After the battle...

"Careful with that damn equipment, mook!"

"Ain't that what I told you?"

Gilda growled, and it shook the room. At six inches past the twelve feet which even the giants of her kind strained to reach, she towered over every soldier in the gym. Her gym. This mission didn't need a whole legion, after all; a tribune's cohort was good enough. Which, she thought wryly, Is probably good, because there's barely enough of us half-immunes to fill a cohort, and I threatened to stuff the last Primus Pilus' pilus right up his tightwad ass.

She stomped over and swatted Gary away from the military press. If he wasn't going to use proper form, he wasn't going to get to use her machines. He oofed as Giselle caught him, but that just made Gilda snort. "You keep your balls away from those fingers of hers," she ordered, "Or it ain't just going to be ice you need next time. Besides, it's not like I broke your pretty thing, and this is your Tribune talkin'!"

Twelve feet and six inches tall didn't tell the whole story anyway. The white feathers at the bottom of her nape bunched up against hilly brown expanses of her overdeveloped trapezii, rolling on for an entire highlands of pure griffon power. The same terrifying strength that let her keep up with the speeds of pegasi rolled down her back into the darker brown of her enormous wings. To the sides, it faded in color but rose in prominence as it became the indomitable lighter brown of her rippling, bulging, cut arms. Even that had its end, in the yellow of her grasping fingers, talons only a moment's thought away.

About the only softness was in front. Gilda didn't have some stupid hyper-pony mare's knockers, thank the Flyer and the Wings Eternal. Nonetheless, her Gs were a mountain range of plush, slightly droopy softness. She kept them bound back in her sports bra-- why else would she need underwear among her cohort?-- but the damn things jiggled and juggled anyway. Together, they outmassed a normal pony stallion, and she liked it that way.

Strange beings, ponies, with that sexual dimorphism crap, she thought as her eyes flicked to the only nine footer in the room. Unlike virtually any other being in the world, male and female griffons were almost exactly the same size and weight on average. Their stories told that when the Flyer made the Griffon Tribes, he took the upper body of eagles, where females tended to be larger, and the lower bodies of lions, where males tended to have the advantage. The resulting race of giants were matched only by the minotaurs for size. With the sky clearly superior to deep labyrinths in the earth, should have ruled the damn world-- which shouldn't have been named after a pony goddess!

To the eternal irritation of the Tribes, there ponies remained, stamping their names and nature across the world in indelible relief.

Gilda reminded herself that bitching about cheating ponies didn't change facts any more than wishing for a horn would let her move the sun. Hell, she thought, I don't want the fucking job. From what Dashie says, it's fucked Celestia's head the hell up and used to drain unicorns to death. I'll be happy with just bein' badass, thank you very much.

Badass and happy both fit her very well, actually. With a pleasured sigh, half a moan, she rolled her gigantic right hand into a meaty fist. The beginning tremors were nice. The looks of admiration from her fellow gymgriffons better. Still she couldn’t be satisfied with just that. Pulling, pushing, forcing muscle against muscle, she raised her magnificent arm high, then curled it out. Bang, she thought happily, and licked her eighty-inch bicep. And even the best of everyone else's best can’t match me!

Not including alicorns. Deities don't count. Gilda cocked her head slightly to the right, and considered a possible exception-- in, thankfully for her ego, miniature-- sitting around in her gym, using her equipment. Using more of it than she did, of all the cocksure bullshit. That said, she reminded herself, At least that cheaty mark of his tells him how to use it better than Gary.

Which was better, right? Maybe, she sighed at herself. At least this stupid pony's useful, too. No matter what having him monopolize the high end of the weights made her competitive side do to her feathers, he had been a very appreciable reason of why all four hundred and seventy nine of her cohort had flown back in from Snowpay mostly intact. None infected. No casualties that would be out longer than a week. So why couldn't she just let it rest?

In Gilda's time in Equestria, she had of course thrown herself into exhibition matches with hypers. Exhibitionist matches when I could manage it, she reminded herself. Remembered triumphs brought her chin up, a warm, satisfied feeling pumping behind the steel ripple of her abs. She could usually outmaneuver a hyper-earth pony and out-strong a hyper-pegasus. But she wouldn't take even a shrimpy seven-footer lightly, because they cheated, and packed more power than even their expanded height would suggest.

