Entry 024 - Griffi Vanilli (Part Two)

Five Years Ago…

Vivacious song and laughter followed me as I glided around the camp. My wings had returned to me and I had steadily improved over the following month thanks to Ottawa’s persistent coaching. I could not encourage myself to go any higher than over the heads of ponies but I could fly about and even build up a burst of speed before the bolstered limbs got tired. I’d kept the braces on that Ottawa made for me as a security blanket, regardless of the many times he told me my wings would be stronger without them now. There was still a lot of things I felt I couldn’t do.

Despite the ever constant presence of the grey cover above us, the light was a little brighter that day, the air was pleasantly warmer and there was healthy optimism in the folks I flew past. The foals of the community had picked up my song from my regular early morning wake up sing-song. They thought it was hilarious to chase me as I took my first flight of the day and sing along. Back then I knew I had a terrible voice and the residents complained often, but the thought of opening my beak didn’t upset of faze me.

I finished my flight, touched down in front of the Mechanic outside of his workshop and spun to face the kids hurrying after me.

“ATTEN-SHUN!” They all giggled at my yell, skidding and colliding into each other before giving me a messy line of salutes. I saluted them back with a wing and waved my claws dismissively to them.

“Go on, get out of here, ya wee dweebs!” They did, all except a black and blue colt with indigo eyes. He didn’t say much and always had a smile, even when I tried to wipe it off with a snide comment or a marching order.

I never learned his name.

I lowered myself to his height.

“Did I stutter, laddie?” He shrugged while still beaming at me and suddenly launched forward, hugging my beak tightly. The squawk couldn’t come out through his firm cuddle so I flapped my wings instead until he let me go free. He sat, looking dopey but contented at me and refused to leave until I ruffled his mane.

“Try that again and I’ll show you how t’ caber toss, with ye bein’ the log,” I playfully threatened. He didn’t understand the words but the tone was enough to make him gasp and neigh, turning and fleeing as fast as his little legs could carry him.

“Griffon good with foals. Shame griffon sounds like she’s mating with cactus when griffon sings,” Ottawa suggested behind me as I watched the youngest pony scamper away. I rolled my eyes and turned around, huffing.

“Don’t make me unhook your tin leg and hit ye with it. Speakin’ of which, you’ve still not told me the story.”

“Griffon has not earned right to hear story yet,” he told me, to which I gave an aggravated caw and pushed myself up to hang in midair, forelegs crossed.

“Oh aye? What do ye call this?” I challenged to his passive expression regardless of how menacingly I glared at him. His head shook, his thick and lengthy brown fur waving with each movement.

“The deal was that griffon flew high. If Ottawa can still stare griffon in eye, then griffon not high enough.”

“What?” I exclaimed, “you nay mentioned that! That’s nay fair, you cannae just change the goal posts willy-nilly!”

“It is that,” he continued in his monosyllabic tone, “or griffon tells Ottawa how wings broke in first place.”

“There’s no time for any stories, kids,” came a prepotent voice from inside the Mechanic’s shed. A plentiful shadow moved forward inside and Gypsy stepped out into the light, her hooves rested on the silver bars of a crimson beast as she guided it out of its pen. Even in the hazy daylight, its paintwork gleamed with an aura of its own. Its one eye always stared ahead with no vision to guide it but that was not needed as it loyally only charged when its rider was upon its back. Its nose glowed brighter and redder than that of an old drunk while its cheeks emitted blue lights. It owned its own big brown satchel which was currently bulging with the red demon’s belongings. This snarling being from Tartarus did not have feet, instead, it slinked along the ground on two thick black tyres which left deep straight tracks in the dirt when it roamed the area. She encouraged it to keep going until its side faced us, at which point it obediently stopped as her hooves moved away and stayed still as a pointer.

“You’re bringing the Red Racer out for a ride?” I gasped, enjoying seeing it out of its covers and in the open for the first time since I’d arrived. The significance of this action was not lost on me either as I realized this had to mean one critical thing.

“You found him,” I didn’t give her a chance to answer, “I’m comin’ with ye, lassie. Nay matter what the danger, he came with me and I’m responsible for him.”

“You’re damn right he is, Feathers,” she smirked prepensely, climbing into the driving seat and looking to me, “hop onto the back, hold me around my middle. It’s a day’s trot from here but on Red, we can get there in half the time.”

