from what powered this place in the past.

Which means humans did have magic. Just not the specific kind that now popped up. This might be why it was so deadly to humans in the first place.

Second thing is, and this might come as a shock, the site isn’t built over the convergence point. The site is the convergence point.”

“Come again?”

“That’s what I was wondering about.” Derek explained. “I looked at this from the beginning of the path to here. The carvings are exactly as old as the site, and their progress in time is matched by the magic. So either these guys had the absolute luck of building their sacred site just as the convergence point formed or, the convergence point was formed because they built it.”

“I’m no expert in magic but I’m pretty sure that conflicts with at least half a dozen major principles on Equus.” Louis crossed his arms, tail lashing behind him.

“Exactly! On Equus, it wouldn’t make any sense. But here? The magic is similar to ours, not identical. And that’s not the only thing. I got some observations about that ‘magic disappeared at some point’ theory Sidereal told me about.”

“Explain.”

“Easy.” Derek turned to point at the carvings. “Let’s say the convergence point is like a river and we look past the current flow –which is overcharged-, and instead focus on the riverbed. At the bottom, it was really deep, like a river with strong flow. But up here…”

“It gets weaker.” Mikhail guessed.

“It does!” Derek enthusiastically pointed a finger at the dragon. “We’re nearing the top now, and we’ve gone from a wild river to… a quiet irrigation channel maybe. Before the Event came, the magic at this altitude was but a third of what’s at the bottom in intensity. At best. Something happened.”

Mikhail twisted his head to the side, reptilian eyes focusing on a drawing of a longboat depicting a group of raiders assaulting a burning abbey. He was tempted to touch it with his claw, but just approaching it felt like getting too close to a live wire.

“Are you sure it’s weaker? Because it doesn’t feel weaker.” He pointed out as he readjusted the shoulder strap of his rifle.

“Positive.” Derek nodded. “Remember: the entire site is saturated in magic anyway, that’s why it feels so strong now.”

“Gonna believe you then.” He shrugged. “So… we continuin’ up top or what?”

They didn’t have very long to go anyway. Soon enough the path leveled out, greeting them with the sight of a wide plateau just short of the mountaintops. The snow-capped summits still towered above them like quiet giants, a small glacier looming between two of them and feeding a small lake with its melt water. The source of the brook they had been following.

Short grass and lichen covered the entire frosted surface of the plateau, with a few purple mountain flowers peeking through here and there, stems bending under the billowing winds that raised Derek’s cloak.

But as picturesque as the landscape may have been, it mattered little when compared to what awaited them at the end of the ‘sacred path’. A barrow, an old Norse burial mound lay near the shore of the mountain lake.

Short cairns lined either side of the path as they made their way closer to its entrance. It appeared to be at the crossroads of two trekking paths, because there was also a direction pole there, to which some trekkers had attached a scarf.

A trophy of sorts probably, left there to hang in the billowing winds, the wooly strands a proud testimony that some alpinists had reached a milestone in their journey. With a bit of luck whoever had left it there wouldn’t reappear all alone near a mountain summit and had at least made it to a refuge before the Event struck.

Otherwise… well, let it be said that there is reappearing in a favorable position like a ship at anchor, and then you have reappearing alpinists.

The burial mound’s entrance was blocked. A single, smooth stone prevented intruders from reaching the inner chamber. Much like all cliffs along the path, carvings had been added to the stone. A proud sigil of Thor’s Hammer stood in the center, with numerous runes and lines forming a circle around it. But it was unlike the other carvings. The carved stones they had seen up until then were vivid and throbbing with energy, this stone was… faint, weak.

“Something’s different…” Mikhail whispered in Ukrainian.

Slowly, he walked over to the stone and laid a hand against it. Cold to the touch, with the slightest hint of a frost cover on it when he brushed his claws over the Hammer of Thor engraved on it. The thrumming energy was still there, but faint.

He frowned. There was something to it. He shifted his claw closer to the center of the engraving. A little bit stronger.

Curious as to what may happen, the purple dragon placed his palm directly against the center of the engraving, right on the Hammer.

A cold chill ran down his arm like a bolt of lightning, and then the world became blue.

“Open fire!” Schmitt immediately yelled at the sight of the gigantic monster climbing up the side of the convention center.

