There’s a trend I’m noticing. Whenever I try to find someone, something always comes to try to kill me. Tanya, Blackwatch wanted me dead. Pinkie, monsters and airships wanted me dead. Eureka, armored ponies and monsters wanted me dead. Tanya again, Blackwatch wanted me dead, again.

Now that I’ve found Rainbow Dash, two bimbos want me dead. Is the universe conspiring against me? I’m I doomed to have the world come after me every time I want to hang out with a friend?

It’s because I’m a griffon. It's racial profiling, I tell you!

The ladies waste no time to attempt to turn me into a pile of mush. Their magic shooters light up and send a flurry of bolts my way. The shots burn and sting my skin. I lift up an arm to shield my face, but my claw sticks to the ground. With a quick tug, I yank my claw off the ground, and a huge tumor smacks me in the face.

Oh right, tumor claws. I’m not used to those yet.

In between the stars and the ringing my head is now feeling, Rainbow Dash’s voice pops in. “Stop hitting yourself.”

Not helpful!

Careful to mind the weight of my new claws, I raise a tumor ball in front of my face. The movement is slow and clunky, but I have the strength to support it. Good news is while the bolts sting my regular skin, I can’t feel them doing anything to the tumor. It recoils slightly when it takes a shot, but other than that these bolts are doing nothing to the tumor claw.

With a griffon war shriek, I charge at one of the bimbos with the tumor raised up. The claw is blocking my view, so I have no clue who I’m going after. I see the feet of the one I’m going after, and the feet step out of the way as I come barreling towards her. She takes my flank, revealing herself to be Miss Business Suit, and shoots me down as I roll on past her.

I kick my body around to turn towards Suit. The tumor doesn’t move with the rest of my momentum, but I’m quick to start pulling it with me. I feel the weight of it pull at my arm as it swings around from the windup. The tumor turns into a freaking meteor heading straight for Suit’s face.

Slight problem, the tumor claw is a bit slow. Suit has plenty of time to jump out of the way before the claw comes falling down where she was just standing. If only she decided to stand there, boy would things be a mess. The claw doesn’t just hit the ground, it craters. The impact feels like an explosion as it pulverizes the concrete roof underneath, smashing a chunk of the roof into rubble and poking a hole into the floor below.

Son of a bison… This thing is a mother fucking wrecking ball!

I can’t stop myself from giggling. That was awesome! The sheer BOOM of the tumor stuns the bimbos for a moment. I take their moment to pull up the tumor and throw another swing at Suit. She sees this and does the same thing as before and gets the heck out of the way!

Again, the tumor obliterates the concrete below it, accompanied by another sonic explosion. Oh man, just imagine if this thing smashed someone’s toe. Steel tipped shoes would not save you from the sheer power of this thing!

Now I’ll admit, it’s great at annihilating the ground, but it sucks at turning bimbos into pulp. They just step out of the way whenever I swing at them. After seeing the first two attacks, Suit and Corset take several steps backwards to put some distance from my fist. They continue shooting at me from afar, stinging my skin with those bolts. My flesh is regenerating fast enough to keep up with the damage, but those bolts still sting.

Time for an old strategy. Tumor fists didn’t do jack. My claws shape shift back to normal, and then the monster blades come out with a fine, metallic shing. I raise them up and immediately dash at the nearest bimbo, Corset.

Without the tumors, I can move at full speed, which is almost as fast as the best Wonderbolt out there. I close the distance between me and Corset in an instant. A normal Blackwatch goon couldn’t avoid my claws if they tried. However, Corset slips out of my attack with nimble ease. My claws shred through empty air as the bimbo passes by me.

What the heck? She was freaking quick! I only saw a blur and she was out of my way. There’s no way she’s that fast.

For my troubles, Corset flicks out a knife blade and jabs the blade into my ribcage. The pain spikes through my side, and I tumble over myself as the bimbo jumps away.

With a scream I yank out the knife with a normal claw. The blade is serrated, so it hooks onto my flesh as it comes out. There’s a thick glob of bloody goop that’s sticking to the edge, and it keeps on sticking when I toss it away. That was not pleasant.

”Please don’t die now,” Rainbow Dash says. “You’re the only chance I have of getting out of here.”

Sure, I’ll tell my secretary to push dying in agony for next Friday. Will that work for you?

Corset, once again, puts some distance between us. Both the bimbos are still shooting at me, but they’re not alone now. A siren goes off, which I assume is for emergencies. More Blackwatch are coming in to surround us now. Some I assume were involved with the incident with the unicorn with the badge, but those guys are far outnumbered by the army that’s surrounding me right now.

