I stood there, stuck in a mental battle with myself as RD kissed me lightly. She was making it obvious that she wanted me to take charge of the kiss. I had a choice: I could either spurn RD’s affections altogether, or technically cheat on Twilight. I didn’t want to lose RD, but I really didn’t want to cheat either. I needed to find a solution that would avoid both negative outcomes, and quick. I could feel RD’s lips quivering in sadness as I held off. So, I did the only thing I could do. I pulled away and put RD on the ground. She started crying lightly.

“So... you don’t love me after all...” She sobbed. I dropped down to one knee and hugged her neck.

“Correction RD, I love you too much. If I were to just turn my back on Twilight today, what would stop me from turning my back on you later? I’m doing this because I need to. I wouldn’t be the good guy you fell in love with if I betrayed my marefriend today.” RD’s tears didn’t stop coming.

“... Why do you have to be such a good guy? Can’t you just be the bad guy once?”

“Nope, that’s why I have Steven. He’s the bad guy so that I never have to be.” RD didn’t seem any happier. “Look, if it makes you feel better, it was very difficult for me to be the good guy and not kiss you back.” This got a small smile from her. She sniffled and wiped her eyes clear of any signs that she had been crying.

“H-hey, I just realized, you have wings now! We should go see Gilda.” RD quickly changed the subject. I breathed an inward sigh of relief and started to crawl out of the parachute. We unhooked RD from the various straps and folded the parachute back up. Afterwards, I tucked it under my arm and we took off towards RD’s house. Due to my new jumping strength, my take off put me quite a few feet ahead of her, but she caught up soon enough.

“Your eyes are still a bit red...” I noted to RD. “You wanna wait until they go back to normal before we go see Gilda?”

“Nah, I’ll be fine.”

“Okayyy...” We flew through the floor of RD’s house and landed inside. We were in the living room, and I had the sudden feeling that we were being watched. Gilda was laying on a crudely made cloud bed in the middle of the room, so I dismissed the feeling as nothing. “Hey, where’s Scootaloo?”

“She’s at school dude. It’s the middle of the day still.”

“Ah...” I tried to ignore the feeling, but it still didn’t go away. I was driven to look around for a moment by the sheer annoyance at the feeling. I didn’t see anything.

“What’re you doing?” RD was giving me a strange stare.

“Nothing, nothing. Just... nothing. Let’s go wake up Gilda.” RD and I approached Gilda and started shaking her. Well, RD started shaking her, I stood back a few feet.

“CHEEP!” My robin screeched from behind us. I whirled around to see him.

“Dude, what the he--” There was a dagger in my face, clearly it had been attempting to get to my neck. In reflex, I punched forward and my assailant flew across the room and through a cloud wall. It was clear he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. As son as he was gone, I saw three other figures in the room not far behind him. They were all gryffins garbed entirely in white that blended in with the clouds.

“Sharky what was that s--”

“Get out now RD! Take Gilda!” I didn’t bother to look back as I dashed forward to the gryffins. They seemed truly terrified... for the few moments they were conscious. I darted to two of them and smashed my fists into their heads before they could get away. I decided I really liked the bodily combination of RD’s speed with my strength. I grabbed the last one by the tufts of feathers on his chest and lifted him off the ground.

“Let me go filth! Argh, don’t make me hurt you!” He shouted indignantly. I laughed heavily.

“Clearly you don’t understand, I NOW OWN YOU BITCH! Don’t fool yourself here, I could crush you with no second thoughts. Now, kindly tell me why the hell you tried to kill me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself you arrogant bastard! We weren’t here for you!” The gryffin twisted his head and bit into his robed shoulder. He turned back to me and tried to bite down on something, but I slapped him so hard his eyes spun. The cloth flew out of his mouth and landed on the floor where a little green pill rolled out of the cloth.

“Nice try, I’ve seen those movies. Now, if you weren’t here for me, who were you here for?”

“Your mother!” He shouted indignantly. I whipped out the Buster Sword and shoved his upper body through a wall. He was held fast by the cloud. I flew outside to see his face and hovered beside him.