Her claws reached for the rifle strapped across her chest, and she went through the motions out of pure muscle memory. Shoulder, rack the cocking handle, and flick the safety off.

Not a second later, the crosshairs on her scope lined up with one of the hydra’s heads. Her claw depressed the trigger, at just about the same time as her teammates around her.

A whittling volley of 5.56 fire met the approaching threat, hitting it all over and scoring a few scrapes and cuts. Not to much effect however… 5.56 was decent against humans and similarly-sized threats.

The hydra was as far removed from such proportions as a creature could get. One of its heads was easily as big as a fully-grown Earth Pony, and its body wasn’t any smaller. It barely flinched when Pavlos joined them and opened up with his 7.62-fed MG3, even the blistering rate of fire of the German machinegun proved insufficient to repel the monster.

“Can’t the Piranhas shoot that bloody thing?!” Vadim yelled over the gunfire just as he was jamming a fresh mag in his modified FNC.

“Wrong side of the building, and we’re too high.” Pavlos answered.

“The fuck you mean, we’re too high?”

“They can’t elevate the guns high enough. No good.”

“Explosives?” Carlos joined in, the cockatoo firing from the hip at the hydra. “I mean, we got a grenade launcher right?”

Vadim quickly turned his head towards the only other griffon in the group, Valentyn. Rhine’s Second Engineer just finished dumping another mag down at the approaching monster before he noticed all the other sailors looking pointedly at him.

Or rather, at the M203 he had attached underneath his C7.

“Don’t look at me like that, I only got buckshot and teargas for that thing.” He quickly said. “Ain’t got the training to be fooling around with explosives.”

The building shook with the noise of breaking glass as the hydra climbed a floor higher. Schmitt steadied herself on a nearby coffee table before looking towards the edge in concern, glass shards raining down around her.

“Is anybody going to question the fact that this thing basically ignored the gas cloud below? Where did it come from anyway?!” Carlos yelled. “I’m pretty damn sure we’d have noticed the bloody thing in the lobby.”

“Hydras are immune to poison.” Sidereal quickly said, the mare still not fully recovered from the sight of the bodies around the lookout floor. For Faust’s sake, she could feel the carpet squelch from the blood it was soaked with!

“It wasn’t here.” Pulp scowled. “I’m pretty damn sure I just saw somepony teleport it in.”

“Four Horses?”

“Not sure, but definitely equine, could be them.”

The building shook again, bringing the discussion to a grinding halt and reminding them all of the looming threat.

“Schäiss!” Schmitt stumbled with a swear. “Keep the talk for later, if we can’t fight this thing then we gotta run.”

“So we’re just gonna leave?” Carlos quickly inquired to his superior.

“No point staying, that was a fucking trap.”

Pity they couldn’t just glide down, but the airtight chemsuits prevented that. That just left them with the option of… running down the stairs and hope the hydra didn’t notice they were going for it.

They could teleport however. Some of them at least. Sidereal had her limits, and she couldn’t teleport more than one of them at a time back to the Piranhas. Not fast enough at least, if they relied on her alone the hydra would have reached them long before they could teleport away.

Pulp was brought back first, and then Vadim, and then… she was forced to cut it short when the hydra reached the floor just below them. One last trip and the rest of them would have to settle for trying to run past a behemoth of a monster that was seemingly impervious to gunfire.

A minute later, Sidereal was offering them an awkward smile through the visor of her hazmat suit as she disappeared along with Valentyn. Schmitt turned to the remaining sailors after watching the mare teleport away in a flash of light.

Only four of them, all with a healthy air supply left for getting back to the APC’s. That should do it, right?

The orange dragon carefully listened for any sign of movement from the hydra as she twisted the valve on her SCBA and closed her suit.

Ammo check on her rifle? Still good..

Air supply? 200bar in the tank.

The others? Pavlos looked confident enough with the MG3 in the bosun’s hands. It looked comically big compared to the gargoyle’s frame. That left Carlos and Yancy, the two parrots looking quite uneasy through their visors.

“Ready?” She called out, one claw already reaching for the door handle.

On the other side was the staircase that would lead them back down into the gas cloud.

What followed was even more intense than the fight against the giant timberwolf in Lyngby. They all ran from staircase to staircase inside the convention center, going full speed through hazy hallways and past broken windows.