The world shudders as a low rumble rolls over the area. The golden balloon sitting in the center of the roof rises into the air, and Blueblood’s airship takes off. The Prince must be making his escape. I see the underbelly soar over me as it takes on air and the landing gear pulling in. Adios, sweet Prince.

“Ignore everything,” Rainbow yells in my head. “Just get me out of here and we can leave. Don’t deal with the army!”

So do my usual strategy.

“Yes, do it!”

Okie dokey.

Blackwatch is closing in on me. A line of goons is forming to cut me off from the black box. I sprint in that direction. The goon line breaks away before I ram into them. Choo choo, get out of my way!

A lady’s voice yells out behind me, probably one of the bimbos. “Shoot her! Stop wasting time!”

At the sound of her command, the air immediately fills with a swarm of angry magic bolts flying towards me. I duck low, and the swarm blots out the night sky. All around me is a tunnel of almost solid magic, deadly to the touch. All the bolts that aren’t flying past me are exploding against my ass. My ass in on fire!

The box approaches. I jump on top of it. Magic bolts rain on my back as I do so. AH! That fucking hurts! I can hear my skin popping! With another jump, I make it to the other side, putting the box between me and the magic swarm. I can hear the pitter patter of the storm from the other side.

“Hurry up and get me out of here,” Rainbow yells.

My words come in the middle of my pained grunting. “Ahhish… I’m working- uugh… On it.”

Sweet mercy, that fucking hurt! I turn to look at the damage to my backside to see what damage there is. Good news, my ass isn’t damaged. Bad news, it’s not damaged because I don’t have an ass anymore! Gone are my tail and most of my rear end. There’s a huge chunk of flesh gone, going deep enough to expose my hip bones. I shudder. That’s not a pleasant sight. What makes it worse are the tiny tentacles sprouting out from my burnt flesh to start replacing my ass.

Rainbow makes a gagging sound. “I did not need you to describe that!”

Isn’t she lucky? She’s protected in a nice, thick box and doesn’t have to get shot. “You’re not the one who has to go through this!”

“Get me out of here so neither of us have to!”

“I’ll pull you out and we’ll get shot together, how’s that sound?”

My claw shapeshifts into the tumor. As I do so, I hear Blackwatch running around the box to get an angle at me. Not much time for me. I wind up the fist and slam it against the box. It makes a huge bang and massive dent in the metal, but doesn’t break it. But it does make the box ring like a large bell.

“OW! My ears! That hurt my ears!”

“Then cover them up!” I wind up the tumor again, and slam it against the metal once more. There’s another bang. The dent grows larger, and the box rings louder.

“Ahahahhh, that’s so freaking loud!”

I wind up for another shot. “I’m not done yet. This box is tougher than”-

My chest explodes in pain. My blood splatters across the box’s side. I choke. Something retracts back into my chest. It yanks me off my feet, and I’m flung back away from the box. I reach out in attempt to grab something, but this thing tugging my chest is pulling me away fast.

I look down at where my chest is flaming in agony. Three metal barbs are sprouting from my sternum, and are looping back to dig into my flesh. It’s a hook. Somebody shot a hook at me and now they have me harpooned.

A steel line is digging into my shoulder blades. It’s pulling the hook, and by extension me, across the concrete and leaving a bloody trail. I flip around to see where the line goes. Fast approaching is a long tube, where the line disappears into the barrel. There’s a Blackwatch goon standing behind the barrel, no doubt celebrating over the big fish he just caught.

In the opposite direction of where I’m heading, the Blackwatch roof army is gathering around the box to watch my bloody corpse drag away. The bimbos come up to the front of the crowd, shepherding the herd of incompetence. It’s Corset who throws her voice out for everyone to hear. “Fire the artillery!”

Spread out along the edges of the roof, the large cannon emplacements spring to life at the sound of Corset’s command. They swivel around, rushing to point their barrels at me. Those are going to fire some big magic bolts, aren’t they? They have the perfect opportunity to do so. There aren’t any blue-eyes within fifty feet of me, so no chance of friendly fire. And with this hook in my chest, I’m an easy target.

I’m starting to regret coming here.

With a normal claw, I grab the cable. It takes a bit of acrobatics to get it in front of my face, but I manage. No time to shapeshift. My beak opens and I bite down on the steel line. The bite only cuts through a couple of fibers, but with a little grinding I tear through the entire thing.