But this… this was Bulk Biceps. Not just nine feet tall, the equivalent of twelve footers like Gary to ponykind, not just a hyper, but a hyper whose literal soul was formed from strength. Even if it wasn't for his recommendations, she'd have taken his somewhat halting assistance; he had the best of both worlds, pegasus and earth pony.

Well, no spiritual connection to the earth. Which made sense. He flew.

Pretty-- oh yes. Big, bulging muscles all over. Sure, his shoulders weren't that much wider than her hips-- and damn Gary for saying how much he loved "fat-bottomed bed partners." He could go fuck the quaestor if he wanted a boytoy who just sat on his tush all day. But proportionally, he was nice and broad across the shoulders, and those fifty-inch biceps weren't too far below where her own eighty-inchers would be scaled down.

Cute grin and cute ass, even that dorky earring and weird, short mane was adorable. Nice, thick thighs for a shrimp, and she knew that a number of the other hens had been making raucous speculation about what bouncing off of 'em might feel. Especially on top of the one size advantage pony males had: those thick, huge, and juicy horsecocks. Only minotaurs tended to equal the delicious log of meat you could find a pony packing, if you were into that. And Gilda was.

Despite weeks of flirting around with him, she had been still waffling as to whether or not she was going to claim a tribune's unofficial seniority about fucking their pony liaison. Which increased her fellow hens’ bitchfesting, but whatever. Not that command would care; they knew she was what was still called a preyfucker. Of course, she fucked other preds like griffons and dragons, too, when the mood and a nice piece of meat, male, female, or futa, caught her eye.

It's not like any griffon's eaten pony meat in centuries anyway, she thought amiably as she strolled over to the suddenly shyer Bulk. Not with Celestia's retaliatory "statements" clear in our history books. And to be honest, the tribes that ate sapient meat tended to be treacherous and useless in a fight against real foes, anyway. Vulnerable to demons, too. She smirked, dropping the lower half of her beak a bit. Not except in the fun way. I swear Dashie's 'tang tastes all the sweeter since she got that horn, even if she can make me kneel these days.

Her mind steered clear of that... notion. Like the rest of her troops in here today, she was naked except for the sports bra. None of them would care if she started gushing, except for her current chosen bedwarmers like Gary, Gus, and Genny. They'd wonder who was going to be made to come 'spot' her. Or fight over who'd get the chance. But just like wild prey catching a whiff of adrenaline, she suspected her musk might make an already retiring little pony too shy.

Definitely shy, even if his knee-length and more gym shorts were nowhere near loose enough to stop her from seeing that he was as long soft as Gary, the biggest of her babes, was hard. Not so little there! And he did have that weird, halting speech, not to mention a certain religious affinity; Flutters was the quietest of the Princesses, after all.

If only Gilles de Raze had been in Equestria, rather than among the Tribes! she snarled to herself. Then this wouldn't be my problem, and it wouldn't be my peoples' souls we're hoping to rescue, too!

Of course, then she wouldn't have had such a long association with scrumptious mister Bulk Biceps, nor would she have had the tasty, bloody bone to gnaw on: whether or not to jump his damn bones.

No, she knew better. She wanted his ass, or more precisely, his cock and his tongue. Griffons may not have invented oral sex-- beaks!-- but they put a lot of stock in it done right, and ponies had multiple advantages there. She couldn't imagine Flutters wouldn't have had this cutie well trained, shy Princess and shy captain or not.

But she was getting on in years; in the Dark Wings, surviving to your mid-thirties generally meant it was time to either train newbs or get political. Either way, it was time to settle down and have a nest. And while usually, that would have meant yelling at Gary to bird up and stop complaining about the way her cunt squeezed his dick too hard, he wasn't… good enough. Wasn't strong enough, tough enough, or just plain fighter enough for her to nest with. Even that might have just been "find a better griffon," but two things made Bulk Biceps a fascinating choice for future mate-meat.