The hydra caught on quickly. They weren’t even one floor down when it intercepted them, one giant head ramming through a wall and snapping at Yancy. The Filipino macaw thankfully managed to roll underneath the attack, but the chase was now on.

They scattered like mice running away from a housecat. Pavlos and Schmitt went down one staircase, whilst Carlos and Yancy ran for the one on the other side of the building. The hydra may have four heads but it couldn’t be in two places at once.

The two Filipino parrots found themselves racing through the hallways and bashing doors open as they went. There was no sneaking away from the hydra, not as long as they were wearing SCBA’s that hissed loudly every time they breathed through their masks.

They would have to make it purely on speed. Speedy parrot or not, that was easier said than done in a chemsuit.

“Tae, I really didn’t want to fight monsters in that kind of environment.” Yancy loudly complained in Tagalog as the two of them quickly passed through a conference room.

“’cause you call that fighting?” Carlos stopped at an intersection to look for the nearest staircase. “Looks more like fleein’ to me. Take the next right.”

“Yeah, until we get it to the Piranhas; then that fucking thing will regret picking a fight with us.” The other parrot confidently said.

They had a few encounters with the hydra along the way, nearly each time they got close to a window or a staircase it would lunge at them with a head or two –the others gripping the building’s facade and holding it steady-. They were lucky the two of them had turned into something reasonably fast because they somehow managed to dodge its attacks.

Until they hit the third floor that is. Overconfidence is an insidious killer, and they had dared assume the monster had a pattern to its attacks.

The third floor was also where they first caught sight of the vast lobby and the staircases that descended on either side of the room, both linked together by glass terraces that must have brought a modern feel to the place in the past.

Maybe it was because the haze was thicker at that level, or because they were just getting tired, but they mistook a tinted window for an actual wall.

The hydra didn’t. The two parrots fully expected its next attack to come from a nearby broken window opposite the tinted window inside the staircase. They had their backs turned to it when one head rammed through, with gnashing fangs and malice-filled eyes.

The impact sent them both flying down the stairs. They fell two floors down on a nearby terrace, the landing so hard Carlos was pretty sure he heard bones crack when he impacted the ground. He pulled himself up on one elbow. The other one wasn’t responding.

He blinked. Something wasn’t right. He couldn’t feel anything on one side of his face and… he couldn’t see anything on that side.

“Ano?” He croaked, bringing up a hand to his blind side.

His blood ran cold.

He could feel a huge tear in his suit, the gash extending to his gas mask. Bloodstained glass shards were all around him, with Yancy lying face down a few meters away. The exposed side of his face started stinging. He quickly pressed down on the mask with a talon to protect the other half.

Worse even, was the soft hissing that was coming from where his air tank connected to his SCBA. A leak. The dial on his manometer was dropping by the second. It started whistling.

50 bar.

And through the murky haze that made up the gas cloud, through the white cloud of pain that was fogging up his vision, Carlos could see the toxic green orbs of the approaching hydra’s eyes.

Either Mikhail was unknowingly tripping like he never had, or magic really could do weird stuff. The moment the dragon laid his claws on the carved stone door, he activated something.

What it was exactly, he had no idea, for now at least.

“Eh Derek you got any idea what’s goin’ onnnn…” He trailed off as he turned around, not finding the gargoyle behind him.

Louis wasn’t here either. The two of them were just… gone. All around the world had changed, as if he was looking at it through a blue lens.

He still was next to the burial mound, but now it was as if something had dropped a fog dome over the area. He couldn’t see much further than fifty meters in all directions before his sight was obscured by a blue fog wall.

“I probably shouldn’t have touched that…” The purple dragon growled out in Ukrainian before looking for anything that may be out of place.

Nothing really. The place just looked… younger maybe? The cairns were a bit taller, the path and burial mound better maintained, but that was it.

Wait, no. There was a thin snow cover all around where just moments before the grass had been covered in frost.

The sound of crunching snow quickly made him turn around. Something was coming.

Someone actually.

A long file of ethereal silhouettes emerged out of the fog, all of them slowly walking towards the burial mound in a procession. The bluish shadows were all human, clad in clothing that must have dated back to the Viking age.

