Cata's beak nipped at my ear and I blushed bashfully under her attention. We had spent the better part of an hour simply sitting in the hot tub, trying to forget the past few manic days we had spent apart.

I felt better around her.

It wasn't just mentally. Physically, I felt better. Stronger. Faster. Tougher. Like I could take bullets without dying. Her beautiful black feathers were just... invigorating?

It was a rather interesting effect on me, at any rate. Like prickling tension dripping away. The hot water helped, as did the bath salts. Lavender was a good smell. Really good smell.

Almost as good as Cata and holy hell I have it bad for her. My breath quickened, almost imperceptibly. How bad am I for her?

Been thinking about her for the month or two I knew her. We had kissed, though under odd circumstances.

She nibbled my ear again and I felt something inside of me melt. Bad sign, Ivan. Bad sign. I felt a shiver run up my spine and my ears perked up. Catastrophe literally purred her contentment.

REALLY bad sign, Ivan. This is actually happening to you. You are next to the griffon who has haunted your dreams, she is touching you, your ear is bleeding and that is kinda disturbing that she is licking it off, but also feels good and panicking panicking panicking....

“Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.” Congratulations self, I think you just fatal errored.

“Hey, idiot. Yeah, you.”

Hey, look, a great distraction. I did my best to look like something was attacking my brain again with the intent of driving me insane again and Cata luckily stopped nibbling.

Though I didn’t really want her to. Actually I did, it was really painful. I didn’t want her to.

ARGGHHHHH

“...” I managed before slamming my head into the water. Perfectly warm water greeted my soon to be aching head, and my already aching ear stung from the soap provided from Oblivion. The scent, Love Nights was given by the local brothel and it just occurred to me at that very moment that my griffoness - and saying my griffoness brought forth a stream of conflicting thoughts that tried to swarm through my head - was probably planning on seducing me fairly shortly, and holy hell that would be really awkward because all I can remember all of a sudden are things I shouldn’t be thinking of, and my thoughts were swimming around like fishes in a barrel and I couldn’t shoot without killing all of them with the shock waves and that is bad and oooooooooh...

“Hey, Kid.”

Malice’s raspy sibilant hiss was actually pretty welcoming. I mean, it was nice to have someone else in my head to talk to. He’d been in a relationship before, probably. Gods dated, right? RIGHT?!?

“Your ship is on fire, Kid. Ivan?”

Man, that incense, or fragrance, or whatever the hell Love Nights was smelled a lot more like my ship on fire than I gave it credit for. It actually smelt like watching a ship crash into the water!

On a related note, Cata’s beak, after I surfaced, had a sheen of red to it that was all the more entrancing.

Er...

Catastrophe growled, sniffing the air. “What’s on fire?” she said, kinda out of it. Her eyes were laced with the lust of a predator stalking after a fine cut of beef. Or horse. Or zebra, I guess.

Cata slapped me awake from my dazed. “We can love later, Ivan.”

Wow. I never thought I would hear those words from anyone’s lips. Well, she had a beak, so maybe I should’ve? Whatever.

She snatched me from the suds and carried me to the deck of this ship, water dripping down,

The side of the ship was on fire. It was mostly surreal, really, to switch from freaking out over being in close contact with a griffon who may or may not be literally insane about me, to freaking out over the fact that, “Hey, my ship was on fire while I was still on it and I should be getting off of the ship.”

Orange flames licked at whatever wood was left on the ship, and another salvo of fireballs, the spell that had set The Scourge alight, were deflected away by a guardian fueled by my growing frustrations and my slowly replenishing magic supplies. My hooves clanked against the metal deck of the ship and I whirled out some more force fields as best I could to put out the fire.

“Really. I should get a water spell or something,” I mumbled. The topaz that I was focusing Guardian through glew a myriad of shades of yellow. Some were kinda disgusting off shades, some like the morning sun.

Catastrophe retook her position as pilot of the ship, her black body cutting a contrast from the flames that I was still snuffing out piece by piece. Boss scurried about this way and that, as if trying to figure out when she should dramatically hurl herself from the airship. She’d probably land with a roll and stand up unscathed, ready for more. Canary was there as well, and for once I could say I actually appreciated him. I didn’t, though. No use giving him a swelled head, though his own use of the shield spell was stopping my own head from pounding any harder than a bad porno.

I clutched at my temples with my hooves and privately wished it wouldn’t be too much of a waste to blow out my own brains before they started leaking out of my nose. Too much magic in too little time. Already, I could feel it start to set in again and again. Pounding headache. Canary hadn’t lightened the load quite enough and The Scourge was blazing away in puffs of smoke from some enemy mage I couldn’t even see, but knew was probably some self righteous twit who decided I was uglifying his sky or something.

The ship began a slow and graceful descent from the sky, courtesy of Catastrophe’s previous experiences with landing and crashing airships. Hm. What was her count on those? 3? 4? Should probably ask some time later. Sure that would be a great story.

The ship landed without much disturbance. Luckily, Las Pegasus did have a lake next to it for... fishing purposes or something. Hell if I know, it could’ve been for naked cheerleaders. Point is, we landed the burning ship that was full of holes in a lake.

Really. Would it have been better to smash it to pieces on the ground? It was a shallow lake, I guess...

