There are very few choices I feel that I chose the best course of action for. What I did when Catastrophe asked me that was probably the best possible thing.

I smiled at her and nodded. "Of course." I waved at the other two of my friends, who both blinked and looked at each other with near identical expressions.

The griffon smirked, probably thinking she had caught me perfectly off guard. Or maybe she just liked smirking. I'm a little paranoid, I guess. Maybe she just wanted to talk?

She pointed behind the pub. "We need to talk over there." Her self assured attitude did not help my disorganized bundle of nerves that I sometimes jokingly called a brain. I stood up tall and as straight as I could, my pride suddenly returning to me. I smirked back at her, as if saying to the world that everything was ok, and that I was most certainly not walking to my doom.

I calmly walked out of sight of the other two, in a blind display of faith turning my back to Catastrophe.

Distantly, I heard her talons drag against the earth, like she was using a grinder to sharpen them up.

And then I was behind the pub and I just happened to notice that there were no rear facing windows. No witnesses. I turned around to look at the now obviously irate griffon. "Now..." she hissed. "Who and what the fuck are you?"

There was maybe a foot that separated us. "I haven't the faintest what you are talking about." It was a smooth lie, like the bore of a gun.

She cleared the gap in an instant faster than I could even properly render and I found myself pinned, and on my back with the griffon pressing her sharp talons into my neck. Her beak was inches from my face and with every breath I could smell her.

Taken out of context this would almost certainly be the start of a sex scene. I tried to ignore the fact that she was uncomfortably close to that part if me and instead focused on the talons on my neck. A good choice, in my opinion.

Though it hit me that my paranoia was justified, I couldn't help but feel the anguish which comes from having a friend and getting back stabbed.

"Do I need to prove my fucking point? Those memories..." She shut her eyes, her beautiful orbs briefly overcome with a pained look.

I felt a sharp prick at my throat as she gently prodded it. I tried not to swallow or make any other sudden moves. "What are you talking about?" We both knew I was lying.

"Who are you." She stated again.

She needn't have bothered. She was in control, clearly in control. She could tear out my throat in a heart beat. I could feel my own heart pound just a bit faster as my irrational crush slowly faded. "I am Ivan. I am a zebra." A half dozen voices called out other names. I ignored all of them and felt them fade away.

She snarled at me. "Who were you before?" She placed her other talons limb on my chest, her claws gladly sinking into it.

I broke. My mind shattered as hundreds of memories I had pushed away swam to the fore front of my mind. "I am Ivan Marks. I am 17 years old. I was a pathetic human being and probably a worse zebra." My heart seemed to be pounding against her body as if trying to save me from the angry warrior on top of me.

She cocked her head to one side. "Was that so hard?"

I smirked, the memories of when I had forced those stronger than me to bend to my will. I almost felt like laughing when I remembered hearing about that idiot Gareth's sister. What a stupid bitch. "You have no idea." I said finally.

I felt a few drops of blood slide down my chest. It almost tickled and I idly wondered why I couldn't feel the pain. She chuckled darkly. "Good. We can talk."

If I wasn't beneath her and if she didn't have the opportunity to kill me, I say that she was as seductive as she was manipulative. I guess I always did have a penchant for flirting with disaster. "Talk about what?"

I would have to say her smile would've been fitting on the cat that got the canary. I smiled a little at the irony. "I saw things. In your head. Fast things that flew through the air without balloons. Things that killed things."

I felt like laughing. "Guns and airplanes, eh? And let me guess, you want me to build things like those."

She nodded. "Glad you are quick on the uptake. Be a fucking shame to waste those ideas."

I closed my eyes and thought it over. Somewhere deep inside me a voice cried out in cowardice. "I agree. It would be a shame to kill me off in the beginning of the story. Someone needs to play the other side of the board." I was strong and confident. Even bleeding and seconds from death I felt in control of the situation.

She practically purred. "Make those weapons work and I'll follow you to the ends of the planet."

She had seduced others before. It was the only logical conclusion for her actions. "I thought griffons mates for life." I quipped.

She laughed. "That's actual love. I can mate with other species as much as I want as long as I don't fall in love." In a deadly warrior sort of way she was attractive.

And she knew she was attractive. Her prosthetics told me she was good enough at surviving for my tastes.

"Oh? A heartbreaker?" I was calm. For the first time in a really long time, I knew exactly what was going on.

She nodded and stepped off of my throat. "You and I are far too alike to waste our time fighting with each other." She mused, hauling herself to a standing position.

If every human in Equestria was as powerful as Marty, then I had better step up my game. Hell, no need to bring morals into this. "I agree. Let's get out of this dreary town?" I needed to figure out the extent of my powers. That, and prioritize keeping my companions loyal and healthy.

Distantly, I heard the spider laugh. "That is what I'm talking about! Go show them how it's done!"

I smiled widely. Of course the spider might start helping.

I rolled to my stomach and hefted myself up, sighing slightly. Catastrophe had snapped me from whatever had come over me, but odds were it would return.

I stared at Catastrophe for a moment as if I was appraising her relative worth. I needed to keep her alive. "If I ever start acting like that again, I give you full permission to do whatever the hell you need to do to snap me out of it." I nodded at her and watched with great interest as she cleaned her talons free from my blood.

"Agreed."

I turned to walk to the front of the pub before I stopped. "Why didn't you react that much to me being a human?" it itched into my hooves, the desire to keep close to her.

"All of us have something that we don't like to remember." She carefully turned and plucked out a single black hair from herself. "Where I came from it was a bad sign to have black fur. Bad luck. They say that ships with a black griffon won't make it to their destination. I dye my fur..." It was fading slowly.

"Clearly, they were a bunch of supersticious nut jobs. We've made our destination." I laughed lightly and turned to the front of the pub. The farther I got from her the more nervous I became. I stopped and walked towards her. Instantly, my confidence returned.

What an unfortunate predicament.

"Right. We will tell the others that we are now together, correct?" I asked, standing next to her.

She glared at me and growled. "What the fuck was that? I felt weak all of a sudden." She snipped her beak.

"If I could say it was one thing, I'd say that we somehow lodged bits of our soul in one another. Leaving the immediate area of each other will likely weaken is both." I explained, using a mixture of what little I knew and my observations to make it seem rational.

She huffed. "Yes. It is best we come up with a fucking reason why we can' t be apart." I felt a large bit of anger and a tiny portion of understanding from her. It was pain mixed with a soothing hint.

The spider laughed again. "She's caught in your web.

But was I caught on hers? Distantly I could hear my cowardly side start to freak out. The souls of those weaker than me plead and tormented him, desperate to be acknowledged. I made a slight note to remove them from my head. Maybe keep the griffon one. There were a few memories I wanted to see still.

I smiled back at her. "Could be far worse. You could've killed me a few minutes ago and lost your chance."

She laughed. "As if. I bet I could've found someone else."

We both knew we were kidding ourselves. Two heart in two bodies beating as one by an unnatural effect of magic. Driven by a shared purpose, we both knew that the other would fit their needs.

In an odd way I felt like I knew her far better than she knew me. We were worth more together than we were apart.