They were lead by what a chieftain, if his embroidered cloak and engraved belt were anything to go by. He walked right through Mikhail as if the dragon never even existed before coming to a stop a few steps short of the burial mound, one hand on his hip and the other stroking his braided beard.

Behind him was a catholic priest with an incenser, along with two robe-clad altar boys carrying a small tub.

Mikhail watched as a small crowd of ethereal shadows gathered round to witness the ceremony. The priest started opening and closing his mouth while gesturing at the burial mound with his incenser in a silent sermon.

After a few minutes of that display, the altar boys came back, the tub now filled with water from the nearby lake. The chieftain came forward, shedding his cloak and passing it to a nearby woman –his wife most likely-.

The priest baptized the chieftain. In front of the ancient burial mound. The moment his head emerged out of the water, Mikhail took note of how the vision dimmed, but it kept going.

A smith emerged out of the crowd carrying a ceremonial hammer and a bundle covered in cloth. He passed it to the newly-baptized chieftain just as the priest started reciting another silent sermon to the crowd.

He unfurled the cloth to reveal a small brass cross.

The vision stopped the moment the chieftain hammered it into the lintel of the burial mound.

Mikhail blinked.

The shadows were gone; the blue lens off his eyes, and the world was normal once more. Wind howled against his ears as he realized he was back near the door, claw pressed against it as if the vision never happened.

Gingerly, the dragon lifted his head and brushed a patch of moss off of the lintel piece. There it was, the cross was gone but the discoloration on the stone made it very clear it had been there.

“Whelp, that’s not something you see everyday.” He muttered.

“Mikhail?”

The Ukrainian jerked his head away from the lintel. Derek was right behind him, the gargoyle mage throwing him a concerned look.

“Everything alright?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I just had a vision?” The dragon quirked an eyeridge at the shorter gargoyle.

“Yes. You were in trance for the best part of five minutes. What did you see?”

“A ceremony. Not the burial of whoever is in there mind, but his descendants switching religion. The vision stopped the moment they concluded the ceremony. That makes sense to you?”

“Well uh…” Derek rubbed the underside of his muzzle. “Wouldn’t be the first time religion and magic are tied.”

“Gentlemen?” Louis interrupted, the cat putting a paw on Derek’s shoulder. “I’m sure this is all fascinating, but I feel I have something you might find needs be addressed first.”

“What?”

The Abyssinian calmly pointed at an approaching flock of birds.

No, rocs actually.

“Just a few monsters, nothing too troublesome. I say we remove the pests then go back to the farm to chat about this, no?”

Mikhail’s response was just to cock his rifle, a predatory grin already creasing the edges of the dragon’s maw.

He had been exposed to the gas, that much he could feel. The stinging pain in the side of his face was rising steadily as Carlos watched the hydra’s heads loom over him. He was pretty sure he caught the crackle of chatter on his walkie-talkie, but either the thing was damaged or he just couldn’t make anything out from the buzzing in his ears.

“Kainin mo tae ko…” He muttered as he gathered what strength he had left in his uninjured arm to lift the gun he was still clutching in his talons.

He was more aware of the vibrations his weapon made when he pulled the trigger than the seemingly distant popping of gunfire, as if he was watching it all through a muted TV. The hydra faltered, more because he actually managed to hit it in the eye with a stray shot than because the rounds actually did any damage.

Then it roared at him with all its heads.

The sheer noise freed him from the painful haze he’d been wrapped in for the last few seconds, reality suddenly taking on a sharp contrast as if someone had just dropped a bucket of water on his head.

‘I’m about to die.’ The thought ran through his mind.

Thankfully, this was not to be. A crashing noise below him drew his and the hydra’s attention. One of the Piranhas had rammed its way inside the lobby, its .50cal instantly swiveling in the hydra’s direction.

“Run Carlos!” Schmitt’s voice echoed through his radio, the audio finally making sense.

The Piranha opened fire. That had more effect on the monster than anything they had tried prior. Carlos didn’t linger to see whether that was enough to kill it however. Instead, he pushed himself up and sprinted towards Yancy’s crumpled form.

With the writhing form of the hydra just above him as it was being shot at with a .50cal, he wrapped his talons around his downed compatriot’s suit and started pulling him towards the stairs. The hydra was being pushed back, but the .50cal just might not be enough to actually take it down.