“Well, seeing as how you aren’t here for me and RD isn’t a gryffin princess, I’m gonna go ahead and say you’re here for Gilda.” The small flash of surprise in his eyes told me all I needed to know. “Ah, so you are here for her. The question is, why?” He clamped his beak shut. I sighed. “Look, this is simple. Just tell me why you’re here...” I placed the Buster Sword against the joint that connected his left wing to his body. “And you get to keep your wing. Dude, boss as fuck.”

“Ha! I know of you! You’re some supposed hero! You’d never do that!”

“Wouldn’t I?” I asked innocently as I dug the blade into the joint. He winced and his eyes filled with doubt. “I wonder, how hard would it be to fly with one wing?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Y-you can’t fool me! I’ll never talk!”

”Bitch, you done lost your wing privileges! Sorry sir, that was not the correct answer!” I reared back the sword and swung forward.

“No, wait!” He screeched. I stopped the swing about an inch away from his joint.

“Yeeeeesssss?” I drew out the word purposely, trying to sound impatient.

“Look, we’re trying to get the Gryffin King to step down from the throne!!” He confessed.

“Ah, so I take it you were here to kidnap Gilda, not kill her.”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Okay, who employed you to do this?”

“We acted on our own!” I raised the sword again.

“Look, I’m not stupid. Nopony just wakes up one day and decides to kidnap a princess for no reward other than a dethroned king. Also, you tried to take a pill and die. This mean that somepony obviously wanted you to either succeed or die trying so that nopony could figure out who organized this crap.”

“... You’re clever hero. Fine, we work for a very wealthy gryffin named ‘Byron’. I honestly don’t know his last name. I swear.” I could see no lie in his eyes.

“Good, good. Now, what did you plan on doing with the princess after kidnapping her?”

“She would have been a prisoner, what we did wouldn’t have mattered... but I can tell you we weren’t told we would be releasing her when the king stepped down...” He had a sadistic grin on his face. I knew exactly what he meant.

1. They would likely have raped her.
2. They would have killed her when they got what they wanted.

And dear Celestia did it piss me off.

“Go ahead! He deserves it...” I switched the Buster Sword over to my right hand and reared back my fist. His grin disappeared and his face changed to an expression that cried for mercy.

Yeah, right.

I swung down full-force. I could feel the impact reverberate through his body and he plowed straight through the wall and through even the floor.

*CRACK* The sound echoed through the air as he started a rather rapid descent toward the ground. I flew down and yanked him out of the air. I held him up to look at him. His beak had split rather unevenly down the middle and blood was pouring out of his wound and into his mouth. He was out cold.

“... Don’t mess with my friends.” I growled to the unconscious assassin. He didn’t answer of course. I flew back up to RD’s house and gathered all the would-be kidnappers together. RD and Gilda popped their heads out from around the corner of one of the rooms.

“W-what the heck just happened Sharky?” RD asked with obvious fear.

“Assassins/kidnappers were trying to get our friend Gilda.”

“Aww dammit, not again.” Gilda muttered. I tried not to let surprise show on my face.

“Again? This has happened before?”

“Yeah, usually I’m in the castle though. Daddy’s guards get them most of the time.”

“What do you mean most of the time? Who gets them the other times?”

“Dad... Those ones wished the guards found them first.”

“Did you just say ‘Daddy’?” RD giggled. Gilda glared at her.

“Shaddup, I’m tired. Why’re your eyes red? Been cryin’ like a big baby?”

“Shaddup...”

“... Guys, assassins? Shouldn’t we focus on that?” I interrupted.

“Eh, what’re we gonna do? It just comes with being a princess.” Gilda snorted uninterestedly.

“Well, I’m guessing you’ve never figured out who was sending these guys?”

“Nope, they always died before anypony could ask them.”

“Yeah, well I figured it out.”

“Did ya? Who is it?” Gilda seemed interested now.

“I only got a first name. They called him Byron.” Gilda’s interest disappeared again.

“Don’t know ‘im.”

“Well, maybe your father does.”

“You wanna ask him?”

“Why not?”

“Well, have at it I guess.”

“Right, well now that we’re not at risk of dying, what did you wanna see me for Gilda?”

