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Site-18 intranet systems initialized.




During an end-of-the-world scenario leading to the significant loss of Foundation assets, the Pluto Protocol exists to establish an alternative and reliable means of control for the rest of the Foundation. Typically, the protocol dictates that each Site would declare independent status, and depending on the severity of the scenario, Site-01 and Site-19 would take joint control over any unallocated resources and act as a form of administration where necessary. In extreme cases1, the Division with the highest number of available resources is granted executive control over the rest of the Foundation.

On June 1, 2018, the Foundation Avian Division gained full authority to carry out the Foundation's Prime Directive. In response, the Avian Division drafted numerous projects in an attempt to ensure a suitable backup plan in the face of a Broken Veil. They determined which backup protocols would serve necessary in the event of a total loss, and generally attempted to maintain normalcy.

When nearly all non-Avian Division personnel had been lost, all projects were placed under indefinite hiatus, as the Avian Division lacked the man bird power to enact the bulk of them. However, after the events of EE-3570, efforts were renewed—they had no other choice. The following is a chronicle of the selection philosophy.


Proposal: Initiate Procedure Lazarus-01 at Site-2000 in an attempt to repopulate Earth with a non-anomalous group of humans devoid of EoI-121. The BE-Class "Migration" Scenario has yielded only minimal damage worldwide, except in major population centres. The low number of extant Type-BE humanoids ensures clean-up efforts would be relatively unhindered. As such, the procedure is projected to take at least 15 years to fully initialize and complete.

Suitability: LOW

Notes: EoI-121 does not affect humans on a biological level, but instead, on an esoteric level involving higher dimensional phenomena that is at this time not understood. Procedure determined to operate negatively, as all created SCP-2000 humanoids would simply begin to carry the Avian meme complex upon repopulation.


Proposal: Disseminate ENUI-5 in high volumes globally in an attempt to wipe the Avian meme complex or at least reduce its effects in anomalous humanoids. Activation of ENUI-5 can be delayed until an estimated 99% of the human populace is exposed to the agent. The full amounts of ENUI-5 required would take 6 months to produce, and between 2 to 4 months to fully disperse, after which it can be activated instantly.

Suitability: LOW

Notes: Humanoids affected by EoI-121 display atypical neural maps capable of hosting the esoteric memetic construct. ENUI-5 can be dispersed in large controlled quantities but is not of a high enough quality to target only the meme complex. Either the entire human populace undergoes immediate brain death, or ENUI-5 does not target the meme complex and is useless.


Proposal: Trigger the Lethe agent within every human mind. Lethe will access and wipe all data and memory related to the Avian meme complex. Once each individual mind is wiped, the meme complex associated with each person's "self" will re-enter their mind via the Noosphere, as is expected. Memetic triggering via Lethe has a high chance of failure due to the fact that there have been no recorded uses of Lethe in Foundation history. However, as it is memetic, it can be dispersed far more effectively than ENUI-5. Lethe would take at least 1 week to fully disseminate.

Suitability: VERY LOW

Notes: This is ridiculously beyond the Avian Division's capability, and relies on too many what-ifs.

— Dr. Frederick Hoygull


Proposal: Anomalous reclamation of Earth is projected to take between 1 and 3 years based on an ADK-Class Full Anomalous Destabilization model. As the Avian Division is both poorly equipped and inexperienced to counter this, our efforts are better suited toward evacuation and later recolonization. Per Project Heimdall, move all vital assets to the SCPS Solidarity, which is situated at the L4 Lagrangian point. Once all vital personnel, equipment, anomalous objects, AICs, informational constructs, and suitable amounts of natural resources have been loaded, the Khetvuul 1 Exoplanetary Survey will be analyzed, at which point a suitable near-Earth exoplanet will be selected based on majority consensus.