The tension is cut. The cable whips out of my mouth and violently lashes back at its barrel. It takes a chunk off my beak, but it takes a lot more from the other guy. The blue-eye controlling the harpoon only has milliseconds to watch the cable whip back over the cannon. It lashes over his chair and splits him between the eyes and down the middle.

I roll onto my feet and kick myself to running mode. Just in the nick of time, too. The air fills with the sound of, “BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP,” and everything behind me explodes in a magical fury. A concussive wave takes me from behind and flips me over my head. Tendrils of magic whip out and cut my flesh with burning power.

The explosions die down. I flop in front of the harpoon cannon. The cable is inert, and the blue-eye is lying on both sides of his control panel, twitching slightly. My head is ringing. I swear I can hear Rainbow Dash say something, but I can’t focus on her voice. The rest of the world is saying something too, but it’s all muffled.

The world does clear up, but it comes to me in gray tones. I see the damage the cannons almost did to me. They left a huge ravine in the roof. The hole cuts down into the floor below, which just so happens to be the warehouse full of boxes. Some of the boxes below are crushed from huge chunks of rubble, and the scientists are swarming like confused ants.

Here’s some good news. The cannons made a hole in the roof, and the roof army can’t go over the hole. It’s another obstacle they have to go around. Yay, they can't get to me!

But they can still shoot at me. To end my moment of peace, any blue-eye or bimbo that can see me starts shooting bolts at my direction. The bolts dart over the chasm and hit the area around me. A few miss, and a few hit. I dive around to the other side of the cannon for cover.

As I crouch between the two halves of the split blue-eye, Rainbow Dash’s voice comes through. “This is one heck of a pickle you’re in.”

All the wounds I sustained in the past minute won’t let me come up with a response to that.

“You’re still narrating yourself.”

I grunt, mostly in pain. Why is everything gray? It’s become involuntary.

“I’ll pretend that’s normal. On to more important matters, how are you going to get us out of this bind?”

The air is filled with the sound of ponies shouting and soldiers running towards my position. They’re going to surround me in a moment. Do you not have a plan, oh great mastermind?

“Sorry. Explosions and underdog tactics are outside of my skill set.”

A blood vessel bursts in my head. It regenerates, but I can still feel its heat. What!? You’re Rainbow “Danger” Dash. Explosions and underdog tactics is everything you do!

“No, being awesome is what I do. I’ve never had experience with getting shot in the chest by a harpoon. You’re on your own there.”

Never before have I felt the intense need to punch someone in the face as I do right this instant. I glance down at the giant fish hook still in my chest. Sweet mercy, that’s going to be a pain to remove. Granted, my entire body is already in pain, but this hook is going to be the end of me. I’m taking back the soda.

My pitiful sanctuary I call cover is not long for this world. A magic bolt streaks past my head and explodes against the ground. I jolt up. That didn’t come from the sides. It came from above.

Up in the sky, two glowing, blue circles are flying against the black of the night. A blue flash erupts near the circles, and another magic bolt shoots down and strikes me in the leg. It does little damage, but it still stings. That said, that little flash was enough to highlight the body and wings attached to those two circles.

It’s a pegasus.

More pairs of blue circles fly from over the edge of the building and soar above me, and more come to join in the fun. The pegasi flock gathers above me. They rain magic bolts down in my direction.

It’s a freaking hail of pain! Once the bolts start hitting, I jump out of the way to avoid turning into soup. This could be either a good move or a bad move. Now that I’m running, the pegasi have to trail their shots. They’re hitting me a lot less now. But now I’m outside of my cover, so the rest of the army can shoot at me now.

When I run out, I find myself mere feet away from a line of armed goons. They’re close enough for me to flick a wing up their noses. When I jump out in front of them, some of their swears are so clear to me we might as well be in a diner having a normal conversation.

I run past the line and out into an open area. The Blackwatch blob only goes so far. Once I’m clear, everyone takes their shots at me. The wall of deadly magic returns, this time with some support from above!

There’s an air conditioning vent close to me. I dive behind it, separating me and the encroaching blob. The vent is enough to block the ground fire. I spin around on my back and raise two tumor claws above me, putting them in a boxer’s block. The tumors absorb the magic hail coming from the pegasi. These things are nice, but if only I had a proper shield, I can get out of this alive.

“Do you think you can kite them around and bust open my box while they’re distracted?”

Considering I get fucked by a million magic shooters every time I’m out of cover, no, I don’t think I can.