Not that it mattered to him. What did right then, was getting the downed parrot to the APC’s despite his nonfunctional arm and his dwindling air supply. He practically dragged him by the arm to the nearest staircase where the two of them more or less hurtled down the stairs.

The two parrots must have made for quite the spectacle when Carlos finally reached the APC’s. Him with his gun and arm hanging limply, his good arm tiredly dragging the limp form of a barely-alive Yancy. There was a huge tear in his chemsuit and gasmask, painfully exposing some of his feathers and one eye to the gas cloud.

Thankfully for him, the mouthpiece of his gasmask was still mostly intact, contrarily to Yancy’s who was now letting out sick wheezes. There were blood clots dripping from his beak whenever the blue and gold macaw exhaled.

A certain griffon pulled them inside as soon as he reached the rear ramp, and Carlos soon found himself strapped down in a seat with his gasmask hooked to the Piranha’s air supply. Vadim was upon him immediately after the ramp closed and the Piranha motored away from the building.

Idly, Carlos wondered who was behind the wheel right then. After all, he and Yancy were supposed to drive…

“What happened?” Vadim barked, the Medical Officer looking over the barely conscious form of Yancy lying at their feet.

Vadim quickly got to work on Yancy first. The macaw really wasn’t looking too good, and Vadim wouldn’t be able to do much until they were out of the city and had decontaminated the vehicles.

The fall had damaged his suit far more than it had damaged Carlos’, not only exposing his entire face to the gas, but his respiratory tract as well. The skin around the macaw’s eyes and under his feathers was a vivid red; and his eyes were bleeding with the pupils having turned a cloudy white.

For now, all Vadim could really do was grab a replacement gas mask and intubate him. For all the good it might do… they had no idea how bad the damage was to his lungs, and his low oxygen saturation didn’t bode too well.

“Will he make it?” Carlos wheezed out, shifting his weight this way and that so his broken arm would stop hurting.

“I… I’m not sure.” Vadim shook his head. “He breathed in a lot of gas… his lungs could be burned for all I know.”

“Health potion?”

“I can try, but it’s no guarantee.” He threw a glance at the oximeter he had just tied to Yancy’s finger, watching the readout slowly but surely fall. “They’re made for first-aid… that here, this could be pretty advanced. Plus I don’t exactly know what was in the gas cloud; there could be toxins in there for all I know.”

Carlos wasn’t doing too good either, but at least it didn’t seem life threatening. He could still breathe mostly fine, though he might have inhaled some gas as well. His throat ached. What concerned him most was the wound on the side of his face. He couldn’t see anything on that side and he was starting to get worried by the pain spikes he was experiencing, along with the numbness around the entire area.

As for his arm, he was pretty sure he could go without a splint for a little while.

The two APC’s showed no trouble in escaping the city, the hydra didn’t even follow, probably skulking away to lick the wounds they had inflicted it. Still, in Vadim’s mind every second they spent inside the gas cloud was a second too long. Yancy’s oxygen levels slowly but surely shrank down on the oximeter, yet he couldn’t do anything for him inside the contaminated atmosphere.

A few minutes later, they emerged out of the cloud with their engines roaring, pulling up in a gas station along the highway as soon as they found one. Yancy was immediately laid out on the asphalt whilst Schmitt walked off, barking a report into a satellite phone.

“What do you mean that was an ambush?” Dilip’s voice rang out.

“Exactly what’s that supposed to mean.” She growled. “The survivors were dead, recently too.”

“Then why did they pop up on Sidereal’s radar?”

“Decoy foci. Some kinda gem. Some-pony dropped a monster on us soon as we reached the top floor, probably Four Horses. Got two casualties.”

“Is it serious?”

Schmitt’s eyes flicked to where Vadim was tending to Yancy. The blue and gold macaw’s feathers were peeling off and sticking to his chemsuit when the griffon pulled it off. The grey falcon griffon’s gaze crossed hers and he gave her a meaningful look.

Don’t get your hopes high.

“One is life-threatening. Lung damage, we’ll see what we can do with the health potions.”

“Tell Sidereal to teleport back with the wounded if she can. I’ll be contacting Delacroix.”

