The Gryphon Generation Book 2: A New Era

by Alexander Bizzell

  He crouched down and opened his wings slightly. Above, Rachel was hovering in the air right above Thyra, staring at Nathanial with intent to kill. Everyone was lost in the moment, time standing still.

  A whistle blew and Thyra was brought back to reality as the sound of an air cannon behind her fired off, sending the gryphball into the air. She took off sprinting straight towards Antonio and looked above her to watch Rachel catch the white gryphball with ease.

  Nathanial screeched out and beat his wings hard, heading straight for Rachel. She dove at the last second to avoid Nathanial’s tackle, and flapped her small wings hard, gaining more speed.

  The golden eagle defender dove towards Rachel next, and Rachel screeched out at Thrya to get open. By then, Antonio was on top of Thyra, running right along her side. Thyra sprinted faster and managed to outrun him by a gryphon length.

  Rachel tossed the gryphball down to her before maneuvering up and away from the large defender in her path. Thyra’s eyes opened wide as she jumped to catch the ball in her foretalons. She landed on three feet and went to tuck the ball away under a wing just as Antonio slammed into her side. She squawked and hit the ground on her side, sliding along the grass. The ball rolled across the ground and Antonio quickly grabbed it before throwing it back into the air. Nathanial caught the white ball and made haste towards the opposite end of the field.

  “Sorry.” Antonio replied and reached out with a foretalon to help Thyra back up. She grabbed it and stood back on all fours with a cough, holding her side.

  “Did you have to hit me that hard!” she squawked in surprise. “This is practice.”

  He folded his ears back in response. “Yes, I did. Forgive me, but the opposing team will not be so gentle as I. Do remember this.”

  With that, Antonio took off towards the opposite side of the field. Thyra took off after the gryphon, trying to keep pace with him. Every breath made her wince as sharp pain lanced through her side. The hit from Antonio had made her realize she was going to have to toughen up.

  Above, Nathanial flew straight as an arrow towards Rachel. They played chicken, neither one of them banking to one side or the other. At the last second, Rachel dropped slightly to let Nathanial pass. At her smaller size, she knew hitting him head on was a stupid decision, but her real intention had been to distract Nathanial from paying attention to Braden, who was coming in from the side.

  By the time Nathanial noticed the corvid gryphon, it was too late. Braden hit Nathanial like a semi-truck. Nathanial squawked out in pain and rolled in the air, dropping the ball in the process. Rachel swooped in fast, and caught the ball midair as Nathanial flung his wings out to catch himself into a steady glide. He mumbled and cursed under his breath, turning his head to watch Rachel speed off towards the opposite end of the field.

  Thyra forgot her own discomfort and could not help but chuckle a little at seeing Nathanial hit so hard. She wished it had been her tackling him like that.

  The golden eagle gryphon back-winged towards the great circular air goal to defend it from the fast approaching Rachel. He hovered in place and readied himself, but it did him no good. Rachel rolled to the side and tossed the gryphball right past him, sending it soaring into the open goal.

  Thyra screeched happily for her friend and the piercing sound of Victor’s whistle filled the field once more.

  “Very good, Kestrel!” Victor said while walking into the middle of the field. All of the eight gryphons came in to the center to hear Victor. “There was some good defense played by both sides, but you need to open your eyes, Caracara.” Victor’s black eyes settled on Nathanial, who quickly looked away and snorted angrily through his nares. “You were so fixated on the grudge you have with the Kestrel that you didn’t even see Braden coming in from the side. I won’t tolerate that again, do you understand?”

  Nathanial grumbled under his breath and flattened his feathers.

  Victor’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t hear you. Understood?”

  “Yes sir,” Nathanial replied, ears folding back. His beak ground in agitation and no one dared look at him besides Victor.

  “Good. Alright, switch positions and go again.”

  Everyone nodded and Victor turned to leave the field. Rachel fixed her gaze on Nathanial and when he made eye contact, she stuck her tongue out at him.