In the middle of all the magic bolts sounds of the encroaching army, I hear the sound of rattling metal above me. The pegasi move out of the way as a silvery line arcs across the sky. It glitters for a moment before it cuts down through the air, towards me.

What the-

Everything turns into hot, white pain when a heavy duty, stainless steel chain whips me up and down my entire body. It slips between my boxer’s block and cracks me from my forehead to my sternum, and all the way down to my crotch. My vision turns hazy white, and I can feel hot goop spilling out of the strike like.

Something snaps near my head. The chain drags down my body, and a hook spikes into my inner thigh. The pain is nothing compared to the whiplash I just received, but I don’t think that’s the intention.

The chain me yanks me back into the fray. It pulls me into the air, threatening to tear my leg off at any moment.
I’m soaring through the air now. Other than that I’m not sure what’s going on. I think I hear Rainbow say something, but I’m in no state to comprehend. Everything is a blur right now. I think I have a migraine.

My vision clears up, and I gain enough sensibility to see the edge of the roof coming for my face. The ledge comes up in a half wall, presumably to stop anyone from slipping off. I try to brace myself in any way I can, but my muscles are not responding.

Why did I come here again?

I crash face first into the half wall. It explodes into a cloud of rubble and dust, and my head pokes over the edge of the building. I see the ground below me, which is a good mile down from where I am. The winds of the night whip across my face. Anyone else might have a case of vertigo. Me, I’m a griffon. We like high places. Also, my body is in so much pain a mile high fall is the least of my worries.

The chain tugs at my leg again. My motor skills return at the same moment. I flip around and smash the chain with a tumor claw, breaking it into tiny little shards. The chain whips back, free of my body. I am not going on that ride again.

With a large amount of effort, I push myself into a sitting position. My eyes are having trouble staying open. I look down at myself. I’m expecting half my body to not be there. My expectations aren’t too far off. Every inch of my body is either mangled, bleeding, missing, or a combination of the three. The magic bolts took out chunks all over my body, as if a little kid got enthusiastic with a melon scooper. The chain left a schism down my body. It’s bleeding up and down, and I think my beak is destroyed. My ass is still missing. That’s embarrassing.

I think I’m done for.

All outside noise tunes out for me. All I can hear now is Rainbow Dash’s voice cracking in my ears. “Of course you’re giving up. Why did I expect anything else?”

What? Where did Rainbow get that idea. I didn’t say I was giving up.

“Might as well. I knew this was too good to be true. I’m never getting out of this box!”

I still got some fight in me. I try to push myself up, but my body shakes under the stress. My limbs slip out from under me, and I’m back lying on the ground.

“Can’t even get back up, can you?”

If this is some weird psychological trick to get me going again, it’s not working.

“If it’s a trick, then it’s not one I’ve heard of.”

I pause for a moment. Is Rainbow giving up on me? Are you giving up on me?

“Do you have some hidden pool of strength you’ve been hiding?”

I try moving something, but none of my limbs want to do what I tell them to do.

“Thought so. You put your back towards the army and gave them target practice. Typical. You should’ve been in the crowd tearing them up.”

I’m not a killer.

Rainbow laughs. It’s not a laugh I’ve heard before. It has a strong cackle to it. “The bird half of you, that’s pure chicken. There’s no eagle in you.”

My eye twitches. Don’t you dare badmouth a griffon.

“I’m not talking to a griffon. I’m talking to a chicken. You’re a chicken who runs away while the butchers come after you to serve you on a silver platter. You only fight when the cleaver is at your neck. You might bite a finger and escape, but that butcher will always be coming for you. An eagle would never put up with that. If you were an eagle, you’d fuck up that butcher the moment it gets close to your nest. You are not an eagle.”

I don’t say anything for a moment. This feels… weird. You’ve changed, haven’t you?

“I’ve been nothing but an experiment for Blackwatch to play with since the day they put me in this box. I’ve lost all sympathy for them, and for chickens.”

For the past five minutes, I’ve experience the biggest beat down of my life, and I won’t see the end of it until Blackwatch is sure I’m dead. Rainbow’s words hurt more than that. Rainbow Dash, by best friend since flight school, is comparing me to a damn chicken. Nobody compares a griffon to a chicken.

I step back into reality. The area around me is clear. I can hear one of the bimbos yelling a command. After their command, three loud booms roll over the roof. “BRAUMP, BRAUMP, BRAUMP.”

