Catastrophe looked quite a bit like most griffons Boss had seen. Beaten, self assured, abrasive, arrogant and lacking with most social niceties.

Actually, that description fit most of the convicts she had met. The only real oddity to her was that she didn't have a single noticeable scar on her. It went without saying that someone who crashed airships for a living should have a few scars on her.

Not that it mattered. She had landed the rickety rust bucket and she was possible the only way they were going to get back to Rej.

Boss nodded at the disaster griffon and looked back at her other two companions. Canary appeared to be in intense laughter.

--------

I groaned loudly. "Damn. I want wings." My gaze was fixed to a few flying blurs over the town whose name I didn't catch. "Stupid other languages. Why can't everybody speak English?" I muttered.

"Zebrican." Canary corrected. "We are speaking Zebrican." He rolled his eyes. "And why do you want wings?"

I scuffed the metal plate and winced at the squeal the rust made. "Wings are awesome."

Canary made a noise between a snort and a laugh. "Are you one of those feather freaks?"

I looked at him oddly. "Feather... freaks?"

He nodded. "They like wings... in a less than natural manner. You know? Wing fetish?"

I winced. "Uh..." The only fetish that I had that I was aware of was something with being dominant. And something about blood. But that's a fetish that I don't want to talk about.

He burst out into laughter. "Oh god. That is the best thing I've heard in ages."

I glared at him and growled. "Yeah? Just wait til I get wings. I'll show you."

His laughter didn't stop. "Oh yeah? And what, are you going to go steal horns from unicorns and grow your own?"

I stopped what I was about to say and looked at him. "Can you do that? Can you grow a unicorn horn?"

He blinked. "I have no idea."

I laughed, but kept the idea in the back of my head. "Hm... I could be a ZEBRALICORN!" I pointed dramatically into the sky. As the sound echoed on I suddenly realized I was having mood swings. Which was bad. But still. I was going to get some freaking wings.

Canary patted my shoulder. "It's ok. We'll get you help eventually."

I stared blankly at him at the sudden conversation switch. "What?"

He rolled his eyes. "You've split your soul into how many pieces in the last few days? Four? Most soul zebras split it maybe once, and even then there's a chance they'll go insane."

I narrowed my eyes at him and huffed. "Where do you get all of this information?"

He grunted. "I came from another island that was steeped with traditions. There was a soul zebra on the island... and books... and my family." He looked down. "I don't want to talk about it, ok? The slavers came and carted off the entire village."

I winced. Not because I cared, but more that I had successfully cracked the only member in the group I was hoping was going to remain stable.

He let a tear slip then shook his head. "Right, the point is that we should probably have your head checked out soon. The soul zebras occasionally thought they were common garden implements, it's hard to think of anything weirder than a zebra demanding to be used as a shovel."

Gee. You think?

"Wait. So... you think I'm experiencing an existential shift to another being?"

He sighed and nodded. "Yeah..."

I burst out laughing. "That sounds like the plot to a bad fanfic!"

He looked at me oddly. "Right... What's a fanfic?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. Nothing at all." I rolled my eyes. Dropping references nobody got was actually entertaining. In an oddly satisfying way.

He sighed. "The whole mentioning of cliches is really not helping with my thinking you are insane."

Maybe he was right. But... Hey, I had gotten over the most of my distaste for dogs, though something odd had occurred to me. My thoughts weren't... as fluid...

"I'll deal with that later."

Boss finally decided to intervene. "Right, boys. We are participating in an air race and miss Catastrophe will be our pilot."

The griffon of my delight looked incredibly smug up at the control deck of the our primitive craft. The sun scattered off of her wings as she spread them and she seemed to soak up the sun and grow even better, like some sort of solar celled succubus.

Wow. I did have issues.

I looked over myself to make sure I wasn't missing anything major that I had failed to notice in my ineptness.

I blinked and it finally occurred to me that Boss had said something of more than minor importance. "Wait, what?"

The dog nodded. "Yes. We are racing. Prize money, new ship?"

I shook my head and started focusing. "There's a race...?" I looked at the less than appealing boat.

Catastrophe smirked and slapped the ship with her tail, making it echo with a loud clank. "Yep, I'm piloting this rust bucket." She paused from what she was about to say upon seeing our stares at the source of the clank.

"How...?" I muttered, staring at her.

She nodded. "Prosthetic. There's a guy in town that is willing to maybe make you one. I spent all of my winning from the last contest on getting a metal tail. Lost mine in an engine."

She could suffer through pain and still come out of it. WE HAD SO MUCH IN COMMON!

IT WAS DESTINY THAT WE BE TOGETHER!

Wait... Wait a second... Wait... that doesn't sound right...

Activating process, reason.exe...

loading...

loading...

loading...

loading...

File processes corrupted.

