I had caused quite a bit of havoc with that flash flood, and I'm certain a fair share of terror as well, what with the message I sent. I suppose I should have felt some guilt at my actions, since they likely caused a great deal of death, not all of the victims being military, but I didn't. I suppose that to do anything truly effective in this situation, that suspension of conscience would be needed. I wondered if once it was all said and done, when I was finished, and had gotten back to normal life, if I'd be able to live with my actions, if my guilt would catch up with me, but I knew that in the mean time I couldn't afford that kind of weakness. They wanted to kill me, when they took my family, it was a declaration of war, and in war, people die. Lots of times they don't deserve it. Up till now, its always been about helping, rescuing, saving. For the first time I was fighting not to improve someone's life, but to ruin it. To leave a mark that would never go away, and do so not on one person, but an entire race and ideology.

I mulled over these thoughts as I ate some cooked dog meat, which had been slowly roasting over a small fire in the little unpopulated node. Likely there had been a gem deposit here, which had been mined out, and later abandoned due to it's significant distance from the main cave population, and the fact that there was no longer anything valuable to be found there.

I also came to think of how I would escape from their domain. As far as I could tell, there would be only two ways out, what with the tunnel collapsed. The first, to be such a pain in the ass that they open the door and leave it unguarded, so I'dhopefully walk out and stop bothering them. The other would be to cause such havoc that they'd be unable to stop me from leaving. That last thought gave me an idea.

That scimitar chewer dog, the one who I exploded, after his death the members of his pack had all gone wild, utterly confused as to who they should follow, or what they should do. The alpha's death would also have backlash back at his home. Their leader, their pillar of strength who they look to for wisdom and protection went after me, and died horribly. The den would be in disarray, open to attack, at least until they found someone able to take up the role of leader, which would occur by having all the strongest members of that clan murder each other trying to prove who the top dog is. I just needed to remember the original plan from back when I first started aboard the ship.

The alpha's are the key to the conflict.

My capture and intended execution gave me an incredible opportunity. All of the remaining unaligned clan leaders were here. Fia's plan was to have them fight amongst themselves and kill each other off, so she could then clean up the rest. Which means if she's confident that she can handle them, she must be extraordinary, and have an ace up her sleeve. That was it. I had my plan. The collateral damage was no longer necessary. I had proven that I could cause terrible damage to an entire city, now was the time to cut the head off the snake. Fia was the only alpha with magic, as far as I knew. She wouldn't give them her ace if she planned to kill them. To cause havoc and panic, all I had to do was go to the strongest of the dogs, their leaders, and totally curb stomp them. Massacre them. Their subordinates would go back home, and tell everyone about how their brave, strong, wise leader, and all the other leaders as well, got the collective shit kicked out of them. Not only would nobody dare to challenge me again unless they had a death wish, but it would make it even easier on Aoi, if he wanted to follow through on his plan to take over the whole north. Now that I've shown what I can do against an entire city, I no longer have to over think things. The best method to use in this situation is 'Hulk Smash.'

I was waiting in the war room with the other alphas, a large stone structure with a map of the den sprawled out on a great table in the center. I sat silently, listening to what the others were saying. Ringo was not with me at the time, as he was resting at home, while all the leader's respective guards were outside, either searching, or on watch duty.

"We need to perform a procedural search of the den, top to bottom. We must corner him and flush him out." A first suggested.

"That won't work idiot, he'll just slip through the cracks and we'll waste our time searching while he'll be preparing. He caught us unaware with that flood, but now we know what he's capable of. We should focus on key zones, areas he can use to his advantage." A second argued.

"And fall right into his trap? He can plan ahead and lead us into snares. What's to say he hasn't already memorized the layout of this fortress and is waiting for us?" A third reasoned.

"Oh! I know!" A fourth voice called out merrily. "Let's just gather in one place so Griffin can kill us all at the same time!" Everyone turned to look at the voice's owner, to find the very one we were plotting against casually leaning up against the wall, a pair of guards dead at his feet.

He changed again. His mental state is different. First he was calm, then he was ruinous, now he's chipper. It's hard to figure out what his intentions are when his mood keeps shifting like this. Is that why he's so hard to deal with? He's difficult to predict?

"ENOUGH!" Greywall bellowed. "I grow tired of these games! FACE ME! I used to believe you were someone to be respected, who truly believed in the cause he spoke of, but now I see all you care for is destruction!"