“Och, you and me on this beauty?” I asked excitedly, “how could I pass up a bonny wee chance like that?” I scrambled in behind her, wrapping my forelegs around her stomach and pressing the side of my beak to the back of her mane accidentally. I remember the smell of lavender between the ribbons she wore and the way she looked at me when I pulled back with apologies. The look of tenacity in her eyes turned the crush for her that I’d started to become aware of into a full-blown infatuation. I didn’t have time to act on it however as she lit up her horn, which started up our mount and let the magic within it roar with life.

“Mechanic, if we’re gone for more than two days then get everyone moved and don’t stop until you hit the first city. No exceptions,” she ordered. Ottawa simply nodded and Gypsy ensured I was holding tight before she pushed down a hind hoof. The enchantments growled as the throttle opened up and instantly we were cruising through town to our defense gates. My driver only needed to wave to our gatekeeper to encourage the doors out of Helping Hooves to be opened for us and once we were over the threshold she gunned the great thaumaturgic scooter into the wild valley.

Trees, boulders, and debris were set up as tests for our two-wheeled wonder and it raced around them with ease just by a mere touch of the handlebars in Gypsy’s hooves. Our steed charged through the greens, browns, and blacks of the world that remained as though it ruled these lands and moved so quickly that any ponies we did see would have been too slow to ambush us. We found that they all chose to hide when they heard us instead, as the sound was not unlike the warning rumbles from a hungry dragon.

The feeling was exhilarating. It brought back memories of flying for the first time, launching up and over hills was like dipping in and through clouds and the growl of Red Racer was near enough the same to the whistle of wind when it buffeted through my aerodynamic body. The only thing improving this experience was Gypsy herself. Her adventurous company and her thirst for life were contagious.

“I found her in the ruins of a toy factory, of all places,” Breeze was calling back to me as she drove us along a cracked and separating path, explaining how she came to find the wonder-on-wheels, “the place has the same name as this girl. There is this huge scooter on the top of it, you can’t miss it.”

“I ken the one,” I recalled the gigantic replica of a child’s toy that looked like it was ready to come crashing off of the building one day. “What does that make this grand old girl then? Is it a toy too?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied, turning us through the trees and around a bend onto a road where the dry grasslands became a weaving rocky passageway, “but I do think it was based on a foal’s scooter with an adult rider in mind. She was the only one of her kind that I could find in a big vault inside the place even though Ottawa and I had a long look around.”

“A big vault?” I was full of questions but I wasn’t used to talking and moving with the fast air closing up my beak, so I had to pose my curiosities a mouthful at a time.

“Under the factory floor. The Mechanic and I were chased into there by big, buck-ugly Manticores,” which was an accurate description. Manticores were part-lion, part scorpion, part bat and always angry, hungry fuckers. “There was a lot of stuff down there didn’t fit with the foal friendly ‘My Little Giddy-up’ and ‘Action-Bucks’ they’d been making on the surface.”

“Branchin’ out into toys for big colts and fillies?” I asked and she shook her head.

“Bigger stuff than that. Cloak and dagger bullshit,” she shrugged, “she was sat in the heart of it, and there were enough technical goodies down there for Ottawa to get her up and running. Seriously, what that bison can do with long, shiny gems and a bit of wire boggles my mind.” She chuckled to herself, glancing briefly back at me. “Once he fixed her up, we pulled open the doors and bombed out of there.”

“You got Ottawa on the back of this scooter?” I asked incredulously. I was struggling to keep on the rest of the seat and I was far lither than the buffalo.

“Of course not,” she laughed, patting the red tank between our legs, “she came with a side-wagon that he just about squeezed into. One manticore damaged it bad during our escape. Otty was lucky to escape with his life.“ I thought about the big guy packed into a small red wagon like a toad stuck in the throat of a gull while being attacked by a venomous cat and I formed a conclusion on my own.

“Is that how he lost his leg?” I asked forthrightly. Gypsy pushed her hind hoof straight down and turned the Racer sharply. We skidded to a halt on a ledge overlooking a fresh valley amongst some burnt and dead trees.