Source code for file is reduced to burning slag, save files?

loading...

Good job, you lost everything.

loading...

Diagnosing problem...

Your C-drive may or may not be possessed by a horrible god spider, contact tech support immediately or seek self termination by sledgehammer.

My system went into a proverbial blue screen of death as my logic attempted to reboot and purge my systems.

----

She stared at Ivan who appeared to be trying to say something, or rather, would've tried to be saying something if he wasn't clenching his jaws tight enough together to make his teeth creak.

Catastrophe walked over to her, clicks following her talons hitting the ground. She stared at the still zebra. "Do you think I broke him?"

Boss shrugged. "I think he broke himself."

Canary sighed. "If he starts asking me to use him to cut people, I am out." His statement was received with a few weird looks.

She really wasn't sure what to think about that. "So... prosthetics."

The griffon nodded. "As you can probably imagine, more than a few renegades or prisoners show up here missing a limb or two. Some wise guy city boy from around Canterlot, or so he says, thought it would be a great idea to settle here." She bumped her head along.

"And?" Boss had to admit, it did sound like almost a good idea.

"Well, He killed the first five people who tried to loot the store and the big Boss declared it a neutral zone; that is, if you fought there he would personally send his guard to kill you." Catastrophe performed a master conversation switch. "So how did all of you meet? I'm not buying that piece of shit story you tried to throw at me about those two being part of the ship's crew."

Boss growled. "Will you pilot if I don't tell you?" The ship was in the landing space.

"What do you think?" She snarled.

"Ivan..." She pointed at the still zebra. "Owns the island of Rej. I agreed to help him retake it if he let me have an island or two." She pointed at Canary. "This idiot is just tagging along for the ride."

The griffon nodded. "You are the best behaved bitch I've met." She said, somewhat off topic.

She didn't mean it as an insult, but Boss had to visibly struggle to stop her self from striking her. "Yeah. Being sterilized does that to you. And when you aren't focused on humping everything you develop a bit of a talent for reasoning." She hissed.

The griffon recoiled like Boss had struck her. "Right right... sorry for hitting a sore spot."

Catastrophe blinked and looked back at Ivan. "He... owns Rej?" She asked, more than a little confused.

Boss nodded. "Don't ask me how he got the head of the alpha of the island without getting torn to shreds."

The griffon whistled in an impressed pitch. "That little perverted bit of flesh took out the alpha?" She looked over his body. "He does have a few scars..."

Boss tried to hide her revulsion. "Don't tell him you are impressed, you'll just give him a swelled head."

Catastrophe leaned back against the control station. "Got it." She looked around. "Harbor patrol should be coming around soon to be bribed..." She shook her head. "Right. So what happened to the previous pilot?"

"We didn't have one. Mr. Brain dead over there somehow, and this is in his words, and not mine, 'Mind raped' a dragon. Said something about splitting his soul and using it to control him." She shrugged.

"Ok. Stop talking or you'll give me a headache." Catastrophe said, shaking her head. "I don't really care what's loose in your head, but I'll drive the ship as long as you don't try to back out of our deal."

-----

I snapped out of my trance a few minutes after their discussion took place, my mind feeling clearer than it had in ages. I walked over to Boss and patter her shoulder. "We are racing for a prize." I repeated, just to be sure.

She nodded. "Good to have you back."

I looked over at the griffon, who, while highly attractive to my eyes was no longer the paragon of perfection I had viewed earlier. "And you are driving." Most of my confidence had returned to me, thankfully.

She flashed a smirk at me and flared her wings. "And I hear you killed an Alpha."

I nodded. "Yep. That's me." Hopefully, the mood swings were gone.

I still wanted wings, and I was having the oddest craving for meat.

Of all the things I really missed about being human, being able to sink my teeth into a nice steak, blood still through the center and with a pinch was the thing that I missed the most.

I was a dedicated meat eater back home... but now I was craving the perfect steak...

Great. Add that to the list of things I want to change about myself.

-------------------------------------------------

Scorch the dragon mindlessly flew back to the isle of Rej, his mind practically blank besides a desire to serve the zebra.

Sadly for Ivan and the group, a certain floating death tar sphere thing was there. With a single lunge of its massive tongue, the Shoggoth punctured through the full grown dragon's scales and hit the scaled behemoth's heart. It exploded into a mass of gore and the dragon instantly died, falling out of the air.

For an hour after the dragon's dead body hit the water the Shoggoth reeled in its prey, straining against gravity with it's biological fishing rod.

After the carcass reached the far too large and far too toothed mouth, it was swallowed and the thing reformed into a perfect sphere.

The only obvious evidence that it had taken out a dragon was the slight red tinge where blood had soaked the tar beast.

It let out a bit of red gore of its shell and continued floating towards Oblivion.