"Shut up." And now he's serious again. That last sentence is when his mood changed. Oh, I see, he inadvertently implied Griffin doesn't care about his family. That's what set him off.

Wait... what? When did he...

In mere moments, Griffin had crossed the room and had pressed his palm against the armored dog's chest plate. Must be the acceleration spell. "Ignis." Lightning cracked, the resonating boom cascading in and around the metal plating, sparks arcing all over, between Greywall's limbs and the gaps in his armor. Acrid smoke began to rise from within the suit as it's wearer broke into convulsions, before dropping to the floor. Griffin drew a black knife from his hip and sank it into the gap in the armor, at the neck, drew it across, then back out, before rolling to his feet.

"Whoa!" Some of the other clan leaders seemed completely taken aback by this, not even noticing it occur.

Wait... that means I can follow his movements... He's fast, but not so fast that I can't keep up! Steelheart seems to be in the same position as me, the others are completely lost.

I rolled off the heavy armor guy and jumped into position away from the others. I quickly lowered my arms, muttered a quick earth spell, and sent the great stone table across the room, crushing several of the ones who were seated there. I didn't get all of them, the leather wearing muscle dog, and several who weren't wearing armor managed to duck out of the way. The armored ones couldn't move fast enough and got pinned under it, though they were attempting to throw the world's heaviest piece of furniture off them, they'd be out of commission for the moment at least.

"Mano de terra!" Without missing a beat, I called a hand of dirt that followed the motions of my right hand, smacking one into the wall, while another shredded through the dirt with furious swipes of his claws, dissipating my spell. He quickly dove at me, keeping low.

When fighting diamond dogs, it's all about who can get lower.

I remembered Etch's words, but I also knew my own countermeasure. When they go low, I go high.

"Volare." I levitated into the air, dodging the digger's strike as he sank into the stone, swimming through it. He vanished into the floor and reached out of the nearby wall to claw at me. I was, of course, using my protect spell, which allowed me to absorb the brunt of the hit, merely being knocked to the floor with some shallow claw marks on my back, instead of being ripped apart as intended by my foe.

Fuck, even with the spell, that guy still tore into me. Those claws have got to be able to rip through steel.

I wasn't given even a moment to rest as beefcake came at me, his massive meat club of a fist moving surprisingly fast. "Protego!" I was barely able to renew my protect spell before it connected with my head sending me clear across the room, right towards Fia who had a kris knife waiting.

I rolled when I hit the floor, pulling my own blade and wiping the blood dripping from above my eye with my sleeve as I prepared for the next attack. Fia stabbed forwards with her knife, locking it with the one in my right hand as I thrust my left forward, striking her in the chest as I used a blood control spell. And.... nothing happened.

Shit, she has a protect spell on her as well! I'll have to use my method to go around it.

I did a few quick back hops to get some space. Meaty Mc Fistalot was bouncing up like a boxer... considering his breed was a boxer, it should have been funny but I didn't have the time to appreciate the irony, Claws Mc Shredder was swimming around in the walls, and Fia Fox was at the ready with her knife.

"Protego cor de sanguis." I'd deal with her first, then take out the dirt swimmer, then the big guy, then the armored ones since they were getting close to freeing themselves from that table.

I ran at Fia with my knife close to my body, ready to parry and let me get an opening for the hand, but I was interrupted by a searing pain running through my left shoulder. Claws had come out early and landed a glancing blow. Wait... why is there so much blood?

I was tossed across the room when the blow connected. I watched as Claws grinned at his fallen prey, before looking very woozy and falling over. When he came in contact with me, he wound up taking the spell's effect instead of who I had intended it for, but that left a more pressing concern...

WHY THE FUCK DID MY PROTECT SPELL FAIL?

I thought back to my conversation with Twilight, back wen I had developed the bypass trick.

A protect spell acts like a shield. You cast a protect spell, you pick up a shield. I cast an offensive spell, your shield blocks it, but what if I give you ANOTHER shield? You can only hold one, right? The protect spell doesn't trigger because I'm not attacking you. In fact, I'm helping to try and protect you, so it allows it.

You can only hold one, right?