  His feathers roused and he growled loudly. “You’ll pay for that.” Nathanial threatened which only earned a chuckle from Rachel.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault you have the brain of a seagull!” Rachel grinned even more as Nathanial’s eyes widened at the quick retort.

  Thyra could not help but chuckle a little. It only made Nathanial even angrier.

  “I…I’ll show the both of you! You better say your prayers! Y…you…you”

  “T-t-t-today Junior!” Rachel mocked even louder and turned tail to walk to her side of the field.

  Nathanial squawked and walked away, mumbling under his breath. Antonio walked up besides the furious bird. “I need you with a level head on the playing field.”

  Nathanial quickly turned his head to glare at Antonio, fire burning in his eyes. “And I need you to shut that ugly beak, old man! I’ll kick that hen’s ass!” He took off into the air once again, leaving Antonio behind.

  The golden eagle gryphon walked up beside Antonio and sighed. “Young love is a crazy thing, isn’t it?”

  Antonio grinned in response. “Yes, it is. Jason, see if you can calm him down.”

  With a nod, the golden eagle gryphon was off into the air to chase after Nathanial. Antonio turned to look across the field, watching Thyra and Rachel laugh and carry on for a minute before taking their positions.

  “Ready?!” Victor shouted across the field, and then the whistle blew once again.

  Chapter 2 Check Up

  Johnathen shut the door to his white station wagon, adjusted his casual dark brown blazer, and approached the large metal pavilion in front of him. It had been a while since he had last gone to the Macon Farmer’s market, and had decided it was a good day to go for a visit. The market was the local hub for fresh goods, but the parking lot was less crowded in the fall months than it was during the summer.

  He walked across the parking lot, his black leather shoes clicking against the concrete, and into one of the entrances. The inside was packed with various vendor stands. He never got tired of the smells of fresh baked goods, flowers, and handmade scented candles.

  Johnathen moved through the spacious pavilion, stopping briefly at one vendor to purchase a blueberry muffin, and found what he was looking for, a flower vendor. He approached the stand and looked over the eye-catching arrangements of flowers before a blond-haired woman turned to greet him.

  “Hello, Sir! Can I help you with something?” she asked politely.

  “Yes! I’m looking for some flowers for a friend.”

  “Well you can never go wrong with a bouquet of roses for that special someone,” she said with a little smile.

  Johnathen laughed and shook his head. “No, no. These aren’t for my wife. I have a friend in the hospital.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I do have an arrangement of bright daisies and white daffodils that would be perfect for a get well soon card. Why don’t you pick one out?”

  Johnathen shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I haven’t bought many flowers before, so I really don’t know which are which.”

  The woman chuckled and walked over to a row of assorted vases, each one containing multiples of the same flowers. “I’ll teach you then! These right here are the daisies.” She picked one up to show him. “You can tell by the yellow center and the multiple thin white petals coming from it.” She handed it over to Johnathen and as he brought it to his nose to smell it, she picked up another flower. The woman caressed the yellow cone in the middle and held it up for him. “And these are the daffodils. You can tell by the frilly bulb cone in the center and the big leaf like petals coming from it.” She handed that one to Johnathen and h
e smelled it too.

  “They look nice and smell good. I’ll take them. Do you put them in a vase of some sort?”

  “Of course. I can make you an arrangement with a vase for thirty dollars.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll take it.” Johnathen said.

  The blonde woman smiled and pulled out a receipt book. “Great! Well give me ten minutes and come back by. I’ll have it done by then. Your name?”

  “Johnathen,” he said putting emphasis on the E.

  She scribbled down “Jonathan”, which made him sigh, but he didn’t bother correcting her. This always happened. He would never forgive his parents for misspelling his name on his birth certificate.

  “I’ll be back in a bit, then,” he told her. Satisfied, he turned around and spotted the produce stand that Thyra used to work at, Jimmie’s stand.