First, it was possible. Hybrids weren't easy, but they said Fluttershy could make the difference little more than breathing hard. If she approved-- and Gilda and Flutters had made up years ago-- Gilda could have all the little hippogriff babies her parents could tolerate spoiling. Second…

Well. She enjoyed the fighting aspect, and she hadn't really getting much of it lately. To be blunt, Gary had gone one round with her two years ago and while she'd enjoyed pinning him down and fingerfucking his ass until his prick couldn't stop cumming in her, Gary had said after that the ejaculations weren't worth the fight-- well, the beat down. She wasn't going to push that sort of hard no, by the Flyer! For the others, Gus had just gone pale when she'd asked, and Genny didn't have the equipment to start makin' grifflets with her.

Meh, she thought. There isn't much challenge in Gary anyway.

Gilda knew she loved being on top; she had to love it. After all, it was expected of fast-track commanders, so she had to. She was the best in everything, and had to live up to that. Had to. She loved challenges more, though, and there wasn't a griffon in all the Tribes who stood a chance. She was the best. She was the fastest, the meanest, the strongest, and the most cunning. And here was this shy little pony, no bigger than the massage oilers in town.

Currently flexing out dem fifty-inchers on an enchanted barbell that she, Gilda, had strained on. Was he showing off amidst all the predators, to scare them off instinctively? Or was that really his lift for reps? Could he follow through, and give her a fight before she made him her willing plaything, to make this fun for the rest of their lives, or even just the rest of the assignment?

Or something more, something tantalizing her pride refused to let her consider.

The thought was maddening. Had been maddening, for weeks. Maybe it is time to make a choice, she thought, studying him. That note Fluttershy sent, about wanting to see her 'Bulky' settle down with someone on the border… reading between the lines, that sounded like permission. From a goddess!

Permission, or an order, from a goddess, at that. Not hers, but it didn't do to annoy the divine, and the Flyer liked the new pegasi-born alicorns. She should know; she'd been a priestess of the Savage and the Disciplined, the Synergy Divine since not long after the ponies had given Griffonstone the push it needed.

She still wasn't entirely sure what she'd said yes to when Flutters had written to ask if Gilda wanted her to "make sure that my Bulky is ready for a large family," before sending him over. Sometimes the ways ponies thought made Gilda's head hurt and talons itch. The upshot seemed to be that this was okayed by Bulk's goddess, and Gilda knew the idea would be cool with the Flyer, so...

So. To work for her play, then. She curled up barrel-sized fists and stuck them on her perfectly well toned hips, thank you Gary. "Hey," she clacked at Bulk, snapping her beak. The other griffons pretended not to be watching. They knew what that stance and that snap meant.

Gary was even rubbing his butt, the damn ham.

"Oh?" Eyes that sexy color of bloody crimson shouldn't go that blank. Bulk blinked. "Uh, hey, yeah! Any news, Tribune?" The fucking show-off was still pumping that super-iron, like it wasn't a thing!

She pondered how to go about this. She knew from Dash's letters that most ponies didn't really do the mating fight thing these days anyway, and mostly that had been between female rivals. But if you could get one of these stallions going, they thought much more with those… "Unf," she whispered, looking at the thick bulges of his balls within those still way-too-tight gym shorts.

Bulk blinked again, and she realized she'd said it out loud.

So she grabbed his dick. "Hey!" he yelped, but she ignored him and stared him right in the face.

"You think you got something special here, pony?" she asked, and rubbed a thumb up and down along a particularly thick, juicy vein… Okay, so he does, she admitted; she could feel every contour through his shorts! Even Gary's only packing two feet under the faulds. She kept her business face on, even as she started to squeeze lewdly at the prodigious package.

She wasn't going to pass up the chance to appreciate a super-fatty chub like this, after all; he would be within his rights to pony out and refuse. But Gilda didn't want to let that happen.

Also, she noted as she glared at Bulk and her nostrils flared with the scent of his precum, I'm clearly gettin' to him, and that gives me a strategic advantage. To keep him off guard-- and to avoid looking like she was, you know, just giving him an angry quickie-- she snarled, "You've been putting that thing behind guards like it was some sort of royal treasure. Kinda rude walking around like that. Like you think you're better than my boys and futa."