YOU CAN ONLY HOLD ONE

In using my 'shield' to try and bypass Fia's, I had unknowingly dropped my own guard, which allowed Claws to get a hit on me. The strike wound up costing him his life, but through the searing pain in my left shoulder that had me rolling on the ground, clutching my arm and crying, I found that I couldn't move it. It couldn't have been nerve damage, since I could feel it, and I could still move my forearm, but the upper half of my left arm was now useless.

"Umbra." I stated weakly, using the spell to blind my nerves to the pain. I slowly got to my feet, the whole time looking at the blood spurting from the wound with a kind of abstract horror. It just kept coming out. My whole left side was soaking. I felt a haze setting in, so tired... the blood loss already starting to affect me.

"No... I... won't..." I stumbled, losing my balance. "Gotta use it all..." I couldn't afford a healing spell, though there was something else I could do. I had, at one point, a pony on my crew who could use a blood spell to maintain all of a body's circulatory functions, for as long as he had the magic to do so. I wasn't nearly so talented with the spell, but I could at least keep that important red stuff inside me where it was supposed to be. In fact, I could do better than that.

"Arma sanguis... SERPENT!"

The effect was immediate. The blood that was spurting out immediately rerouted and went back inside, where it was supposed to go, worming it's way into the artery it had been cut off from. At the same time, all the blood that had already left, that was laying around on the floor, sprung to life, taking the form of a small snake. Fia approached slowly, while meat locker rushed, looking to finish me off before I could do what I was trying to. Right before his fist connected, a small fanged snake made of my own blood shot from my shoulder and bit into it.

"What the hell are you doing! Kill him!" Fia shouted.

"I... I can't move!" Slab called out in a panic.

"What?" The fox replied confused.

"I used a blood control spell..." I began to explain meekly. "The moment my blood entered your blood stream from the snake bite, I took control of the blood in your body. I'm not skilled enough to use it to manipulate an intact body, so you don't have to worry about being a puppet. Florence." His body burst, splattering blood, meat and organs all over. The armored hounds who had been trapped under the table finally freed themselves, only to watch in horror as all the blood, meat, bone, and organs began to pool together. "A free form entity however, is child's play."

All the chunks and gibs came together into a blob, a sickening crunching sound echoing through the chamber as the marrow inside the bones twisted and pulled, snapping the relatively fragile connections between the limbs and other parts of the skeletal structure. Meat and organs rearranged themselves, forming a serpent with broken ribs for fangs, hollowed out and with parts of the digestive track running bile through them for venom. That was the most complex part, the rest of it was just the curves and bends of the body, which were easy to control.

The snake lashed out and grabbed the body of Claws, swallowing it with a disgusting gulp, followed by more horrible crunching noises as the blood amalgam absorbed it, redirecting the various bits and pieces, sending a load of meat towards the base that began to form a protective dome around me. Fia and the surviving clan leaders looked completely horrified.

"WHAT'S THE MATTER FIA?" I shouted, a mix of adrenaline, numbed pain, and blood loss causing a kind of drunken effect, difficulty balancing, slurred speech, and impaired judgement. "Isn't this what you wanted? You used me as bait to lure AAAAAAALLLLL these clan leaders here so you could have a blood bath, kill em all off and unite the packs! Wasn't that the plan? I told you I'd figure out a way for us to both live through this. It's simple! All I have to do is KILL EVERYONE!"

The remaining alpha's present in the den turned and looked at the one who had been hosting them for the past couple days, looked to me, looked at each other, and then ran their asses off, intent on getting the fuck out once they realized the position they were in, and all the damage I was capable of.

"Look at em go... yet you're still standing here..." She glared at me with what could only have been intense rage.

"You RUIN EVERYTHING! I had a plan, and when it went to shit, Ringo came up with a plan that would have let both of us live, and then you just HAD to try and escape! You weren't planning on helping me at all!" Fia screamed, tears squeezing out of her eyes not in grief, but in frustration and anger.

"Maybe you should have thought about that BEFORE YOU MURDERED MY CREW."

"FUCK YOU! INFERNUS!" She shrieked with rage before she took a deep breath, blowing out a great gout of black flame that entirely evaporated my carefully constructed blood golem, and made me scream in anguish as my arm caught ablaze, the magic eating fire totally undoing my numbing spell.

"GO TO HELL! INFERNUS!" I don't know how she could use that spell. I had tried teaching it to Gilda and Trixie, but no matter what they tried they just couldn't make it work. It was a simple enough word, with a simple enough meaning, but they couldn't make it happen, and yet Fia somehow could. She didn't seem surprised when I took all the flame that was ripping my arm apart and sent it back to her. She backhanded it off to a corner of the room and began panting and sweating.