  The old man was busy as ever, talking to another customer and ringing them up for their purchase. Johnathen walked past a couple other venders and picked up one of the tomatoes from the stand. He placed the tomato on the counter just as the other customers walked away with a brown paper sack full of vegetables.

  “What can I do for you today, young man?” Jimmie asked, still keying away at the register. The register made a loud ding and the cash drawer opened up.

  “I think I’ll take a couple tomatoes, and some zucchini. I doubt Thyra will eat any of it, though.” Johnathen responded. Jimmie stopped putting his money away and looked up, his wrinkled face turning into a big smile.

  “Well I’ll be damned. If it ain’t Johnny. How have you been?” Jimmie reached over the counter and took Johnathen’s hand in a firm handshake. Jimmies skin was callused and rugged, feeling like sandpaper in Johnathen’s smooth hands.

  “Well enough. Mainly wondering what I should be doing with all this free time.” Johnathen pulled his hand back and picked out a couple more bright red tomatoes.

  “Looks like you’ve let yourself go a bit. Ain’t seen you with a scruffy face or long hair before. Didn’t even recognize you at first.” Jimmie pointed out with a slight grin.

  Johnathen pulled his long black hair back with his hands, and tucked it behind his ears. He had been letting it grow. It almost touched his shoulders by now. “Yeah, I haven’t had hair this long since high school. Thyra says she likes it, though.”

  “So I take it ya still ain’t been back to work?” Jimmie asked politely, pulling out a brown paper sack.

  “Not yet, but I think with what happened yesterday, I’ll probably be back to work soon.” Johnathen placed the tomatoes and zucchini on the wooden countertop.

  Jimmie ticked away at the register for a second and sighed. “I heard the news. I was worried after I got word of a hospitalized gryphon, but then I saw the interview with Thyra and those other gryphon friends of hers. She did a courageous thing, you know. Standing up like that for others like her.”

  “That’s just the type of person she is,” Johnathen responded.

  Jimmie filled the brown paper bag with the vegetables and looked at Johnathen. “We need more like her. ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’.”

  “Edmund Burke,” Johnathen said with an impressed nod. “I didn’t know you studied philosophy.”

  “We all had to study philosophy in high school. That’s just one of them things I remember most.” Jimmie turned back to his register and tallied up the total. “Four seventy-two, please.”

  Johnathen pulled out his wallet and handed him a twenty-dollar bill. “Keep the change. Buy yourself a case of beer or something. It’s the least I can do for you taking care of Thyra all these years.”

  Jimmie took it out of Johnathen’s hand and stuck it in the register. “Much obliged. Trust me, Thyra took care of me more than anything else. I had to hire three delivery guys just to do what she did in a day!” Jimmie laughed and sat down in his ragged lawn chair, pulling out a Coke from a mini-fridge next to him. He cracked the can open and took a sip. “How’s that young gal doing anyways? I haven’t seen her in a couple weeks now.”

  “She’s a little stirred up from yesterday. With what all happened with the Gathering, and just starting her gryphball practice, she has a lot on her plate,” Johnathen explained. “She had to fly out very early this morning to Athens so she would make it to practice on time. I’m sure she is exhausted, and I probably won’t see her again until the weekend.”

  “She ain’t been flying back to Macon after practice?” Jimmie asked.

  “No, it’s a long flight and the practices have been tiring her out. She’s been staying with a new friend, a bearded vulture gryphoness named A…Ad…Ad something.” Johnathen rubbed his forehead, trying to remember her name.

  “Oh yeah, I remember seeing her with Thyra on the interview from yesterday. I ain’t never seen another gryphon in person besides Thyra, but that vulture girl was twice as big as she was. I can’t imagine a creature that big flying in the air.”

  “She’s a bit intimidating for sure, but she’s very kind.” Johnathen remembered her sitting in the corner of the hospital room when he arrived and just how gigantic she looked in the cramped room. Her yellow and red eyes had given him a bit of a startle at first, but she was so calm and poised that he had been put at ease quickly.