This can’t be the end. I’ve been working my ass off for the past two days to find Rainbow Dash. Heck, I literally lost my ass to get to this point! And now I’m on the edge of death. Rainbow is giving up on me. Worse, she thinks I’m a chicken. Even worse, artillery is about to explode me.

Wait, artillery?!

The artillery spells ignite all around me. For the tiniest moment, a volcano erupts inside my ears, and an instant later the eruption becomes a single high tone. The tone rings in my head, far from my ears. I hear nothing.

Flame becomes a cloud rolling over the night sky. With it comes a summer breeze that tears apart my skin. The ground below me dissolves into dust without as much as a whimper. Summer turns to winter, and there is nothing but molten snow. I see nothing.

The world is hot, but it doesn’t feel hot. All my pain I’ve felt in the past five minutes melts away, along with my flesh. I feel nothing.

This is how I die. I don’t save anyone. Rainbow Dash lost faith in me. We don’t go to Las Pegasus. I don’t reopen my scone shop. All I’m is an explosion.

When the light disappears, and the heat dissipates, I’m not longer on the roof. Instead, I’m falling. Wind whips past the few parts of me that can still feel anything. It’s cold, so much colder than the artillery spells. I can’t hear the wind. I still hear the ringing.

I’m falling down a skyscraper, one covered in windows that act just like mirrors. I can see my reflection. Smoke trails from my body as I fall. I’m a mangled mess.

Two of my limbs are gone. In their places are two huge, burning gaps where flesh is meant to be. One of my other limbs, a tumor claw, is falling alongside me, albeit several feet away and not attached to me. The one limb left to my name is a back leg. It’s bent the wrong way. Legs shouldn’t bend like that.

Half my face is gone. I think I see my brain. My wings are just stubs. The artillery shells clipped them. What good is a wingless griffon? The core of my body is a burning mess. No one will recognize me.

The moment the artillery spells hit, I’ve felt numb. It’s not like there’s much room for feeling when you’re engulfed in hellfire.

But now I realize something. I can’t feel anything. If I can’t feel anything, that means my tentacles aren’t regenerating. Usually I get a weird slithery or ticklish feeling inside me when I’m injured, which is a sign of the tentacles doing their job to fix me up on the inside. I don’t feel that now. I’m not regenerating! The reflection confirms what I’m thinking. No part of me is growing back.

I’m going to die.

Why now? Of all the times for this to happen, why now? I’ve been fighting for the past two days, and I’m blasted to pieces off the side of a building. I was a metal box away from breaking Rainbow out, just a single box!

The moment I broke out of that lab, Blackwatch has been on my tail. Why? What did I ever do to them? I’ve only acted in self defense in my entire waking life. Why do these Blackwatch bastards have to keep on trying to kill me?

Tanya wouldn’t be dead if they didn’t give a shit about me. Pinkie would be still hidden if they didn’t give a shit about me. I could have Rainbow off this island by now if they didn’t give a shit about me! All my problems are from Blackwatch!

I was so close to rescuing Rainbow Dash. So close!

So close…

A hospital room. Graphs, charts, medical jargon I don’t understand…

A blue pegasus, rainbow hair. A wing flexing in all directions…

I speak. “It works again?! What magic did the eggheads pull out of their ass to do that?”

Rainbow tugs her feathers with a hoof. “They call it Life Salt. I know I’m not a doctor, but Eureka is very hush hush about how this stuff works. He wouldn’t even tell Twilight a thing.”

I snort. “You’re talking about the scientist with big glasses? I didn’t know he was capable of shutting up.”

Rainbow Dash laughs. The room is warm. “Chatty, quiet, it doesn’t matter. I owe the guy my life. You should’ve seen this wing before the treatment. That quack must have made a pact with Tartarus to fix up this poor thing.”

I cringe at the thought. “At least an egghead is doing the soul trading. Any self respecting flier would dive into Cerberus’s house and fight every demon in there without a second thought just to get their wings back. Heck, I’d tag along with you, and we’d both sell our soul to whatever demon could hook you up.”

Rainbow sips her flask of cider, imported from a friend’s farm, slipped past the doctors. “I’d at least ask Twilight for info on what demon to go after. I don’t want to spend all of eternity in Tartarus searching for the right guy.”

“Hey, if she knows a guy…”

We don’t say anything for a moment. The only sound is the heart monitor beeping to Rainbow’s tune.
Rainbow puts down the flask. “How’s the scone shop going?”