“Got it.” She nodded despite the Diamond Dog being unable to see her.

“And… Schmitt? Nobody could have foreseen this.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” She replied bitterly. “See ya’ Dilip.”

She had them decontaminate the Piranhas while Vadim was still busy trying to stabilize their casualty. Carlos was there by his side, the injured Filipino holding his compatriot’s claw with his uninjured limb.

To Vadim’s credit, there wasn’t much that could be done. He only had a couple health potions to spare; one went down his throat, the other he injected directly in his left lung, just so he could have some hope. For what it was worth: by the time he had Sidereal teleport back to Copenhagen, his oxygen saturation had dropped even more and his grip on Carlos’ claw was as feeble as that of a dying elder.

Carlos stared down at the space Yancy had occupied a few seconds prior. There were only some yellow and blue feathers there, some blood, and Yancy’s discarded equipment. He mutely looked down at his palm, where the other parrot had left him a rosary. He rolled the wooden beads in his talons for a few seconds.

“Carlos?” Vadim nudged his shoulder.

“Will he be okay?”

“I can’t make promises like that and you know it.” The griffon shook his head softly. “He’s in Camille’s talons now; she should know her stuff far better than I do.”

“Yeah…” Carlos’s sole good eye was fixated on the rosary. “She should...”

“Let’s get you patched up pal. I don’t like the look of that eye.”

Carlos didn’t answer. He just stayed immobile as Vadim pulled his medical satchel closer and went to work on his injuries.

Things were going far better up North.

The trio of ‘adventurers’ had fallen back to the edge of the mountain lake to receive the rocs’ assault. Mikhail could see about a dozen of them in the attacking flock, all beating their slate-covered wings in unison as they approached.

“Plan?” He asked out loud, quickly checking that he had a round chambered.

His C7 had a grenade launcher as well, but the Ukrainian veteran doubted frag grenades would be adequate against birds, regardless of how big they were.

“As usual with rocs. Bait them into diving, then pick them off once they’re grounded.” Derek rolled his shoulders, a hint of confidence seeping in the gargoyle’s tone.

“I see… thirteen of them, I think. You sure that’s favorable odds?”

“Aye.” The gargoyle nodded. “You two do the shooting, I’ll be the bait. One thing though.”

“Spit it out.”

“Stay in the circle.” He said over his shoulder before unfastening his cloak.

The drab brown fabric fell down on the cold damp dirt of the lake’s shores, fully revealing his leathery wings which he cracked, one after another. Mikhail and Louis watched him take off, only to come to a hover a meter or two above the ground.

No small feat if you recalled the billowing winds that swept the mountains.

Derek reached for a pouch on his rig before pulling out two gems tucked between his fingers.

“Show time…” The young mage muttered in his native tongue before pointing one gem at the ground.

In a practiced motion, he focused the magic in his forearm while slowly drawing magic from the gem in the center of his rig. He ‘drew’ an intricate pattern in the air before delicately redirecting the spell towards one of the gems he was holding.

Spell one. He released his grip on the magic and one purple bolt shot out of the amethyst before impacting the ground with a sizzle. An iridescent circle the same color as the spell appeared on the ground, some twelve meters in diameter.

Time for spell two then. This time the spell was fired from a garnet, and the moment he released his grip on the magic, his entire body took on a red aura.

Immediately he noticed the rocs alter their course ever so slightly. Good. That meant the spell took hold on their minds. He carefully glanced back at his companions. Provided they stayed in that warding circle, the simple Want It-Need It shouldn’t take hold on them.

Granted his version was made specifically for simple-minded critters, but it never hurt to be careful, particularly with mind magic like that.

He checked back towards the rocs. Still a few seconds to go.

Swap gemstones. Grab a quartz. Quick air-resistance spell for speed. Put back quartz. Pull out the peridot. Just a small kinetic ward for good measure and then…

Derek quickly folded one wing to roll away from the first attack. Right, no time for fancy spell lattices. Like the teachers always said back at the academy: lots of spells is fine, but always try to make do with as few spells as you can.

He had wings. Might as well use them.

The first roc crashed down below him and he fired a quick grounding spell at it before it could take off again. There was a loud ‘bang!’, and the bird dropped dead, courtesy of Louis’ breechblock rifle. The long, paper-cartridge fed weapon was made to hunt creatures as big as manticores, and the cat didn’t have any trouble landing a shot on the first bird.

