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"What do you mean she just left?" Chris the Tervardi said as a wisp of solder smoke rose from the gryphon flight pack he had laid on the floor of the workshop he'd made in the equipment room of one of the base's radio equipment buildings, all Raytheon equipment specially made for gryphonic missions. A vast network of small towers that could phase and shape radio to be able to talk with someone just a few hundred feet above the treeline anywhere in the world, or at least that's how it was supposed to work, Chris had his doubts about how effective it really would be especially during the day, but he was just a field tech, what did he know?

He looked toward Skandranon briefly before combing down the huge paper schematic of the pack with one of his talon hands. Skan was just outside the door of the building, there weren't any windows, and the whirring of fans, and occasional kerchunks and buzzes of radio transmitters made any gryphon a bit wary to be in Chris's 'cave'... despite the cold "I mean just that, she just nodded and boom -gone- and I mean... I guess back to her dorm? I don't know I was going to be like, heyyy lets go get some dinner and some drinks, maybe actually go on a hunt for some real dinner"

"Why do I have a feeling you're hunting for a bit more than that" Chris said with a friendly chuckle, throwing the switch on the side of the flightpack on- 'BEEP' the old but tried technology almost instantly booting up. He looked up at the TV in the corner of the room and saw what normally would be projected on the gryphon's HUD goggles, showing the altitude, heading, speed, and an overlay of radar data from AWACS data link "But I mean, do you think maybe she's just a bit stressed out right now?" He said pulling a keyboard onto the bench in front of him and looking at the monitor as he struck a series of keys to bring up a diagnostic menu. "Wing position sensor.... Ah excellent so that was it" he said unhooking the keyboard and other cables on the pack and looked to Skan "ready for you to break it again"

The black gryphon ignored him for a moment "I've never heard of a gryphon not wanting to brag about something as fucking incredible as that... do you know how INSANE what she did was.... In a good way!" he quickly corrected himself as Chris shrugged "It sounds impressive, but aside from pictures from newspapers and books I've never even seen a Makaar..."

"Feh you're not missing much... vile things..." Skan grumbled looking outside briefly before looking back inside the building at his friend. A loud serious of contactors KERCHUNKCHUNKCHUNK filled the room briefly while the radio transmitters all buzzed loudly, large gauges on the wall above Chris lept with life before the room fell silent again. Both of them mostly ignored it, though Skan' could swear he felt his feathers tingle whenever these transmitters actually went on the air. "They're a cruel imitation of us, though basically brainless and sworn to their masters... effectively flying dogs."

In reality the gryphons were also intended to be effectively flying companions similar to the working dogs used by various forces of the Army in the Second World War. Near the end of WWII the Germans were practically obsessed with the arcane and magic. Luckily at the time for the allies by the time they actually discovered it, their forces were in such disarray the Allies were all but assured a victory. It was decided at that time that magic would continue to be closely guarded strategic knowledge that would not be exploited except for in strict self defense of another nation. However it was later discovered that the newly formed USSR harbored a very strong mage energy arsenal, and so began what was known as the Mage's cold war. The United States, taking the lead along with other allied nations to create a counter force, to continue a policy of peace through deterrence. Through the 1950s, 60s, 70s and now at an all-time record high tension in the 1980s no nation dared lower their retaliatory aresonal. The US hadn't closed any of the Strategic Air Command Bases it had established over the years.

There were many that argued the Gryphon program had long outlived its usefulness. The program was developed in the 1950s in response to a hybrid magical-biological flying beast that was photographed in development in some laboratories in the USSR. The US Air Force was given the task of finding a counter weapon. What at one point was Fairchild Aircraft in the Second World War had pivoted in the wanning years of the war, to focusing on magical constructs for the United States military. Fairchild would come to work on many top-secret mage projects for the government, namely in terms of spy devices, a method called 'scrying' was instrumental in spying on the USSR. Fairchild eventually was secretly commissioned to develop the counter weapon to what was later determined to be called the Makaar by the Soviets. The Gryphon was originally intended to be a flying, communicable companion to a certain assigned human. However as many of the mages developing this pointed out, you couldn't have a being make rational, objective decisions and not be able to think for itself, and sure enough the gryphon was a project that 'got away'. It turned out these flying beasts were more than capable of thinking for themselves. They had minds of their own and could completely think for themselves.

However, now it seemed as if the gryphons just cost the Air Force money, quite a bit of money. The beasts needed special quarters, special equipment, they ate a LOT of food. However, the recent encounter of Makaar lent credence to the fact that the USSR was not done with their organic flying program, and neither should the US. Aircraft were not suited to low level flying at the Makaar's level. The Gryphons were now a somewhat declassified program, they at least 'existied' according to the Air Force, however how they actually were made and reproduced that was all still very classified knowledge. When the Air Forced ordered additional 'units'. Fairchild would seek applications from pairs wanting to raise young and then take them away from duty and... well nobody knew what they did. It was all so classified, and the mated pairs always stayed true to their oaths of secrecy. Skandranon hated the way the process worked. When it came down to it, they were all still just equipment on the US Air Force's books, and to Fairchild it was all about money, everything that company did had a price to it.

However, despite his feelings he wouldn't have met what would become his closest friend without these private companies chasing those government contracts. Raytheon did virtually everything else for the gryphons. They sniped the contract from Fairchild for creating the gryphons flight pack, providing them with specialty weapons and systems, and the open-ended statement 'all other gryphon special services'.

"Well I guess it means they haven't all been killed or died off if whats-her-name found three of them way up in the arctic" Chris said unplugging Skan's flight pack from his bench and folding the wing attachments back up on it before picking the device up and carrying it back to his pickup outside "If she's as small as you say she is, I don't know if any of these will fit her... we'll probably have to make her a custom one" He said curiously "Jeremy will love it, he loves new wing types to study"

"He's an odd duck isn't he?" Skan chided

"He's not too bad once you let him talk to you for a bit... he's just really nerdy is all"