  “Well, you tell that vulture gal if she needs a job, I could sure use her. I’m sure she could haul all the deliveries in one go, even on our busiest of days.” Jimmie pointed out and took another sip from the can.

  Johnathen nodded and picked up the brown paper sack full of vegetables. It wasn’t likely that a professional gryphball player would want to take a side job, but he did not want to be rude by pointing it out. “I’ll make sure to pass on the invitation, and I’ll tell Thyra that you said hello.”

  “Please do, and tell her to come by for a visit soon!” Jimmie waved goodbye as Johnathen turned and left.

  He walked by a couple of other vendors and approached the florist. She was busy making the final touches to his bouquet, arranging the brightly colored flowers to contrast the white ones. Johnathen sat the bag of vegetables on the counter and cleared his throat, causing the florist to spin around.

  “Oh! Just in time. I was just finishing it up.” She picked up the clear glass vase and set it on the counter to present it to him. “What do you think?”

  “I think it looks perfect.” Johnathen said with a smile. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two twenty-dollar bills. “Here you go, no change.”

  Johnathen picked up the vase with one hand and the paper bag with the other. The blond woman smiled and thanked him before he made his exit.

  It was a little cumbersome to carry both large objects, but he managed to make it back to his Volvo wagon without dropping anything. He placed the vase in the front seat and buckled it in so it would not move. The last thing he wanted was water all over the interior of his nice car.

  Johnathen got into the driver’s seat and pushed the start button. The Volvo hummed to life and he sat for a second before remembering the card. He opened up the glove box and pulled out the get well soon card. The front of it depicted a cartoon chickadee with a cast on its leg and a smile on its beak. He had thought it somewhat humorous at the store, and still grinned at the sight of it.

  “Hopefully it’s not in poor taste…” He second guessed himself for a minute, but signed the inside of the card anyway. He signed it both for him and Thyra, since she had forgotten to sign it before leaving that morning.

  Johnathen put the card in the envelope, sealed it shut, and placed it in the forest of flowers. He put the car into drive and exited the parking lot before turning on the radio to an Atlanta talk show. The conversation piqued his interest, and he turned up the volume to listen to what they were saying.

  “…and apparently the police released everyone that was arrested during the violence at yesterday’s rally,” one of the male talk show hosts said.

  “Really? I thought that they were pending trial for the fight that
they started,” a female replied.

  “Apparently, one of the members from The Gathering paid the bail for all of them. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a little fishy to me.”

  The female scoffed. “I don’t see why the church would have anything to do with them, especially after they acted out against the protestors like they did. I say let them face time for what they did. Especially after injuring a good number of people and putting that one gryphon in the hospital.”

  “That’s just it,” the man replied. “We actually have a source that said they heard the preacher from the rally encouraging violence against gryphons and preaching other fascist beliefs.”

  “I’ll believe that. There’s always been something wrong with that church and all its members. I heard that an African American couple tried to go to the church and they were turned away at the door.”

  “And that’s not all either. Did you see that local gryphoness on the news last night? She was talking like they were some sorts of alt-right group. At first, I didn’t know what to think, but already today we’ve had a couple callers confirming what she was saying. It sounds like there’s more that meets the eye with this Gathering church.”

  “Well folks, if you want to call in and add anything else, we will open the lines up after a quick commercial break.”

  The radio switched over to advertisements about the local Ford dealer, and Johnathen switched the radio off. He took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel as he drove.

  “Looks like Matthew messed up big time. Finally people are starting to take notice.” He put his hand into his blazer pocket and gripped the thumb drive that was inside.

  It contained a copy of the footage that Isabell had caught at the rally. It confirmed everything the radio talk show hosts were talking about, and it would prove the truth of all the anonymous tips they received. This was hard evidence against The Gathering, something that Johnathen himself had not been able to obtain in all these years. Matthew and his congregation were meticulous and covered their tracks well, but their luck had finally run out. After he was done visiting Isabell, he planned to pay a visit to the news station.