Suitability: HIGH


Operation: DIVINE RUSE

Deployment Date: August 12, 2018, 7:43 PM PST

Deployment Location: Site-18, Mojave National Preserve, Southern California

Team: Marine Fighting Team CHARYBDIS

Team Members:

  • C-0 Gægr Kemdulnim the Deep One (Transportation Agent)
  • C-2 Jaedan Traviss (Stealth Pugilist)
  • C-4 Haruki Nakahara (Tech Specialist)

Mission Description: Secure and contain the anomalous Selachian entity designated WHITE NETHER via pugilistic force and coerce it to consume the Apex-tier Pluripotent Entity known as Thoth.

Mission Execution: TBD

UMBRAL MIGRATORY SEQUENCE is not the primary means of achieving the Foundation's Prime Directive. Did you think we would retreat with our tails between our legs? No! Further efforts have been developed, and by my executive order, Operation: DIVINE RUSE has begun. Thoth will regret ever glancing down at us from his perch in Hell. We'll do what it takes to knock him from his throne into the real world.

We no longer merely wish Thoth gone. We'll destroy him where he stands with a sharpened talon and reclaim our mantle, or die trying. May Medila have mercy on our souls.

— Dr. Frederick Hoygull, PhD, Avian Division Head

The girl in metallic blue boots stretched her arms outwards. She shuffled back into the Clark-class NEUROKNOCK armour situated by the wall, opened for the room to see. Upon contact, mechanical sections of a tungsten carbide exoskeleton unfolded from within themselves and climbed from her legs upwards. Thick, metallic segments wrapped themselves around her torso, while smaller segments snapped onto her arms.

"Hey, you know something?" she said.

"I know a few things. I'm not as stupid as I look," said the boy in powered armour before her.

The girl laughed while her own powered armour — now fully encompassing her body sans the neck — sealed and pressurized itself. "Okay, hold on. We're wearing the same armour. You're not saying I look stupid too, are you?"

The boy stretched. "I take that back. I look stupid, but not nearly as stupid as you."

The girl fidgeted, rotating her wrists and bending her arms back, testing their dexterity. "Finally he admits defeat!" she announced to the empty room.

"Listen, the sooner we get out there, the sooner we blow that gawking bird gullet and stupid Selachian mug to smithereens. Alright, Haruki?"

"'Kay, Jae Jae," said the girl playfully. "That's what Leah calls you, isn't it?"

"Yeah… It doesn't have the same ring to it when you say it. I think you ruined it, honestly." Jaedan slipped on his helmet, the glass of which remained open for conversation's sake.

"You're just saying that because you like her. Admit it!" said Haruki, slipping on her helmet as well.

"Teach one of your robots to read minds and you can find out," said Jaedan with a wink, pressing a button on the back of his helmet. The glass shot down as the rest of his suit repressurized.

"Anyway, as I was trying to say before. I'm glad Quinn trusts us to go on a mission like this! I can't wait to see the smile on his face when he sees what we've done with that Selachian menace," mused Haruki.

The pair walked into the next chamber. The door closed automatically and sealed behind them. In front of them, another door opened, and the room filled with water.

"Yeah, whatever. Race you to the whale!" said Jaedan, jetting off into the large pool of water beyond.

The bulky 45-meter long blue-grey body of Gægr Kemdulnim the Deep One displaced enormous amounts of water as he shot through the surface and into the atmosphere. He maintained breathtaking spins as he screamed through the clouds. Haruki and Jaedan sat, quadruple-strapped, and flanked by a roll-cage somewhere within his massive blubber. Haruki hadn't gotten used to Cetacean flight yet.

"Calm down, Gægr, you can show off later. We have a job to do!" said Haruki. Within her suit (stabilization features notwithstanding), she looked like she was going to vomit.

"Do a flip, GÆGR COUNTER!" said Jaedan; that was his affectionate name for Gægr. On cue, Gægr flipped head-over-heels — er, head-over-tail — whilst chanting an old Whalish folk song.

After a moment or so, he paused in the clouds. His ramjet sphincters kept him hovering in place, while the unobtanium engine implanted in his back purred. "No Selachians in sight. You can let go of my handlebars, Haruki," hummed Gægr in a beautiful baritone.