“We’re here,” she said, ignoring my question and instead lowering the magic from her horn. In turn, it ceased the growling energy inside the Red Racer and put her to sleep once more as we alighted. Tossing her daylight mane out of her sunset eyes with a head toss, she came around to the saddle of the super scooter and unzipped it, immediately passing me a rifle from out of the top tier of weapons she had assorted inside. I slipped the gun strap over a shoulder and examined the rest of her collection.

“Are we expecting a lot of trouble, hen?” I enquired, impressed by her haul. She strapped an assault rifle across her back and slipped two pistols into the holsters inside the old leather jacket I wore back then. As she did, she frowned at me as though she was about to tell me a secret she had been long overdue telling.

“What do you know about hellhounds, Feathers?”

Before sight or sound, there was the stench. I was gagging hard on the offensive battle inside my nostrils while my foot tried to cover my beak to avoid it. Gypsy, usually a tribute to cool and calm under pressure, had to back out for a moment to relief her stomach. The aroma of decayed blood, feces, and unclean canine were too hard to miss but fortune favored us that our struggles did not bring the lumbering beasts over to see who was being bothered by their living conditions. Somehow, despite the warming that the sickening essences gave us, we managed to keep moving forward until we had a safe place to stop and observe the target.

Buried in the core of the beautiful but scarred woodland was the most monstrous sight I’d ever encountered. A hellhound pit was not going to be a park full of roses and tulips but I was not prepared for the slaughtering grounds that lay in the clearing. Terrified and disgusted, I nevertheless could not take my eyes away from the visual image of a foal’s playground that had been bastardized and painted with gore until very few shreds of its innocence remained.

There were parts of what had once been living creatures strung up from the climbing frames and swing sets. Only one of these wicked creations still resembled anything like a pony. The head hung partially skeletal into the cavity in its chest and its guts now dried yet still as grisly from the waist down, while its legs and hips lost during the end of its life. The playhouse had been partially smashed apart and crudely rebuilt so that the big fiends could use it as a watchtower with bits of useless wood hanging from the frame like broken ribs. The slide looked like it had been used as an operating table and the spring rockers were now spent and dilapidated chew toys. The ground was corroded brown nearly everywhere in the park and a mess of bones and limbs which led to a building that had once been an old school house before it was torn open to see out the remainder of its broken years as a dogs den. Inside I could make out tall iron cages but without more light, I was unable to confirm immediately whether or not they were occupied.

“In there is where he’s been seen,” Gypsy whispered to me, “It was a couple of days ago, a pair of travelers only just got by without being caught. They said they saw a stallion here who was still alive and described him right down to the scarred eyes you told me about. They said he was only just being led into the camp so he might still be-” her debrief might have been more thorough, if our view of the camp was not then obscured at that moment by a great shadow.

Nopony goes looking for a hellhound pack unless they have a particular suicidal wish. The creatures are not just adapt hunters with floppy ears, brilliant noses, and keen eyes. These egg-buckers have an intelligence that can outsmart a tactical genius and as soon as they know that somepony is in their territory, they will show absolutely no mercy. In some cases, the prey’s only inclination that they are about to be mauled by one of the foul dogs is a rumbling underhoof, before the ground opens up to reveal that the monster burrowed underneath them. Rumors and hearsay claim that their kind was once a more placid form of a pooch who would mine for gems. Of course, the greed of ponies changed that and through tampering with magic and the natural order of life they turned timid beings into unstoppable killers. That is if the speculation is to be believed.

With this knowledge in mind, it is understandable as to why Gypsy and I froze to the spot as the diabolic mongrel stopped not far from us and sniffed the air menacingly. Its shaggy black and matted fur was speckled with occasional brown, its eyes were nearly nonexistent dark voids and one ear was split straight down the middle, giving it the impression of having three ears. It turned its head, and I saw a long scar trailing from the right corner of its mouth like a nasty lopsided grin. The worst part of the whole make up of this thing was its coat made from the hide of a white pony. I could see over the shoulder the remains of a matted blue mane and just cut off of the edge of the hem of the beastly garment was the top half of a green, cloud-like cutie mark.