Because of course he had taken something more than just a flintlock pistol for the trip. The gun was something a noble hunter would use: engraved barrel, rifled using brand new machinery and with a lens to assist aiming. Louis hardly needed the lens, he was a prescient Abyssinian, he always knew exactly where to aim without even needing to look.

Derek didn’t bother shooting his grounding spells at rocs in flight. He was never much of a good shot and adding a homing effect to the spells would take too long. Instead, he used their lack of wits against them. Just stay below the birds, slow down enough to bait a dive and let gravity do the rest.

He could always shoot the grounding spell once they were nice enough to crash. Much easier.

The skirmish was over in a matter of minutes with much ducking and weaving on Derek’s part. Much to Louis’ disappointment, the Abyssinian only claimed the life of two rocs, the rest of the kills going to Derek and Mikhail. Not much of a surprise really: the dragon’s Canadian M16 variant was much better at following up shots than the single-shot rifle the noble used.

As for Derek…

They were on the last three birds of the flock when he judged the skies were clear enough. Two sapphires found their way in his hands before he started flying higher, the birds eagerly following. His forearms became wreathed in magic as he focused his power once more. With the convergence point nearby, he might as well use the ambient power for all its worth…

He let the power flow through his gems, one blindingly bright icy blast firing down at the three birds that were still following him. With a loud screech, they became completely encased in ice and started falling.

Now for the finishing move.

Derek wove a wide circle in the air with his arms before cupping both hands together. One bright yellow orb of magic lanced out of his open palms before flying down to strike the frozen birds just as they crashed on the ground.

On the mountain plateau, there was nothing left of those birds but a crater and a few ashes. That was why he was Louis’ bodyguard. Raw battlemage firepower.

“You’re making me envious with that thing.” Louis remarked once the fight was over, quickly holstering his own gun as he was kneeling by a dead roc and pointing at Mikhail’s.

“What can I say, we humans are good at making guns. This American stuff isn’t really my cup of tea, but I can make do.” Mikhail patted the C7 with a perfectly draconic grin.

He’d still rather be using an AK-style platform, just for the sake of comfort. Having the cocking handle in the center just felt… weird. Plus he was a left-handed shot, having the handle on the right like on most AK’s (and in extenso Amandine’s FNC’s, since they had similar internals) just felt plain better.

“I know some countries have repeaters back on Equus, but nothing like what you have here.” Louis commented before pulling out a knife.

“You goin’ to take a trophy?”

“Correct.”

The point of his knife hovered above the bird. He paused.

“You don’t know how to take a trophy.”

“That is also correct.” Louis nodded.

Derek landed just behind him after just having retrieved his discarded cloak.

“Allow me boss, I can cast a preservation spell. We’ll keep it that way until we get back.”

“Ah yes. Let’s do that.” Louis stood up with a nod. “I do remember a few contacts talking about that taxidermist in the Royal District on Queen’s Avenue.”

More like he had been invited to visit a rival’s collection. He definitely could use one himself, and probably with better stories to accompany the creatures than just ‘went looking for it on a hunt, shot it, the end’.

A minute of making a hammerspace pouch for the trophy and a new addition to his collection later, Derek was casting a lightweight spell on Louis. They walked over to the edge of the mountain, looking down at the fjord, way down where Sirocco awaited their return.

“You sure you don’t want to walk boss?”

“Let’s not waste time and take to the skies.” The feline smiled.

Mikhail himself was rather tempted to just walk. He had really just begun training his flight abilities and that… He looked down and down and down at the farmstead in the distance. How far was that by flight? Five kilometers? Six?

Still just gliding, but that was quite the leap (litteraly!) from just jumping off a few containers with his wings extended a few days earlier.

And he had taken the time to adapt his gear for his wings since the ponies’ arrival. Two zippers had been added to the back of his white coveralls, along with extra fabric for comfort. He had also removed the back plate on his plate carrier, to go with narrowing the ‘back’ section. Screw getting shot in the back, he was a dragon, made of steel might as well be an understatement for the reptiles.

Beside him, he watched Derek wrap his arms under Louis’ armpits.