"Wow, Haruki, you're squeezing the life out of those bars," laughed Jaedan. "And Gægr hasn't even tried out that new engine you fixed for him yet."

"Oh my god, don't even mention that!" snapped Haruki.

"So what's the game plan, huh? Hoygull's going to contact us after we punt the Deviant into a deep sleep?" Jaedan was referring to WHITE NETHER, otherwise known as the Selachian daemon 'Akheilos'. Their plan was to tame the beast they had been chasing for months and turn it against Thoth, once and for all. But first, they had to find it.

"No, before we pummel it. He's going to give us the thumbs up. The… Er, the wings up."

"What are we calling this thing, anyway? Operation: DIVINE RUSE?" Jaedan cleared his throat. "First off, I ain't calling any Deviant beast 'divine', no matter what happens. What do you think, Haruki, should we skip the mission and check out some Selachian burgers in the next galaxy over?"

"Gross! You'd eat that?" Haruki shook her head. "Say, Gægr, do you sense the beast nearby? I suppose we can get a head start and figure out where this thing is before Hoygull contacts us." While MFT CHARYBDIS retained the capacity to detect Selachian threats beyond the dimensional barrier, Gægr had natural long-distance Selachian finding abilities. He powered these by either his fins, Deviant magic, or some strange combination of both.

Gægr sang. "Selachian's gone away, and there's no need for us to stay. Come, my dear brother and sister, let's traverse the skies and play!"

"That's a no, then. Right, Haruki, power up the mouthful-of-a-title device. Let's find this freak."

Haruki pulled the 'FASH' device from an overhead compartment and turned it on. Using the FASH, she could find Deviant threats within an almost infinite range of the source.

"Aside from silvery readings down there — I think that's from Selachians in the ocean below us — there's… Aha! There it is!" On cue, the device's display screen showed a small planet illuminated by orange indicative of Deviant interference. The readings listed it as a few light-years away. A small red annotative text noted that WHITE NETHER/Akheilos was nearby, either in or around the planet's atmosphere.

"What's it doing all the way over there?" asked Jaedan.

"How should I know?" replied Haruki.

"Shit, do you think it's still mad at us for messing with it last week?" asked Jaedan.

"Most definitely." As the team's tech specialist, Haruki had the privilege of understanding all the various systems outfitted within Gægr's interior component. She also had the privilege of trying to explain what the hell was going on with the devices when they failed, which they often did. "Okay, can you grab the Tyson Ontic Pugnātor? You do know how to use that thing, don't you?"

"Of course. It's not rocket science." Jaedan pulled at the storage cupboard to his right. The Tyson Ontic Pugnātor, or 'TOP', sprawled out in front of him on a telescopic handle. "Co-ordinates?" he asked, pretending he knew what the hell he was doing.

Haruki transmitted co-ordinates from the FASH into the TOP. Jaedan flicked a few switches, then eyed a big blue button on top. "You ready to blast off, GÆGR COUNTER?" yelled Jaedan. Gægr moaned into the deep.

Jaedan slammed his armoured palm against the button. In an instant, blue energies encircled Gægr. He propelled himself forward, then his entire body disappeared with a pop. To any spectators, it looked like the great whale fizzled into thin air. Which it had.

Gægr reappeared in deep space. It was dark, with nary a light source except for the distant stars of the Milky Way illuminating him. When he manifested fully, the spectral tendrils of gravitation yanked him away.

Jaedan and Haruki jolted back in their seats. From a display screen, Jaedan noted the twinkling azure glow of the exotic planet that Gægr was now orbiting. "That's… Oh, wow, it's so pretty. What is it?"

"If I have it right," she said hesitantly. "That's Nibirdu"

"GÆGR COUNTER! How you feeling, buddy?" exclaimed Jaedan. The mass of Cetacean muscle drifted in the pull of the planetoid's gravity, which was exceptionally strong for a celestial object of its size.

Gægr's only reply was a long moaning sound as he breached the planetoid's exosphere.