My stomach lurched. We’d bitten off more than we could chew and wandered into Tartarus with signs around our necks saying, “eat us, please.” Our only reason for being here was now a dead fashion item. I was prepared to meet the tremendous big nest in the sky and tell old King Grover that I bucked up royally and made a right featherhead of myself. There would have been only one chance for my friend to escape and that would be if I sacrificed myself. Mentally, I began to accept lady luck’s middle claw…

The hellhound shook out its fur with a demonic snap of its jaws and moved on, dragging its huge knived toes through the rancid ichor dirt as it went on along its path. I do not know how long it took for it to leave, as I was shaken and eventually slapped by Gypsy Breeze before I came to.

“Crow, look at me, we cannot stay sat here-”

“He’s dead, they killed him, he-” the words that I whispered stung Gypsy, her hooves pulling my face up so that she could look me in the eyes.

“We need to get in there and see if there’s anypony else we can save then get the buck out of here,” her voice tinged with hurt, “if it wasn’t for the smell of barfed foal shit and blood here we’d be goners already. There’s nothing we can do for your friend but this might no-”

Her new orders were interrupted by a scream, coming from the other side of the encampment. Our heads shot to the area and we both could see more hellhounds of various shapes were pushing through the undergrowth. They had at least five ponies that we could see, some hurt more than others, and they started pushing them towards the doorway of the ravished schoolhouse. One particular teenage filly was sobbing and screaming regardless of how hard the hound nearest her shook her. The closest and most bloodied stallion tried to grab her to calm her down but his state only caused her to squeal more.

The dog we’d narrowly avoided meeting stormed straight across and towered over them all.

“SILENCE, PUNY PONY!” The yell echoed as though his presence was everywhere around us, repeating the command until it was a whisper and then nothing at all. This finally had the desired effect but he did not address the pitiful creatures further, instead raising his head to the leading pack member.

“Why you bring more ponies?” The challenge was as surprising to his team as it was to us. The fellow canine gave a derivative snort.

“Forever Meat not always here and is only one. We need more or we no last,” it barked, squaring up to his comrade who growled defensively. I was sure there was more story here, but I was not prepared to stick around to find out. Regardless of whether a fight over dominance broke out or not, none of the monsters were looking at us and we could run with our asses intact.

“This is a bucking distraction. Time to go!” I spun and had flown a few paces when I found my guide wasn’t joining me.

“Gypsy!” She had stuck on the spot again with her body facing the direction of the infernal display, her head turning towards me. Her scarlet gems filled out the whites of her eyes, her horn glowing softly to retrieve her weapon from her back. I swore.

“We can’t leave anyone to die. We were here to rescue ponies so our plan doesn’t change.”

“The forever meat keeps hellhounds alive, it only tells us no pony else to be harmed! Why you go against it wishes?” The big bad scarred wolf was snapping.

“Och! What plan?” I snapped back, “go in and become the dog’s dinner! How’s that helping anypony?” Any attempt to reason with her was pissed into the wind. That look in her eye, the way her rose irises shone even without a light on them would be a constant sign for me that this mare was willing to lay her life down for what she believed in. A moment after gazing at me and over the continued yells of the beasts, she hurried to and hissed the plan.

“Go back to the Red Racer,” her hoof pointed up to the cliffside where we’d parked it, “ride it down here and get their attention. As they’re watching you, I can sneak in and retrieve their prisoners!”

“I cannae drive the Red Racer, she needs yer magic, lass!”

“No, she doesn’t,” she answered quickly. She had to pause with a yelp as the sound of sudden dueling roars and the slamming of muscular bodies against immovable objects came from the den. The fight for the independence of the pack had begun. Gypsy twisted back to me urgently, “the Red Racer was designed for a pegasus but Ottawa told me he was certain it would work for any creature with wings. All you need to do is climb on her and beat your wings, the Spark battery in it will do the rest. Oh, and steer. Steering is important.”

“But-” she didn’t give me a chance to complain, whimper or beg her not to throw us into this as she pecked my cheek once for luck. Then she spun and galloped out of our safe space towards the frail schoolhouse. For a second I let panic and fear set in, not knowing how I would get through this alive.

“If you are going to fight, (and Crow, I know you are going to fight) then fight with every single bit of your being that you have. Even your beak. Especially your beak...” Snowbird whispered in the darkness of my mind. I swore and clawed at the ground, shutting my eyes but unable to stop the tears squeezing through them.