A claw runs down my face. “Grand opening is next week. It’s not even open and I’m already losing sleep over that store. Pinkie isn’t helping with the stress. I appreciate her help, I do. But damn does that mare run me up the wall.”

“That’s Pinkie for ya. Forget her for a moment. What’s stressing you out.”

I throw my claws up in the air. “Everything! Can I run a store? Do I want to run a store? Do I have the supplies to keep the store running? Am I going to have excess product that’ll never be used and expire? Will the store make any money? Will anyone bother to come?”

Rainbow holds her hooves out. “Wow, calm down. You’re going to have a heart attack.”

“Oh, believe me, this is calm. I’ve been a complete mess the last couple of days.”

“How bad could it be?”

“I puked.”

“Ew.”

“Twice.”

“Ew!”

“Everynight. Tanya isn’t happy about it.”

Rainbow grabs me by the shoulders. “Nope, stop. That’s enough. I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Sorry.”

We’re silent once more, but I'm still tense.

Rainbow smiles at me. “Just relax. Listen to me. ”

Rainbow lets me breathe. I mellow out. I listen.

“I get it, you’re worried about how this will turn out. You’ve never done anything like this before. But you know what, you won’t be alone next week. When you open your store, I’ll be there.”

I perk up. “Is Eureka letting you out soon?”

Rainbow can’t contain her grin. “Same day Scone Quarry opens for the first time. I will be there. In fact, I won’t just be there. I’ll fly there!”

My eyes go wide. “They’re letting you fly too?”

Rainbow’s wings flare out. “Eureka says they should be good to go soon. If all goes well, then I’ll be able to fly the same day I get out.”

“You’re kidding. This is great! This will be the first time you’ll fly in like… forever!”

“I know! It’ll be awesome.” Rainbow’s face turns serious. She gives me a stern eye. “But you have to make me a promise.”

“What promise?”

She pokes me in the chest. “I’m going to fly to your store. I’ll be there for you. But you can’t chicken out!”

I snort. “Me, chicken out? You’re joking.”

Her face says otherwise. “I’m serious. I want to be Stone Quarry’s first customer, and it’s going to be awesome. But I can’t be your customer if you chicken out.”

Now I smile. “You should know better. Griffons never chicken out.”

“Promise me.”

I put a claw on my heart. “I promise I won’t chicken out, and you’ll be the first and most awesome customer of Stone Quarry.”

Rainbow’s eyes light up. “Good. I look forward to it.”

Huh… now is a weird time to have a flashback. Weirdly topical, too. At least it’s a nice flashback. I’ll be going out with a pleasant little memory. Isn’t that all anyone can ask for.

…

Wait a moment, this is stupid! I’ve fought beak and claw to get this tower. I can’t die now! That would be chickening out! I’m not going to chicken out! I’m going to eagle out!

Now that I said it, it sounds kind of stupid. Chicken out, eagle out, it sounds like I’m about to transform into a magical superhero. Eh, stupid or not, I’m not going to die today if I can help it.

I can survive. I just need to think.

At this moment, I am a pile of goop falling off the side of a skyscraper. I’m about, oh, halfway down, which means I have about half the building before I become a sticky puddle for some Blackwatch goon to clean up. Plenty of time.

Being a pile of goop, I have few options. My wings are bloody stumps, so they’re useless. Three of my limbs aren’t attached, and all I have is my back leg, which is a lion’s paw.

Hmm… can I shapeshift the lion’s paw?

I push my willpower into my foot. Most of my body is a dead clump, but I do feel a few tiny tentacles move about. They shift towards my leg, and a small blade morphs from my heel. It’s a short, stubby hook knife. It would be pathetic in a fight, but I’ll take anything at the moment.

Sweet, I have progress. How am I doing on time? Let’s see, I have one, two… du du du, twenty or so floors left. If I’m falling at a rate of three floors a second, that puts me at… um, add the four, carry the two… No time! Act now!

With all the energy I have left, my body spasms into action. My remaining limb lashes out and strikes the skyscraper. It catches on glass, and a window shatters next to my ears. The resistance yanks me back. My leg wants to tear away for a moment. In fact, I think it almost does. The only reason it doesn’t rip away is because I lost a lot of muscle mass from those explosions. Any heavier and I’d lose all my legs.

I stop falling. It's a sudden stop, but still a stop. The heel blade annihilates the window and catches onto the building structure. My stomach, if I even still have a stomach, almost lurches out of my throat from the sudden stop. Glass shards rain past my head. They continue to fall until they shatter on the ground, which is about five floors below me.