It wasn't her best opening salvo, but she was hoping there was some pride involved she could use to break his shyness. Get him nice and mad. It was her best chance to beat him and ride him under her crop. She ignored the part of her wondering what would happen if she didn't win. That was just part of the risks, and she was Gilda Griffon, best of the best. Strength, natural talent, and superb training could only take him so far, right?

It wasn't exactly that Bulk was bothered by having Gilda Griffon's deft hand on his cock. Not in principle. Not when she was rubbing it suggestively enough that even he realized what she was wanting. He'd been checking her out, too, almost since the day he'd arrived in griffon lands. It did handily get around his shyness.

But…

Want, growled a deep, suppressed part of his soul. Or something a bit more fleshy.

Close to hand, as it were.

Bulk narrowed his eyes a bit. He tried to be a good pony. He tried to control his aggression and turn it into enthusiasm, unless dealing with an enemy. The simple fact was that the sheer naked excess of the Griffon Tribes' premiere special operations cohort had surrounded him for weeks in what should have been his house, the gym, any gym, and it was making him feel very hyper.

Hyper irritated, hyper twitchy, and hyper prideful.

Oh! Yeah, he thought. And hyper horny, too.

To the shocked intake of breath by the assembled legionnaires, he swatted Gilda's groping hand away, little wings rustling behind him. "I don't think nothin' about that," he muttered, trying to diffuse the situation. Grumpily, he added, "I just like to be a little modest, yeah!"

It was a mistake. The long smirks on sharp beaks all around told him that. The same reflexes that kept him alive against the most cunning dark mages and tainted necromancers failed him utterly in nine out of ten social situations. And he'd had quite a nice tea with the quaestor while discussing logistics two days ago.

"Modest?!" roared Gilda. Her chiseled thighs bulged with beautiful expansion, claws scraping the floor as she ducked over him in a classic pre-pounce threat display. It made his oversized and over-eager cock pulse and throb all the harder in her (still) half amateur hating grip, pre starting to stain the comfortable fabric. Of course the fact that she was puffing her chest floof out in similar 'threat,' complete with shoving her heavy, bouncing G-cup tits right in his face.

Yeah, he thought. Just what she was looking for. Oh well. He simply admired the way the thinness of her sports bra left on thing to his admittedly currently one track imagination, especially given the stiffness of her super sized nips. Bigger than his fists, even. For that matter, they were-- in absolute terms only, of course-- bigger than the Boss', even if Fluttershy's outrageous proportions were, to Bulk's stolidly loyal mind, still superior.

Oh, hey, he thought as Gilda's rant traveled briefly off, then back on track, Looks like my dick can get hard enough to push her fingers apart a bit when it swells. Good to know.

He didn't pay too much attention to her words. For one thing, Bulk knew he really wasn't good with what you might call verbal sparring, or even logic outside of his beloved lifting, or the Hunt. More importantly, he was pretty sure Gilda was just working herself up to a dominance challenge-- complete with the expected sex. After all, she was ranting at him on the theme of, "You callin' my troops arrogant," and since the answer was clearly, "Yes, they're griffons, and proud of their pride," even he could figure out she was putting on a show.

The fact that he was having to concentrate on not popping his cocksleeve, shorts, and wad all at once because she'd moved on from halfway to outright jerking him off was, he felt, both an important Clue to her real intentions and another reason he was having a... hard... time following her speech. "Heh," he chuckled. "Hard, yeah."

Gilda's eyes bugged out and her pecs tensed hard, swelling her impressive bust line out all the further. In fact, as she screamed, "What?" at him, she popped her heavy left nip right into his mouth-- or as far as he'd let it go. He wasn't sure, whatever his nuts were yelling at his conscience, that he wanted to play.

Bulk was glad his hum of appreciation went unnoticed under her renewed rant. It gave him time to think, no matter how oddly sweet the combination of her nipple, sweat, and sportsbra tasted. And time to wonder about possibilities that had seemed impossible even a few days ago.