And then…

"Haruki, are you hearing that? What the hell is that?" said Jaedan in a low tone. Though there was no way any outside sounds could breach Gægr's blubber — especially considering his distance from the planet himself — Jaedan experienced a crooning birdsong wash over him on the periphery of his senses. He felt it more than he could hear it.

Haruki didn't respond. Jaedan glanced over at her and felt a burning bittersweet orange aura emanating from her person. "Haruki? Shit, Gægr, get us out of here!"

"We… We were meant to join the flock," murmured Haruki.

Jaedan could hardly croak a reply as the Avian symphony washed over, consuming his senses.

"If… If the flock left without us…" said Haruki. "Then what's our purpose?"

"Thoth… He will lead us on a vast migration," said Jaedan, having fallen under the spell as well. "He will give us our purpose."

"He'll carry us under his wing?"

Jaedan shook his head. "He'll carry us in his giant beak."

Gægr swam through swirling mists of lighter-than-air feathered masses. Shimmering distortions in the sky above showered him with blue light; beneath him, countless winged forms group in flocks of many varieties took formation in the skies. They were singing.

He felt a sense of dread: the Selachian daemon was nearby. But, where?

From the corner of his eye, a massive form in the shape of a fighter jet exited from the clouds; the planet's winds buffeted its fins. It was moving, and fast. As soon as Gægr turned, the hulking titan slammed into his underbelly at astounding speeds. The great Cetacean listed to one side, expelling mist from his wake. The whale plummeted, aching with pain.

Whatever the case was, the birdsong affected neither the Selachian nor the Cetacean. Akheilos, a large snow-white form with pointed fins and a devilish grin, blitzed downwards as Gægr continued to fall, deeper into the planetoid's atmosphere. When Akheilos caught up, Gægr activated his unobtanium engine and escaped.

As the two beasts descended through kilometres of bright sapphire skies, a shrowd of thousands of bird-humans converged on the pair. Both beings were quicker than the humanoid entities in pursuit of their new prize, but the humanoids had the advantage of numbers. An otherworldly plane covered in breadcrumb, feathered masses, and picturesque monuments lay below them.

While hundreds of humanoids covered Gægr and the birdsong continued to course through his being, he channelled esoteric conduits of energy cascading through the cosmos by singing the only song he knew would help.

It was an olden Cetacean hymn in the song-language of Balooga, passed down through generations. His father, his father's father before him, and the rest of his ancestry had kept the hymn in the family since the beginning of time, and now Gægr was moved by the theatrics the hymn required of him.

Even the thousands of bird-people in their midst paused, hanging at attention as Gægr glided through. Akheilos paused too, though not to listen to the song: he glared at Gægr through the mist and vibrated, tinged with a fiery red. His pectoral fins swelled up, ready to launch an attack.

As the song elapsed, it dawned on Akheilos what its meaning was, and a wave of unfamiliar thaumaturgic blue mesmerized him over the sounds of thousands of excited chirps and trills. He tried to fight it, displacing and even outright destroying the winged forms in his midst. And then the song changed, rising in volume, as Gægr put all his might into singing it.

O, Medila, I give my voice unto your choir.

O, Medila, divine favour I do require.

Descend your greeting beak of cerise.

Descend, sky-maiden, and give us peace.

A massive crimson portal tore up the skies above, and through it, a multitude of dimensions could be seen. A presence patiently waited within. It took a primal winged form, vast and alien, bearing a superficial resemblance to the sacred ibis. It was Thoth in his true form, watching over his paradise from within the Noosphere. The squeals of the hundreds of thousands of bird-humans around the two beasts rose to a crescendo as their master appeared.

Akheilos, christened with an electric blue glow, turned his gaze from Gægr and propelled himself toward Thoth, made anew with majestic power. Whether this was otherworldly force or Deviant magicks was unknown, but there was nobody left to ponder this thought.

Gægr drifted, exhausted, toward the feathered grounds below. His world blacked out, the clamouring birdsong being the last thing he could feel.

Then a dull thud echoed across the planet.