Ha. Ha haha. Hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m alive! I am fucking alive! Eat it, Death! You’re not writing my name in your black book today!

Hahaha. Ah… Rainbow is going to love this, that little daredevil. Next time we’re at a party and she starts going off about her awesome feats of bravery and crap, I can top her with this story. I survived falling off a skyscraper, right after artillery exploded me, and doing so with only one leg. In the snow. Uphill. Both ways!

Oh, and I can smack her over the head for giving up on me. I think I’ll do that when I break her out.

My hearing is a little nonexistent. I must have celebrated a little loud without realizing it. About a couple second into my laugh session, a magic bolt flies up form below and misses my head by inches.

I look down. I wish I looked earlier. The blue-eyes in the military compound at the base of the tower are mobilizing. Troops are lining up below and taking aim at me. When they do, they let loose their magic bolts, and my life becomes the magic death tunnel again!

Up and at’em! I use my one leg to pull myself up through the broken window. I pull up, hop the leg forward to gain a few inches, and hop some more, crawling one bit at a time. It’s slow going. Being a mutilated blob doesn’t speed things up. That said, if there were a competition for fastest blobs in the world, I’d take the gold and break all the records. With all these magic bolts for motivation, I’m hauling ass by crawling on one leg!

With my last hop, I drag myself over the window sill. I let out a sigh and relax. I’m not falling off a building. The blue eyes can’t shoot me from here. This is great. I could lie here all night.

Heh, I’m alive.

Where am I?

I look around the room. It’s a meeting room. There’s a long table, lots of chairs, and a whiteboard at one end of the table.

Yawn, it’s boring in here. Let’s get out of here.

With my one leg and heel blade, I drag myself across the floor and towards the door. Grab, scoot. Grab, scoot. It’s a little unpleasant moving around with my back on the floor. I feel like a slug.

When I get to the door, I kick it open. The door handle breaks of, and the door swings open. Sweet, I still have some strength left, enough to slug crawl out into the hall. Nothing interesting out here, just cubicles. They look really tall from my perspective here on the floor. Little griffon in a big world.

With the whole exploding into goop fiasco, my plans for breaking Rainbow out of this place have changed. And with how quiet this office space is, now is a good time to rethink that plan.

At a distant corner of the office space I can’t see, a large door slams open, followed by the sound of armored hoofsteps spilling through the door. Flashlights flicker on the ceiling as the goons spread out. A voice full of static pierces the air. “Zero is somewhere on this floor. Find him!”

I change my mind. This is a bad time to rethink my plan.

As the hoofsteps spread out through the office space, I drag myself into the confines of the nearest cubicle. I don’t have the mass to take on a full scale engagement. I need to hide. This isn’t the best place to take shelter, but Blackwatch will take a while looking through each cubicle before they search mine. I have a little time.

Damn it Blackwatch, my life would be so much easier without you guys. Everywhere I go, you guys are always shooting at me. I was sort of cool with it before. Sure, it was irritating, and I had to fight for my life several times, but I regenerated so it wasn’t a big deal. This time, however, I almost died. You guys are coming to finish me off. You guys are starting to piss me off.

No, scratch that. I am pissed off! Blackwatch got the better of me at the worst time ever! I was about to free Rainbow, and they blew me up for my troubles. It’s a damn uphill battle with these guys, and I’m getting sick and tired of it.

The blue-eyes are getting closer. They’re getting louder. The lights keep passing above my cubicle. They’ll find me soon. They’re going to kill me if I don’t do anything.

Everywhere I go, they find me. My apartment. The daycare. Whenever I go find someone, they catch me there. Tanya, Blackwatch is there. Pinkie, Blackwatch is there. Rainbow, Blackwatch is there. They’re mosquitoes. They won’t leave me alone. No matter how hard I try to avoid them, they always find a way to bite me.

Maybe that’s my problem, I try to avoid their bites, like a chicken. Has anyone ever avoided a mosquito bite?

No, you can’t. They’re everywhere. They always chase you. You can never run away. If you don’t want bites, then you need to stop them at the source.

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll stop the source. I going to stop playing chicken. I’m going to break Rainbow out of here. If the blue-eyes bite me on the way, then I’ll bite back.

Blackwatch is almost here. I scoot as close as I can to the wall, staying hidden from the outside hallway. I raise my one remaining leg as high as I can, keeping the heel blade pointed towards the entrance. If someone is going to find me in here, that poor bastard will have to step in my strike zone.