“GUARDIAN!” I flared up the barrier, yet again watching a cascade of fire splash against it like an oncoming wave.

I plucked the feather from the leather pouch I practically slept with and forced enough power into it to keep me from killing myself as I climbed down the ladder on the side of my burning ship while Boss calmly threw herself off the side and Cata just flew off. Canary went the same course I did and jumped off before me on the ladder, splashing down in about...

Say, how much does a zebra weigh? Whatever. It was more than a hundred pounds, at least. I was sprayed in icy lake water, just before I took the same plunge and was shaken from my pain addled thoughts to the idea that hey, this water is really cold.

I swam my way to shore, dripping wet. Catastrophe landed next to me, Boss beside her, and Canary on the other side of me. I suppose that if two of us weren’t dripping wet it would’ve made for an inspirational moment, a dramatic pose or something.

I sneezed, definitely ruining the effect.

“HALT!”

“God. The authorities?” I mumbled. “Cock blocking authorities? That’s a thing?”

What little obscurance between us and our adversaries cleared up to reveal yet another surreal moment.

Facing us was a zebra. Another zebra. A diamond dog. And a griffon.

“...” Really?

“HALT!” The lead zebra, and I could tell he was the leader by how loud he screamed at us, shouted. “I am here to collect the bounty taken out on this group. Will you come peacefully?”

“...Bounty?” I don’t remember anything about a bounty...

“You seem confused!” The zebra said with an over dramatic flourish. Then he did something I’m pretty sure will haunt my dreams. He smiled and his teeth FLASHED. Like, bad tooth brush commercial style. “Are you not Ivan?”

I could distantly hear mutters about his group. “Did we really just set the wrong airship on fire?” The other zebra, a mare said. Oh good. They weren’t complete clones. That’d just be weird and slightly contrived.

“Ivan is I,” I stated with a bit more bravado, and caring than I had in me. Useful talent right there.

He had a burn scar over one of his eyes. Dang. The only thing cooler than a mysterious scar over the eye was a burn scar. He looked like he had been in a fight, or accidentally spilled his brownies on his face after trying to take them out of the oven too early.

The zebra mare next to him had an eerie resemblance to Canary. As did the dog to Boss, but let’s face it, all dogs and zebras look about the same. Really. There’s no sense hiding it.

Now, the griffon on the other hand... Looked nothing like Catastrophe. Looked more reddish. Kinda... out of this worldish? A looker, I guess. At any rate, she carried herself like... how to put this politely? A slut. Like a slut. Yeah.

“Ivan!” The lead zebra who looked like something out of a bad anime shouted, “You have been charged with Seventeen counts of cold blooded murder in the second degree, 3 counts of arson, one count of sexual harassment, five counts of theft, three counts of drug possession, one count of drug transaction-”

Did this guy have like, a poster I didn’t see or something?

“- One count of public inebriation, and two counts of jaywalking.”

I blinked. “When the hell did I jaywalk?” Man. I’d been slacking if that was all the crime I’d committed. “And who the hell are you?”

“I am Mark.” Oooooooh. A human name? Intriguing. “I am a chess piece, just like you!”

Wait. Chess piece? The hell? That’s what I’m supposed to be calling myself? That’s kinda lame.

“Right. Sure. Can we talk this over another time?” I tried, sounding a bit more sarcastic. “I mean, I know you’ve come all this way to assault my ship and crew members, but really, can’t this wait until after we have some tea, maybe some cookies?”

Catastrophe bristled beside me. She wasn’t exactly all right with the whole burning ship thing. Can’t say I blamed her. “Well, MARK.” She snarled. “You’ve got on the count of five to tell us whatever the fucking hell you burned my ship for.”

“I burnt it to stop you from escaping, lady Catastrophe.”

I sighed. “Look. I don’t want to be captured right now. So...”

“IN THE NAME OF PURGE, I WILL STOP YOUR RAPE OF THIS LAND.” Mark roared.

“The fuck?” I mumbled before the zebras, and I mean both of them did a halfway erotic jig which made me think that maybe Mark was banging all three of his group on the side along with being a ridiculous vigilante and bounty hunter. They spewed flames from the sky which swirled about.

“Guardian.” I sighed, head pounding again. “You know what? YOU KNOW WHAT?” I growled, fed up with all this weird shit that had to happen to me.

“FUCK YOU AND DIE!” I roared out, slipping into that sort of have trance thing that I didn’t really understand but knew gifted me with great power and possibly great responsibility as well. My thoughts swam about like fishes being slowly cooked. I snatched them and devoured them greedily. All concerns of consuming my sanity aside, I was more than a little confused when my return volley of fireballs that I shot off without shouting out the attack was deflected as easily as an umbrella stops rain.

“I have seen the filth that humanity brings,” Mark said in a way that was synonymous with growling and snarling all at the same time. He was clearly the victim here. Not me at all. “I will not let another place be corrupted by greed and pain!”

Riiiiiiiiight. Totally not sounding like a misanthropist environment loving hippy. Did wonders for his credibility, clearly. “Well then, Captain planet,” I snarked back, the pain giving me access to that part of my vocabulary that was going to make me feel dirty afterward.

“Let’s get this over with.”

End