Not exactly going according to doctrine, legionnaire, Gilda chided herself. She had to be tough on herself, or she'd start moaning with pleasure. She'd honestly forgotten where their relative heights had placed them, or she might have chosen a different threat display-- thrust up, put 'em in your shadow, probably. But right now, she was faced with the fact that while she was jerking off the pike Bulk pretended was genitalia, she'd stuffed her nipple-- Flyer burn that damn sensitivity anyway!-- right into that… soft… non-sharp… talented pony mouth of his.

And just as absent-mindedly as he'd given her excuses to rant and threaten, he was sucking on it. His upper lip curled around her stiff nub, tugging on it like exquisitely skilled fingers, while the suction of his cheeks was making a similarly exquisite roughness of the fabric of her bra. Honestly, she was leaking down her thighs now, her arousal outlining the gigantic swells of her rippling quads in soaked fur. If she wanted to save face, she could not recognize what was going on-- or back off.

At least, that was what her tactical sense was telling her.

I hope that's my tactical sense screaming, "Keep it in his mouth and keep going!" anyway, Gilda thought. Discipline! she shouted back. Mentally. At herself.

This did not bode well.

Frankly, everything had been going so well up to now that she wasn't sure how to proceed at this point. He wasn't fighting anything except maybe his own urge to climax-- she could feel his huge maleness throb in her hands, smell his precum gushing faster than her slit, he had to be getting close. He wasn't talking either, which meant the embarrassing silence as her troops stared at them was lingering.

What to do, then? Scream fouler insults? Take it as a surrender on the challenge front at least and haul him to the ring? Smack him back down for impertinence? Smack him and scream fouler insults and haul him to the ring?

Skip the whole idea and just fuck him here on the bench? It wouldn't be the first time Gilda had done so. Hell, this was a griffon gym; it wouldn't be the first time this week someone, anyone had fucked in here. You just had to clean up afterwards, so no one slipped.

But she was trying to draw the damn pony into her world, not get hypnotized by his big… juicy… Right, time to think above my ovaries, thanks, Gilda warned herself.

While she was searching for the proper tactical protocol, Bulk furrowed his brow, and to her inner disappointment, popped his mouth off her nip and asked, "You guys respect safewords, yeah? Mine's 'Crossfit.'"

It was her turn to be stunned. "Huh?" she asked, and as the snorts started, she prodded him with an outstretched finger-- no talons. This was delicate work. "Say that again."

"Crossfit. You know, 'cause it's really kind of lame and…"

"... No, you damn pony… jerk… the question!" she roared at him, feeling like she was on a more solid thermal.

Those big, innocent, shamelessly adorable red eyes flicked up to meet her gaze, and he smiled. "You guys respect safewords, yeah?" he repeated. "Fluttershy had me study on your culture; she said…" Furrowed brow again. "You consider dom-sub relationships… uh… sacred… uh… a sacred… er…"

She sighed, her still-tingly tits heaving. "Sacred part of the Flyer's dualism and synergy, yes," She rolled her eyes. None of her trio had any complaints, and not just because she'd already beaten them. Flyer would strike her down if she'd treated them with anything less than a sexualized version of the superior-inferior respect… hell, he'd strike her down if she ignored one of her troops doing so to their mates. Losing was bad, sure, and put you on a slower track to command…

Which is why I can't think about it too much, she reminded the treacherous, yearning part in the back of her mind, and focused on the usual sermon. "Anyone I beat in the ring can call off a specific issue," she preached, "Though there's an element of failure if you have to do so too often." That was about as much sermonizing as she usually managed, and she turned to Genny. "Genny…" she said, grunting with frustration.

"Yeah, little guy," her eleven-foot tall second and bedmate said. "To be honest, pretty sure we invented 'em and you ponies picked 'em up after, y'know, things went a bit dingy for us."

The tribes fracturing into warring bands and their once mighty civilization virtually unable to maintain personal homes until freaking ponies came and started fixing things less than a decade ago was, Gilda supposed, "a bit dingy."

"Works, yeah," Bulk said, and she wondered if he'd ever quit the verbal tic. The question was shoved out of her mind when he went on to ask, "What's yours, then?"

Blinking, instinctively certain that the pony she was nearly half again taller than wasn't asking what he seemed to be asking, it was Gilda's turn to drop her beak, snap it shut, then ask, "... My what?" with vague, nonplussed confusion.

