Ryan led his stallions through the hall and to the slope at the end of the corridor. He could feel his heart racing as he ran against the clock, hoping that he could make it up the slope and through the caves fast enough to find Blazer. Sweat flew from his long hair and threatened to blind him. Ryan fought through the stinging of the salty liquid on his eyes and kept on running.

When they all made it to the end of the hall, Ryan stopped for a moment to catch his breath. However much he wanted not to, he knew that he would have to be ready for anything, and that meant not being in a state of panting for breath. The sloped hall wasn’t terribly long, but given where they were, it meant that there were several levels, and at each one, there would be another slope to go up. Odds were, they would have to fight their way through each level to keep advancing and search each level to make sure Blazer wasn’t lost.

“Guys, I have an idea,” Fancy Pants said.

“Lay it on us, clock’s ticking,” Ryan said.

“We need to advance quickly,” Fancy explained. “But if there are multiple levels, we also need to search them to make sure we don’t leave Blazer behind. I know that this goes against what we would like, but if the group is to continue through the caves, somepony should stay behind and search each level as we move up the mountain.”

“That’s suicide,” Ryan said. Before he could continue, Soarin’ cut him off.

“Harkness, it’s the only way we’ll be sure,” he said. “I know that it doesn’t sound great, but it’s all we’ve got. Besides, if we focus on clearing each level first instead of searching, it’ll make searching that much safer after.”

“I don’t like it,” Ryan said. He had to hurry; time was still moving forward, and they weren’t. “What do you think, Mac?”

“It might be necessary,” Mac said. “We don’t know how many levels there will be. If we try to search fast, we can try to get together again after each search, Ah guess. But Osprey’s right; it’s the only option we’ve got.”

“Shit,” Ryan said. “Alright, that’s the plan. But I don’t want anyone to be somewhere they can’t handle themselves. If anything at all happens that makes it unsafe, haul ass out and try to regroup. If you can’t, just get out and make your way home.”

“We will need to find Blazer,” Fancy said.

Ryan looked thoughtful. “Guys, this is the absolute. This, right now, is where we succeed or fail. I know my options: win or die. But I promised that I would bring you guys home. If you don’t, that would make me a liar.”

“I’d rather be friends with a liar than a fool,” Soarin’ said.

Ryan sighed. “I really wits you guys weren’t the best friends I ever had,” he said. “Since you give me no choice, let’s move!”

Ryan led the charge up the slope holding his obsidian knife in his left hand and his gun in his right. The slope was fully lighted, making for a safe run, but had no cover. If a pair of gryphons was waiting at the top behind the walls to pop out, they could hop out and shoot down Ryan and his stallions in a heartbeat.

Luckily, no one was waiting at the top of the slope for them, and they were able to file into the new level with ease. Ryan thought hard for a moment. If they were going to clear and then the levels, they would have to draw the gryphons out of the rooms to make them safer to search later. Together, they could take most of the gryphons, but alone, any of them would be killed and probably eaten like carrion.

“Here we are!” Ryan shouted into the halls.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Soarin’ asked angrily.

“If we want to clear the level, we need to draw them out of the rooms,” Ryan explained. “Then, searching the rooms is safe for whoever stays behind.”

“Good call,” Fancy Pants said.

The hall they came into was a four-way intersection; the slope, a forward passage, and two passages to either side. Down each of the passages, Ryan and the stallions could hear metal clanging and voices chanting and roaring. The group huddled up and faced each direction. Ryan faced forward, Fancy took the right, Mac took the left, and Soarin’ took a center position to fly in and help someone if need be. In the distance, small torches were being lit in the halls, revealing the menacing forms of the gryphons on level two of the compound.

“Prepare yourselves,” Fancy Pants warned. “Here they come!”

With an uproarious bellowing and earth-shaking steps, the gryphon in each hall charged from several dozen yards out. There were four in Ryan’s hall, four in Fancy’s, and three in Mac’s. Fancy started right off with magic blasts, aiming for center of mass. When one went down, he refocused onto another and then, when they were all down, started using lethal blasts to the head, spine, and neck.