“You ready?”

He nodded.

They jumped.

The feeling was exhilarating. Wind howled against the dragon’s leathery wings. He could feel himself naturally level out in a semi-horizontal position in flight, his wings easily supporting his weight without requiring him to even flap them.

For a second, he let himself close his eyes just to feel the wind brush against his scales. He could hear the skin of his wings flap in the wind, not unlike a kite’s fabric.

“Mikhail?” Derek politely interrupted.

“Yeah?” He didn’t bother opening his eyes.

“Tree.”

His eyes shot open. With a long stream of curses learned both as a sailor and during his stint with Ukraine’s Naval Infantry, he wrenched his wings, barely managing to swerve around a particularly tall pine. They were already back at forest level.

“Word of advice: you fly better with your eyes open.” Derek chuckled.

Mikhail didn’t respond. The rosy tint of a blush easy to notice even through the purple scales on his muzzle.

A minute later, they reached Gunnar’s farm.

“Hello world, DJ Jensen here with WSU Radio. Hope you’re having a nice day, got some interesting stuff for you lot.” Sandra began cheerfully.

She was comfortably nestled in her desk chair with a few pillows tucked between her and the armrests, her mic hanging just above her muzzle. Quite the comfy spot, particularly with the fresh kettle she had set down next to her consoles.

“Haven’t got an answer from any of you yet, but it’s just been a few days since I started broadcasting now. Gotta be patient you know? Anyway, got a few important points to tell you.

You’re not alone, folks. Hold on a sec’, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Well duh, I’m listening to your Danish ass blabbering on the radio, of course I’m not alone’. It’s a bit more complicated than that. It’s not just us survivors on this planet. What I meant by ‘not alone’ is ‘not alone in the galaxy’.

No your radio isn’t broken, that’s exactly what I meant. We have aliens on Earth. Those monsters you see all over the place? They’re aliens, and bad guys brought them. Thing is, the aliens, they look like us. No I don’t mean they’re humans. They’re the same kind of aliens we turned into. Ponies, parrots, gargoyles.

But we got two types of aliens apparently. Good ones. Bad ones. The good ones are alright, they just want to help, teach you flying, magic, that kind of stuff. But the bad ones? Folks, careful there ‘cause I’m pretty sure they’re out to kill you. On the bright side, there shouldn’t be that many of them.

Still, guns are definitely something you should look into –if you haven’t already-. Just don’t go shooting everything around you. That would be bad now, wouldn’t it?

‘But DJ, how do we make the difference?’ I bet that’s what you’re wondering now. Should be easy. The bad guys, they’re bandits, pirates, terrorists. Hel, if intel is to be trusted these guys are lead by honest-to-god demons. Compare that to the other aliens who basically just want to do humanitarian aid and, well…

Put this into perspective: you wouldn’t mistake a UN soldier for a Somalian pirate? Much less if the pirate is a cultist to boot.

Just stay safe. Don’t head out in the open carelessly. Take a look from a safe distance, just so you can figure out whether they’re a good guy or bad guy.

Guess that’ll be it for today. Up next is Frank Sinatra with ‘My way’.”

Author's Notes:

Do you know what they say about female reindeers? They got a nice rack. _{Sorry i couldn't resist.}

And here we witness the weakness there was in their system with the hazmat suits and Piranhas: it works well if you're doing okay, but since the interior of the vehicles is contaminated, you're in for some pain once your suit is breached. The fact they're using retrofitted masks for their new forms instead of purpose-built versions (that haven't even been designed) makes them all the more fragile.

Chemicals inhalation... it's no joke. In fact as a word of warning, someone with burnt airways (be it from smoke or worse, chemicals) may seem fine at first if the lungs aren't too damaged, but swelling can rapidly occur afterwards, possibly resulting in choking the patient if he wasn't intubated in time.

In the present case, the parrots weren't exposed that long, but these avians got the 'canary in the coalmine' effect. I'm working off the assumption that these birds' respiratory tract functions at a higher rate than humans, hence the vulnerability to gases.

On a brighter note, I think the idea of having reindeers echo Sami culture on Equus is rather endearing. Funny even, when you imagine anthropologist (might have to adjust that term) Daring Do valiantly venturing into the tundra to research those tribes.