The giggles were starting again as he said, "Your safeword. Is it just safeword, or some other kinda thing,like…" He frowned. "I dunno. Dainty? Daisies?"

Laughter broke out and Gilda sighed. "If I need one," she growled, rotating her neck to glare at her subordinates. Unfortunately, they rightfully judged it only a first stage grumpiness, so only moved back down to just giggling. "If I need one," she repeated, "I'll just go with safeword, okay, little pony? Besides, I'm fond enough of the D," she said, and patted his with what she hoped was flattering reassurance, and not, you know, obvious undisciplined lust again.

Shit, this isn't a fucking challenge, she realized. We've been flirting like warriors for months. This is a fucking mating challenge.

The beaming smile she got in return for her quip was adorable, anyway. Still, it was adorable, in ways that serious badass soldiers like Bulk just shouldn't fucking be. Really, the sweet grin on his face was unfairly cute for even just a cut stud like him. It even made his dweeby earring look kind of adorable.

Which only made Gilda want to pounce the hot little bastard more, of course. I hope I ain't droolin' at how prey-like he is, she thought wryly. And best growl a bit to cover up the ol' six pack making its demands for eats known. She briefly wondered if that should worry her, but the predators in her head pounced upon his reply. "Yeah, then," Bulk said, still smiling broadly. "I'll just go get my jockstrap and cup."

Pounced, and let her smirk. "Oh, Bulk, no," Gilda said as the laughter started up again. She decided to take her time and show off herself. As the pony looked around at the giggling, chortling, guffawing gryphons, she slowly curled the titanic mountains of her arms back behind herself.

Gilda grinned, dropping her lower jaw and spreading her beak wide. That's the flexible, she thought as she reached for her bra snaps. Now for the flex. She pumped, hard, pecs to shoulders to arms to back to wings, one smooth motion that sent her wings soaring out towards the ceiling-- and opposite ends of the gym!

It also set her still-bound and still-gigantic tits jiggling and juggling like the stallion she was smuggling in them decided to go jogging, or something. Even a connoisseur of amazons might be temporarily forgiven for having their attention glued to that, and Bulk's jaw dropped, too. That's pony surprise, Gilda reminded herself. Not pony smirk. Cute, still. Her gigantic pecs flexed so hard that they were becoming visible swells even behind her G-cups, and she let out a hammy groan, licking her beak with her long tongue.

Delts, traps, lats-- dorsi and dorsi superior alike, her wings no less mighty than the rest of her-- all of it rolled and swelled. Tendons like suspension bridge cables pulled hard at her biceps, her peaks pushing back against the hard hills of her shoulderblades and back. More importantly from this angle, her triceps pushed out with dominant force, showing the little pony stud that she had nothing to fear from arms that could use the heaviest weights in her gym so casually.

As she snapped the sportsbra open, Genny took mercy on poor Bulk again. "Uh, Bulk?" the smaller gryphoness said gently. As his muzzle snapped up in her direction, her lieutenant coughed. "No jockstrap. No cup. Sorry; the dominance rite is done skyclad for the Flyer. You can pull out now if you want."

Which was true, but Flyer strike her wings if Gilda was going to let him pull out. Now or later, this or that. She tugged hard at the new, magically reinforced elastic of her bra, and then pumped her pecs out all the harder as she let go. As she relaxed her arms, her bra flew off, each cup significantly larger than her head.

Let alone her target's. With unerring aim, her bra wrapped around Bulk's head, leaving him blushing bright enough to be seen through the rough fabric, and far enough down to show against his pretty super-pectorals. Got his nips stiff-- and them shorts are about to fuckin' blow with or without me! Gilda thought, triumphant.

And it was her triumph. Bulk cleared his throat and shook his head. Since this just tossed Gilda's bra around, the guffaws became roars of laughter until the little hyper pony pulled it off his head, coughed, and said, "Nah. I'm in all the way."

Gary smirked. "Just be careful it's you in… and ain't her finger in all the way," he warned, and roars became howls. Gilda figured she'd let it slide.

For now.