I wait. I hold my breath. I listen. The hoofsteps are on the other side of my wall. A flashlight flicks over the top of my cubicle. Someone is about to walk in.

Off in the distance, a voice yells over the office space. “Are you sure Zero’s here? We might have the wrong floor.”

The pony right outside my cubicle yells back. “Shut up, Sugar Pine! Zero can hear where you are!”

“Oh right, sorry,” the distant voice yells back. “I mean, Zero’s a big griffon. If he wanted to do something, like run away or something, we’d see him right off the bat. I don’t think he’s on this floor.”

“I swear to Celestia, if you get me killed, my ghost will haunt you and shove my dirty socks down your throat while you sleep!”

“Sorry! I’ll stay quiet,” Sugar Pine says, breaking the quiet rule once again.

Something makes a hit sound on the other side of my wall. I imagine it was the sound of a frustrated blue-eye giving himself a face-hoof. Oh, this is nothing. The frustration levels in that pony are about to skyrocket in about three seconds.

A light beams through the doorway of my cubicle. Soon after, a hoof steps through, followed by another. A blue-eye goon walks in, mumbling about suicidal recruits. His goggles scan the entire cubicle, starting from the opposite side from me. He begins to step out before his goggles fall on me.

His flashlight shines on my face. I grin up at him with my broken beak. “I hope those socks are extra stinky.”

Before he was a chance to scream, I kick down my one leg on top of him. The heel blade catches on the edge of his neck, slashing his entire throat. Hot blood explodes over me. The flashlight shines on the geyser, turning it into a rainfall of glittering little rubies. The blue-eye gurgles as he clutches his throat. He tries to say something, but nothing comes out except spurts of blood.

The blue-eye loses control of his legs. He almost falls over, but I swing my heel blade back around to catch him in the shoulder. The tentacles in my leg shoot into his wound and burrow beneath his skin. He lets out a panicked croak as he feels his flesh dissolving inside his body as my tentacles go to work. It takes less than a minute before even his face turns into a withering mass of tendrils.

Good, I found some dinner.

The tentacles retreat back inside me after finishing with the poor blue-eye. Immediately, I feel them go to work with regenerating everything I lost from the artillery. The gash I received from the chain, it stitches back together and seals up my chest. My ass reforms into its full mass, which I have to say is one of my better qualities.

Tendrils shoot out from where my lost limbs use to be. They tangle up and merge into new legs. I roll over on my belly and stand up with fresh legs. They’re a little wobbly for a moment, but after a little stretching they stiffen out.

My beak is the last to regenerate. I chomp a couple times once it fills out. This is good. This is real good! It’s a whole new me!

As a test, I try to shapeshift one of my monster claws, but I don’t get far. My griffon claw only grows about an inch. It looks like a clump up butter knives, a far cry from the pony sized monsters I can conjure up. It looks like I’ll have to eat a few more blue-eyes before I can do that again.

While my regeneration did wonders for the rest of my body, it didn’t remove the harpoon hook stuck in my chest. I brace myself as I grab it by the prongs. With a quick pull, I rip it out of my chest, taking out globs of goop with it. I bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming in pain. Sweet mercy, that was more intense than I thought it would be.

In my moment of pain, the distant voice sounds off again. “Has anyone found Zero? He’s not in any of my cubicles.”

I heft the hook in my claw. It looks a lot like a three pronged fishing hook, just grossly oversized. All I need is some bait and a bobber and I could catch a shark with this. Or I could fish for a more “domestic” kind of catch. I can’t help but smile at the idea.

I yell at the direction of the far voice. “I located Zero. He’s nothing but a corpse now.” Oh great, now I’m flipping my gender. Tanya would shun me for that slip up. At least the blue-eyes won’t catch it.

The far voice replies back to my own call. “He’s dead? Sweet! Let’s tag and bag him so I can go get some shut eye.”

I hear hoofsteps converging towards my cubicle. I want to say there are about twelve ponies here, maybe fifteen. I can’t say for sure. Hey, it’s not my job to count the bodies. That goes to accounting.

I step outside of my cubicle just in time to meet the first of the incoming hostiles. A blue-eye rounds the corner into my cubicle strip. He’s a unicorn, a bit on the short side. His blue goggles make him stand out in the dark office space.

The blue-eye unicorn freezes when he sees me leaning against a wall, twirling the hook in a claw. I smile at him. “Lovely night to go fishing, don’t you think?”