Ryan didn’t want to use his ammo yet, especially if this was just this level. He would need it later. Instead, he, Mac, and Soarin’ had to wait until the gryphons were up on top of them fighting close. When they got close enough, the man and stallions exploded into action.

Mac and Soarin’ took Mac’s group. The first gryphon jumped up into the air, followed underneath by a second gryphon. The top was attempting at a slash down while the bottom went for a stab. Mac got low and put his sword on his hoof and stabbed it forward, striking the gryphon in the shoulder and burying it deep into its torso. The top one went for the slash, but was tackled down by Soarin’, who then thrust him into the wall of the tunnel. With the gryphon against the wall, Soarin hopped off and delivered a spine-snapping buck to its chest.

The third gryphon tried to make a sideways slash against Mac’s neck, but Mac hopped back just in time for it to miss. Taking a page out of Ryan’s book, he leapt forward while the gryphon got ready for another swing, closing the distance and taking away any ability he had to continue his attack. Mac then countered with a rising head butt to the gryphon’s chin, dazing him. With the advantage now clearly with him, Mac followed it with one powerful buck to the gryphon’s throat, crushing its larynx and cutting it off from air. The gryphon clutched at its throat as it felt its consciousness fade away.

Ryan’s group attacked in two pairs. The first pair went for two side slashes, one high and one low, both in opposite directions. Ryan ducked underneath the higher ones, a move that would normally have put him in a position to counter, but also had to block the lower strike by putting his 1911 in between him and the sword. He angled the block to prevent it from damaging the firearm, sending it up at an angle and nearly hitting the gryphon’s partner.

With a clear opening, Ryan pushed the sword farther with his right hand and stabbed forward with his left. The knife hit home, cleanly and easily penetrating the gryphon’s weak hide and slicing up its insides. The gryphon gave Ryan a look of shock that quickly became a look of excruciating pain when Ryan ripped the knife out sideways, disemboweling the bird.

Ryan closed on the second one, who was trying to step back to reestablish his space, and went for another stab. It hit home again, but this time, he went higher up, toward where the gryphon’s arm was. With his face practically buried in the gryphon’s shoulder, Ryan pushed down with his chin and rose up his knife, forcing the gryphon’s shoulder up and his body down. The incredibly sharp obsidian blade sliced right through him, taking his arm off, and Ryan followed it by slashing it across the gryphon’s throat.

The other two gryphons hadn’t been able to attack, as there was not adequate space, and merely watched the fight unfold. They watched in absolute horror as their comrades were ripped apart in front of them by the savage human creature. When Ryan turned his attention to them, both went pale, and spun around to run away. Ryan pulled up his gun and fired once at one, shooting him in the back and knocking him to the ground, but the other one escaped into the rest of the complex.

“Fuck,” Ryan cursed resentfully.

He turned back to his friends to check on how they were doing. Fancy Pant shad taken out his gryphons before they even got close, and Mac and Soarin’ had swiftly taken out their three, and only one remained. He could run if he wanted; he would die later anyway.

“Which way?” Fancy Pants asked.

“Right,” Ryan said.

The group ran to the right and down the corridor, passing few doors and making as much noise as possible along the way. There was a good chance that most of the gryphons of this floor had already come at them, but there was no added risk in making sure. Any time there was an open door, the guys all looked inside briefly, but they kept on running through.

The corridor took a sharp left turn at the end and curved all the way around to go in the opposite direction. When Ryan turned the corner, he saw a lone gryphon down the hall, trying to interact with something on the wall next to a door. He sped toward the gryphon, taking his own stallions off guard, and closed the distance quickly.

The gryphon was too busy with whatever he was doing to notice the human coming up on him, and didn’t make any moves to escape. When Ryan was upon him, the man did not stab or shoot him, but instead leapt into the air and thrust his foot out in a jumping side blade kick, striking the gryphon in the side of the neck. With a loud crack, the gryphon fell to the ground and didn’t move.