“Well uh... I wanted to say... I’m leaving.”

“What?”

“I’m leaving Ponyville.”

“... Why the hell would you do something that stupid?” Gilda’s head twitched back in surprise.

“What’d you just say?”

“You heard me. You’ve got friends, a house, food, what the hell are you thinking?”

“... I’m thinking that this kinda life isn’t for me. I’m a drifter.”

“Yeah, you’re staying.”

“No I’m not!” I pointed to the pile of assassins.

“Those guys woulda kidnapped you and likely killed you. If I weren’t here, you’d be dead.”

“Chirp!” My robin surprised me from his new perch on my shoulder.

“Oh yeah, him too. Point is, you need protection until this problem gets solved. You can either stay near me, or you can move back in with daddy.” Gilda frowned.

“Here’s fine...”

“Good choice. Now, I should call L--”

“Sharky, what happened to this one?” RD interrupted as she stared at the one with the split beak.

“He punched his fucking face in for messing with Gilda. It was awesome as fuck. I hit him. Hard. He brought it upon himself though.”

“Alright, that’s fucking awesome dude.” Gilda nodded with approval. RD looked a little uneasy.

“D... did you have to be that rough?”

“Look, I’m going to give you the facts. If he had gotten away with this, I would be dead, you’d be dead, and Gilda would be kidnapped, likely raped, and killed. They’re lucky he’s the only one I hit... with intention to harm beyond knockout.”

“I dunno Sharky... It doesn’t seem right...”

“Scoots would be an orphan all over again and she’d come home to the dead bodies of me and you. How do you think that would affect her?” RD’s face immediately hardened.

“... Wanna hit another one?”

“I think one is plenty. He’ll live to tell others not to screw with me and this may be enough to end Gilda’s assassin problem by itself. Oh, that reminds me...” I went by each gryffin one by one and removed their little poison pills. I placed them in a little empty pouch just in case I ever found a use for them. “But just in case, I’m going to search for this Byron guy anyway. Now, let’s call Luna so some guards can pick up these guys...” I whipped out my phone and called Luna.

“Sharky! How art thou?” Luna asked nervously.

“Good, I’m good. Oh, except for the fact that I just got attacked by gryffin assassins.”

“Good, I wanted to apologize for... What?”

“Yeah, gryffin assassins. It was a riot. Anyway, I got about three or four unconscious gryffins that need to be picked up.”

“Sharky, they aren’t Equestrian prisoners. If I were to imprison them, it would be considered an act of aggression against the Gryffin Empire.”

“Fan fucking tastic. Well, thanks anyway...” I started to hang up.

“Wait, wait!” Luna called. I halted my action. “Ehm, I would like to offer you a small vacation from monster hunting as an apology for my rather terrible behavior. Truth be told, I’ve relied on you a bit too much anyway.”

“Sweet, just what the doctor ordered!”

“... You’re ok with this? I found it to be a rather poor apology...”

“Nope, I’m good. Thanks Luna!”

“Very well, I’ll call you soon for another... slightly related matter Sharky.” Luna quickly hung up. I put my phone back away and looked down to the downed gryffins.

“So... What do we do now?” RD asked.

“Well, It’s simple really.” I stated monotonically. “We get to carry these bastards all the way to the Gryffin Empire.”

“... Great.” Gilda grumbled.

"Well, when I say 'we' I mean mostly me. You're coming with me though, sweetness. I need you to explain to daddy that you'll be in my care for awhile."

"... What'd you just call me?" A blush rapidly spread across Gilda's face. I ignored it.

"You get to come too RD. Mostly because you have to spend the day with me and I'm not gonna let you cheat your way into another because I have to do this."

"Mostly?" RD asked.

"Well the other part is that I just enjoy your company." I turned to the gryffins again to try and determine how I was going to carry them. I thought for awhile, but there was no way possible for it to be done without there being too much weight for me to fly. Then I had an idea. "Hey, what's the general opinion of dragons in the Gryffin Empire Gilda?"

"Well, considering the fact that they consider us delicious, not good."

"Well, they're gonna have to get over that for now..."