“Buck you, you murderous whore,” I seethed at the memory of her, “it’s your bucking fault I’m in this fucking place…” I opened my eyes with shaking pants, watching the black shadows tumble ahead of me with red claws flying and yellow teeth slicing. It was not courage nor was it terror that made me turn and bolt towards the Racer as fast as my wings could carry me. It was a purpose.

I needed a purpose to change me. I needed it to fix the damage Perriwinkle had done. I needed to feel like I had a reason to be alive again.

Stable T-Thirty, Seventh Day of the Seven-Day-Rule…

Ponies brayed and flailed hooves from behind the barrier line as Hot Shot led me, Poxy and Mr. Punch passed a long line of waiting hopefuls inside the concert hall, still eager to perform for the stallion himself and receive his judgment.

“Hot Shot, please, I’ve got the Melody factor! You need to hear me sing!” A young colt whinnied from behind the railing, his hoof joining many others who tried to reach out to him and touch any part of him to get his attention. All efforts were in vain, the producer did not take one look at them as the burly bodyguard who’d been with us since we’d stepped into the ‘Falling Shadow’ helped usher him and us past the desperate group and through into a green room. I heard other voices and realized there were other ponies in here too but rather than gushing over the bigwig, there were surprised whispers of “it’s the Guardian Griffon.”

“I need to go prepare myself to rejoin the panel,” Mr. Shot turned to me and placed a hoof on my shoulder with an eager grin, “knock them dead, Griffon!”

“What? WAIT! I haven’t-” I got to see the tail-end of Hot Shot trundle out of the doorway once more before the second black-suited behemoth in this room stepped into my way and stopped me from following him. With nowhere else to go I turned to Mr. Punch and glared at the representative of Mr. Shot, taking a step towards him. “You! I was promised my voice wid be repaired afore I hud tae sing! Whit in sweet buckin’ hay is this?” I exalted myself over him.

Punch dropped the case from his mouth into his hooves, almost losing the grasp but quickly regaining it after a second or two of fumbling to catch it. He used his teeth to pop open the latches and pulled up the lid to reveal the contents. Installed in the center of a rippling velvet sea was a sheet gold diamond-shaped pendant, attached to the center of a thin, average chest-length horizontal silver crescent. The center of the flat yellow zircon was decorated with a pinwheel of five different colored musical notes sat on an embossed star. The rest of the necklace was on a long chain so that it could be clipped around the neck. It was clear that a few extra links had been added for my broad-collared benefit.

“Th-This is your voice, M-Miss Crow,” jabbered the tense pony, holding out the jewelry, “pl-please, put it on, quickly now.” Making Mr. Punch stand there while holding the open box for as long as he could, turned out to be quite amusing but curiosity got the better of me and I took the offered item, flipping it around in my talons. I spied an inscription on the back yet didn’t get a chance to read it as Poxy-on-Dash stole the piece from my claws and took it upon herself to put it on me. It was evident that she was using this as a reason to get up close and personal with me for that short moment.

“Accept the lovely gift and say thank you, Double-G,” the mare who was chemed to the eyeballs demanded, her hooves awkwardly managing to click the clasp around the back of my neck.

“Thank ye fer the lovely gift, Mr. Punch,” I lifted it, trying to look at it but struggling to see it now as my beak got in the way, “how does it work, laddie?” He watched as Poxy took the box and promised to look after it on my behalf, then cleared his throat and rubbed it thoughtfully. He seemed on edge ever since I’d started to really look at it as if I was scrutinizing a generous present.

“You just sing, just sing! Easy as that, just sing and then, well, hee hee, you-you’ll sing!” He kept glancing nervously at the door as he answered the question unhelpfully. I shook my head and frowned deeply, wiggling the awkward regalia pressing into my feathers to find a way of making it more comfortable. Punch gasped and scuttled forward to me, producing a cry from me as he tugged the zip of my Stable suit down between my forelegs. His intention became clear as he tucked the necklace beneath the suit and closed it back up, patting the now hidden amulet.

“Oi, next time, ask,” I growled, poking him in the chest with a claw, “just how does it work, Mr. P? How is it I will be able to sing with a glorified piece of tat? How can I trust ye dunnae want to make me look like a twat?”