"Heheh... fucker, you're all out of magic... your blood control spell is gone, I win."

"Reverti."

"What..."

I had one source of magic left that I hadn't used, one I saved only for emergencies. It was only a tiny bit, barely anything at all, but enough to pull off the spell. My eyes. My eyes had gems in them as well, and I tapped them out for enough to pull off a switch. It would make me temporarily blind, but I was switching bodies anyways.

As I resumed my griffin form I looked to the exhausted fox with bloodlust.

"Human and equestrian forms don't share damage... or exhaustion. You wasted all your energy on that hellfire spell, and I may not have any gems on me..." except one "But I can still kill you!" She readied her knife, only for the door to be smashed in as a giant, armored titan barreled through it and grabbed hold of me.

"What the fuck! Let go!" He grabbed hold of Fia as well, then charged out of the room and took off down the tunnels.

"Ringo! What are you doing?!?! Kill him!" Fia demanded. He remained totally silent as he charged through the corridors, smashing everything in his way, till he reached a large, domed room with what looked like a well in the middle.

Armored, but I can't use lightning while he's holding me. Fire won''t cut it, and with that armor, I can't get in physical contact to kill him that way, I'll have to burn him with hellfire, and try to get her while I'm at it.

"Infernus!" I opened my mouth and let out a rush of air, burning all the magic I had in the ruby lodged in my stomach. The fire caught the lumbering hound right in the face, but despite that, he still didn't seem to care. He charged straight to the well... and threw me in.

"Ringo!!!" Right after he tossed Griffin down the well, he lifted me up to toss me down as well, but he collapsed as the flame spread through his suit. He looked like some horrible automaton that spouted flames from every hole, and he howled in agony as he dropped me. I didn't have any magic remaining, and couldn't snuff the flames, so I hurriedly undid the clasp of his suit in the hope of getting him out of it.

As I opened the tin can that held the one who took me in, cared for me, and raised me, I watched in horror as he turned to ash, the dust coating the inside of the suit.

Part of the reason Lord Hades did not want anyone from the land of the dead to depart it was that those who have already died cannot die again, except for in the flames of his own realm.

Ringo's words echoed in my mind. I had for a long time known that the black flames I wielded were a gift from Lord Hades, and that flame was the only thing that could end Ringo's life. I always knew it was because he cared for me, but he said the reason I was alpha was because so long as I had that fire, he couldn't defeat me. Yet Griffin also had the flames. He used them without restraint, and now Ringo, who had given me everything, was dead. I never even got to say goodbye. Why then? Why did Ringo do what he just did? Why did he try to throw both Griffin and I down the well? I know it was his plan for us both to escape, to land in the Acheron and work together to escape the underworld, but surely once Griffin flooded the tunnels he knew it would never work, so then why?

"M'lady, are you alright?" I turned to face one of my guards, my whole body quivering as tears streamed down my face at the loss of my 'father'.

"DOES IT LOOJK LIKE I'M ALRIGHT!?!?!?" I screamed.

"I'm sorry ma'am... it's just... the clan leaders have left. They caused a lot of damage to the defenses before they went, and some of the guards overheard them. They're angry about some kind of betrayal. They're planning to return with an army, and they plan to wipe us out."

"Wha...."

"Please m'lady, our army is decimated, our defenses are gone, our people are starving! Please, we beg of you... guide us! As you always have!"

"I... I don't know what to do..."

I tumbled down the well, desperately flapping my wing, my one wing, trying to fly, only succeeding in sending myself spinning as I rushed, at the mercy of gravity. I had no gems, no magic, the one in my stomach was all tapped out and would take time to recharge. Even then, it wouldn't be enough to levitate my whole body. I reached out, desperately grabbing for anything to slow my fall, and found nothing. I fell for what felt like an eternity, till the well hole opened up into a MASSIVE underground chamber, with a river below me.

"What..." My voice, soft from the shock of what I was seeing, was lost to the wind rushing by me, so I never even heard what I was saying. Below me was a black river, which churned and sloshed. I tried flapping my wing frantically, to gain altitude and escape from it, but no matter how I tried, it got ever closer. And that's when it moved.