“It’s… I… You see,” he hemmed and hawed, once more looking at the doorway and then made a show of pulling up his PipBuck, gasping in exaggerated horror at it, “oh goodness, Mr. Shot has not taken his medicine yet! I have to hurry and get it to him before the next performance!” He was a nimble little thing, evading my talon as I attempted to stop him so that he could give me my answers and dodging around the heavyweight. Cursing, I watched him zip away and glanced at the open-eyed petrified bull blocking our exit.

“Dunnae suppose you know how my damned trinket works, aye?” I asked the statue hopefully. Upon realizing that a brick wall would have been more talkative, I gave up and turned back towards the rest of the room.

Some of the ponies in the room were still looking my way while others had lost interest. Those ponies were instead pacing, practicing songs to themselves or warming up their vocal cords nervously. I pondered whether I should be doing that. This waiting area was barely lit at all with most of the light projected onto the framed portraits and paintings of acting, singing and dancing ponies presumably on the same stage I would be headed to shortly. These were nailed to emerald walls and hung over several seating arrangements. The rest of the light of the room came from mirrors and desks where a pair of ponies were sat while two unicorns gathered several cosmetics and painted them until they were a shadow of their former selves. The room was designed for waiting, preparing and very little else.

Poxy had found us both a place to sit and I shuffled over to slip into the chair ruefully. Her head clicked as it spun to face me, the potions in her mutton body still working through her like a thoroughbred nag.

“Hey. Hey! You’re overthinking again,” her addled mind had forgotten how to keep her voice down, “he said just sing. You’re questioning too much. Juuust, sing! Now, do it, sing,” she elbowed me hard into the ribs repeating the words until I squawked in protest and grabbed her leg with my claw.

“Alreet, alreet! I’ll have a practice, just quit with yer bleedin’ junker ramblin’s,” I snipped back at her, receiving a smartass grin for my trouble. Sighing, I stared ahead and opened my beak.

“Guardian Griffon?” A mare gawped at me and then clicked her hooves eagerly, “you are going to sing here? That is so exciting! I’ll have sung on the same stage as the Guardian Griffon! Oh, wow! What are you going to sing?” She moved towards me, her mouth catching flies. A song! My next dreaded stress came to me as I realized I still hadn’t chosen a song for my performance.

“I need a bucking song,” I uttered, turning to Poxy, “what do I bucking sing?” The mare started to speak but was interrupted by a call of, “MacRural! Two minutes until you’re needed on stage!”

“What?!” Both I and a different pony cried out. The furious mare stormed over to the bodyguard at the door, seemingly hoping for better luck than I with the stoic mass of menacing muscles. “She gets to go before me? She just got here, how is that fair?”

“Merry Belle,” soothed the pony who’d had been asking about my impending performance, “she’s the Guardian Griffon, She’s only been here a week and has already saved our souls several times over. I think she’s earned the right to jump the queue-”

“Nay!” I cried out, “Merry Belle’s right! It’d be reet rude of me to perform first when these wee fillies have been waitin’ so patiently. Send one of them out instead, aye?”

“There, see? Even she agrees,” the sharply toned mare nodded, looking sternly at the emotionless horse holding up the doorway. Her friend examined me from where she was stood, from my heavily puffing chest to my knocking knees, and she gasped gently.

“You’re nervous? Why are you scared?” Her approach was not as fast as Mr.Punchs, who barreled around the doorway and squeezed past the security before grasping me urgently. A skinnier unicorn hovering a clipboard in front of him slipped in as well, the pair cantering into my personal space.

“Here she is, completely untouched. It c-could take a-a bit of work, c-can one of your team manage it?” Mr. Punch asked the clipboard wielder apprehensively. There was a scrunch of his mouth from this unknown stallion but then he turned his head to the makeup ponies across the room.

“Powder Brush, a moment please?” The referred to artist hustled over and looked me over, then with little enthusiasm, this mare’s horn began to light as I looked cautiously at the three of them. My first inclination of what she was doing came when I felt my red bandana slipping off.

“Hey, no!” I grabbed at it but she tugged it up into the air before I could catch it. “That stays with me or I go nowhere, lady!” I snarled, reaching my talon quickly towards her throat. My scarlet cloth dropped from above me powered by magic and tied itself around my arm as the pony only partially flinched from my threats.

“We want the audience to see you, Guardian Griffon. You are a pretty thing after all,” the mystery clipboard horse told me. I felt his girl’s magic touch wiggle all over my face. As she did some unseen alterations Merry Belle put on her most polite voice to pitch her complaint to Punch and the other stallion.

“Ah, excuse me. When will it be my turn? I’ve been here since five this morning.”

“W-When your name’s called, madam, if you please,” he groveled, stepping over to me to make sure she couldn’t ask him any further probing questions. He barely studied whatever this horse was doing to me before he stomped his hoof. “Stop now, that’s perfect. Bright Start, she’s ready for the stage. Quickly now, get her to the wings!” The makeup mare stopped wordlessly and returned across the room while the named stallion nodded.

I opened my beak and then really wished I hadn’t. The skinnier stallion reached his hoof out to my shoulder and I observed his horn burst with energy as Poxy let out a cry behind him, trying to hurry towards us. She was too late, suddenly the universe felt like it was trying to suck itself down my throat, spinning, and racing past my eyes with fierce rainbows. Everything lurched forward, turning my body inside out from the hind feet up painlessly, but still uncomfortable.

I tried to scream but my vocal cords no longer existed. My eyes were beaten with flashes until the felt like they’d taken several rounds with a boxing alicorn. I reached out to grab something, anything to rescue me from the over-sensory hell.

The stallion let me go and I floundered...

...For what felt like forever…

Five Years Ago…

Gypsy Breeze believed that if you told everypony in your team your plan then you were dooming it to failure. Somepony could worry about the other doing their job adequately and try to help, which had the potential to send the whole mission awry. If a pony, or griffon, had only one part of the task to focus on, they would not be distracted by the other links in the chain or so the stunning unicorn assumed.

The back of the old schoolhouse creaked venomously as Gypsy clambered on stacked crates, debris and litter to reach the partially intact roof. Her judgment and perception so far had kept her from being found out by the sparring crowd of dogs who howled, snarled and barked at the top of their voices in the front yard. Shimmying her way awkwardly along the roof edge with an aim to maker herself as light as possible, she peered around the corner and saw the fur fly from the tumbling creatures clawing chunks from themselves as they continued to fight for dominance. the chained ponies were trying to keep themselves as far from the attack as possible but struggling. They could not go far while their bind was locked to one of the onlookers. Their hopeful heroine was glad she could at least see them unharmed in the chaos.

Satisfied she could continue safely, she crept back until she was lined up with a large hole in the house’s roof and tiptoed out onto a rafter, using a little magic to keep her balance steady.

Her goal was to rescue as many ponies from the hellhound gang as she could. The ponies outside could not be reached until there were less of the hungry fiends around them and she prayed to Celestia that the distraction would come swiftly, but she had enough time before then to try to find any other survivors. After that, she would act out the final part of her plan.

Gingerly shifting along the beam, Gypsy finally reached the spot where the top of one of the tall cages was directly beneath her. She shifted her hooves carefully and dropped down onto the metal, attempting to make as little noise as she possibly could. Her hooves still clattered, but the commotion outside was enough to mask the sound to almost anything. The mare looked around the jail cobbled together with bent fence railings, metal plates from the debased recreational equipment and other scavenged items. She blanched at the sight of blood and bones drenching the floor below her and crouched on the top of the coop, peering into the darkness past the twisted bars.

“Hello? Is anypony...” She gulped on her words, “alive in here?” She jumped nervously as something shuffled and ruffled in the cage beneath her. A thump of hooves and a groan confirmed it; there was something alive in here but she couldn’t see what. Fearful of what she might find, she edged the front of the crate and peered down guardedly with her gun levitating off of her back, pointing it at the cloaked moving figure.

“Are you friend or foe?” She demanded with more confidence than she believed she had.

“Depends,” croaked the shadow, coughing after the first word left his lips, “are you dogmeat or are you invincible?” The speaker staggered into the light and peeped back up at her with his scratched eyes. She stared dumbstruck at him. “What?”

I zipped down and hit the dirt road on all fours, sliding to a stop by Red Racer. Gypsy’s loyal pet stood still and calm, the inner heart still ticking inside the bodywork from our earlier journey. Once my metal aided wings clattered closed, I inched towards it as though I was expecting it to turn around and rip my beak off for daring to touch it without its mistress present.