Just like those nightmares, from so long ago, back when my body craved the magic of dragon's blood, the river rose to meet me. Perhaps it had never been my subconscious mind telling me I needed to drink, perhaps it had, all along, been a premonition of this event, of this river, coming to claim me.

A great pillar of black water rushed up to meet me. It chased me, wrapped around me, and pulled me down, below the depths. The opaque fluid pushed on me from all sides, desperately trying to enter my body. Through my eyes, my nose, my ears, even my pores. I held my breath as long as I could, but my lungs burned for air.

When I could hold it no longer, my breath escaped me with a gargled gasp as the water rushed down my throat. Agony spread through my body. A burning pain spread through my veins, as though there were millions of frozen needles, on fire, ripping away at every part of me. Daggers stabbed through my lungs, my skin was shredded by sandpaper, my stomach churned and lurched and desperately rejected it's contents, only to be filled again as another wave of pain took me. I screamed, only it was muffled by the tides, and only made more room for this liquid agony to fill me.

I felt hopeless, as though I would never escape, as though I would always be trapped in the darkness and pain, crushed by the pressure of being below endless fathoms of depth in a bottomless ocean. I felt abandoned, why had this happened to me? Why weren't my friends, my family, why weren't they here to help me bear this burden? No... I had driven them away. My desperate nature, trying to cling to anyone who would give me the time of day, holding on so tightly that they slipped through my fingers. And finally, Gilda... she didn't love me, that's why she left me here, to this fate. That's why she abandoned me, and I couldn't blame her. It was my own fault. If I wasn't such a pathetic, miserable wretch...

I'm so selfish. She could have lived a happy life, if only she'd never met me. My parents as well, could have been happy. The people at school, the ponies and griffins and cats I had dragged along on this fool's errand... it was a madman's dream, it would have never worked... I had them all kill themselves and for what? Nothing! If only I had never been born, nobody would have had to suffer. If only I had never been born...

With that last thought, I let the darkness of the river take me. It was what I deserved. From the moment I was conceived, this had been my fate, and I had been such a terrible person, I had earned this eternity of suffering. My very existence was a mistake, not meant to be, and now this monumental fluke has finally been corrected.

I shed a single tear as I curled up into the fetal position, opened my mouth to accept the anguish I deserved, and closed my eyes.

The water tasted sour.

Author's Notes:

Well, I know it may have been a little confusing for you all, and I do admit I DID write this chapter under a minor alcoholic influence, but this ends off the captured arc. Next up, we have Griffin's happy fun time adventures in the underworld! Harold and Kumar go to White Castle? Griffin goes to hell! And there totally won't be an ocean of flesh eating maggots or any other abominations from the nightmarish depths of my psyche. *lie face* Griffin doesn't spend forever in the Acheron though, if he did, the story would be over, or really boring since I have like, another 60 chapters or so planned.

"Griffin spent today suffering eternal torment." Chapter 63 "Griffin spent today suffering eternal torment" Chapter 66. "Cupcakes, so sweet and tasty, cupcakes, now don't be hasty, cupcakes, cupcakes cupcakes CUPCAKES!" Oh, that's a good idea, Pinkie will save him from the anguish with sugary confection!

MORE IMPORTANTLY, what did you all think of this chapter? This is a very important time in the story, and I want to do it right. So, I suppose you COULD consider this a first draft of this final chapter of the arc, because at this point, it is subject to change. Like I said, this was written while tipsy, and finished at like, 2 am. So I'm kinda doing the thing where I release a chapter and then go 'hey guys, guess what, here's your chance to help make the story better!" Because, as much as I enjoy writing this, it really is about you guys, the reader, and I want to make a story you'll all enjoy.

Also aslo, We're not done with Fia yet. You'll see more of her, but now that Griffin isn't directly interacting with her, she'll have her own, separate chapters. Speaking of which, they'll mostly be crossover chapters with Aoi, from Io Kusanagi's Blue Stranger, Red Curtain, Black Sambuca, White Zinfidel. Um... that's totally the name of his story.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Do you ever spin in circles a whole bunch to make the world spin, and then fall down?

Why were only the last 12 E's of that 'wheeeee' considered a spelling error by the site spellcheck, while the entirety of the 'wheee' in this sentence is considered one?

Now I don't feel good. Brandy doesn't agree with me. I'm more for rum and vodka.

You know what else is sour? LEMONS! Will Sasso! Cave Johnson! Lemons!