I exhaled out as my claw touched the handlebar without injury. The air caught something stuck to the speedometer and rustled it, encouraging my curiosity. I plucked it off of the dial to see my name on one side, realizing the only pony who could have left this was Gypsy even if I had not seen her put it there. I turned the note around and read what she’d written, finding she had left me a few extra instructions.

I read the message a couple more times hurriedly then bent down to look under the red bulb by the handles. Sure enough, there was the bright orange button, added after the rest of the scooter was built based on the discolored metal plate it sat on. It sank in easily under my claw and clicked, the innards giving a pleased whirr. It felt oddly pleasurable mounting the crimson devil, squeezing its sides between my hind legs. I didn’t have time to relish the thought however as I had a job to do.

My claws trembled as I reached out for the handles, sucking shaky oxygen into my lungs. The fighting barbarians could still be heard out in the woodland, where I was destined to return and risk my life. I clasped the bars and held my breath, stretching out my wings.

My extra limbs beat and sure enough, Red Racer roared.

“You’re Elmwood?” Gypsy asked, slipping off of the cage top and dropping onto the floor coated with sticky cruor, managing to avoid thinking of the ponies it once belonged to.

“No,” he whispered, then slammed himself into the steel barricade and wrapped his fore-ankles around the spokes of his locked doorway. He was a haggard mess with eyes bloodshot and mane tangled but his energy was not depleted. The swift action did make the mare addressing him jump. “Crow sent you? Is she here- Ohhh, of course, she’s here. No. damnit, no!” He pushed back his mane and whammed his hooves on the bars several more times.

“Yeah, we’re here to rescue you, hold up a sec,” she regained her courage and pushed forward to the lock of the door, levitating a bobby pin from her sack of goods. He pulled back hurriedly and paced the front of his pen with the intensity of a pissed-off tiger, wildly glancing at her with his glowing blue and white peepers surrounded by his permanent soot lines. “We thought you were dead, because… but shit, stallion, thank goodness you’re not. Crow’s gonna-”

“Forget that. You have to get out of here, you and Crow, before one of the bitches take down Smiler out there,” to empathize his point, he reached out and slapped her pin out of the lock.

“Hey!” She blinked at him, “you bucking lost the plot, dumb-buck?”

“No!” He shouted, placing his hoof over the lock as she produced a new clip, causing her to give him a ridiculing frown. “You’re the idiot in this scenario. Out there are the most incredible hunters in Equestria with noses able to smell a fart from the highest point of Canterlot and eyes sharper than a pervert in a swinger club. They can hear a mouse masturbate from miles away and you want to take their supper for a walk? They’re going to hate that, sweetheart, so why don’t you hop back up where you came from and take Crow with you before they know you were here- HEY!” As he was talking, her horn had illuminated and she listened to him blankly, all the while sneaking the bobby pin in and jimmying the lock. She tugged the door open and stepped into his space, her temper raised high enough to encourage him to back away from her.

“First, I’m no pony’s sweetheart. Got it? Second,” she lifted her saddlebag’s flap and levitated out several chunky disks, tilting her head cockily, “I’ve not finished my plan yet. You know how to use explosives?” Elmwood’s eyes moved to the hovering mines and then back to the mare wielding them in fascination.

“Name?”

“Gypsy Breeze.”

“I like you already, Gypsy Breeze,” he grinned. Their introductions were interrupted as a different kind of animal roared outside. Its cry was constant and growing louder, causing the other sparring creatures to stop their yells. “What the buck is that?”

“Crow,” she answered, tossing him several of the charges, “follow me!”

Author's Notes:

Want to discuss the story? Follow me to the Scoundrel’s Settlement on Discord...

Song for this chapter; Annie Lennox - Little Bird

credit to Brainiac for the art
This is the last chapter brought together due to rewrites, thus meaning some of the timings I suggested a while ago have now moved on. My plan to have something impactful happen in chapter 20 might be moved to a different chapter. I have a plan, and I hope I haven't cooked all the eggs in my basket already...

Thank you to Blazie, for editing this in his free time. Aannnnd not forgetting Doomande, thanks for picking the nits <3.

If this is when you stop reading, goodbye and safe travels.

If you're still strapped in for the ride, see you in the next chapter.

All good things,
Duskhoof