Ryan took a look at the wall where the gryphon was doing something. On the wall, there was a padlock type mechanism that was presumably connected to an opening in the wall a few feet to its left. Ryan looked inside and didn’t quite understand what the problem was. There were small, glass-like orbs, glowing a dull orange inside. They were probably magical in some way, which meant that they were worth taking a look at.

“Gatsby,” Ryan said.

“Yes?” Fancy said as he ran up.

“What kind of magic is in those orbs?” Ryan asked.

“Just a moment,” Fancy replied. His horn glowed for a brief moment, then faded as Fancy took on a look of apprehension. “Those are explosives. If you throw them against something, they could go off.”

Ryan looked back into the room. “That sounds like something worth grabbing,” he said. “We each need to take some and bring at least one of them back to Equestria for the princesses to see. If the gryphons can make large scale weapons like bombs, they could generate untold havoc.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Soarin’ said.

The guys all entered the room and took whatever they could carry. Mac took several orbs and put them into his saddlebags, along with several pieces of cloth that were used to keep the orbs from touching on their racks. Soarin’ grabbed four and did the same, and Fancy only took two. Ryan took the least at only one.

“No more?” Soarin’ asked.

“I don’t expect that I’ll use many,” Ryan said.

“Where do you suppose they’ve been making them?” Mac wondered.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. They all left the room. “But I don’t intend to find out. Fancy, is there anything like a timer to these things?”

Fancy Pants looked uncomfortable at Ryan. “I didn’t mention it because I knew you would want to know,” he said. “There is. If you rub it once, it takes five minutes. Twice, fifteen minutes. Three times, and you have half an hour.”

“Good,” Ryan said. He rubbed his orb three times and then rolled it into the room and shut the door. “I don’t like them having these things.”

“We’d better hurry,” Fancy said. “I couldn’t tell how powerful they are.”

The guys hauled ass through the rest of the floor and encountered little resistance. There were only two gryphons in the entire area now, and one of them ran away on sight. Fancy Pants took him down with a magic blast, and the Ryan stabbed him as he ran past. He heard someone, probably Mac, step on the gryphon’s neck and break it behind him.

Thy soon found the second slope up at the end of the current hall. When they arrived, there was movement at the top of the slope, prompting Ryan to have the guys take cover behind the wall. When Ryan peeked around the corner, two crossbow bolts flew past his face, just missing him and bouncing off the rock floor and into another hall.

“Mac,” Ryan said, sticking his hand out.

“Gotcha,” Mac replied. He pulled out an explosive orb and gave it to Ryan.

Gripping the orb in his right hand, Ryan bolted out of cover, under fire, and made it to the other side of the tunnel. Once there, he cocked his throwing arm with the orb and took three deep breaths. When he felt ready, he moved out of cover again and chucked the orb up the slope. Immediately, he was being shot at again, and immediately, he went back to cover. He heard one of the gryphons shout an explicit word as the orb flew toward them.

Then, with a loud boom, the orb struck something up top and exploded. A concussive wave shot down the slope and into the next hall, just missing the guys. They could all feel the wave going past them into their side halls, but most of it continued forward and bypassed them. Their ears were ringing from the loud noise and the earth felt like it was shaking underneath them.

“How big was that orb!?” Ryan shouted.

“It was small!” Mac shouted back.

“The orbs are unstable!” Fancy Pants yelled out. “We really need to move or else this entire complex may be leveled by that room!”

Ryan looked around the corner: no gryphons. “Who’s staying?!” he asked.

“I will,” Fancy said. “If the orbs blow early, I’ll use my magic to try to slow it down!”

“If the orbs blow early, you better already be out!” Ryan said. “Okay, let’s go guys!”

Fancy took off down one of the halls while Ryan, Mac, and Soarin’ ran up the slope to the next level. It felt like they were going in the right direction. When they hit the top of the slope, there were two barely intact bodies on either side of the hall, one twitching and the other without most of its face.

“Quite a bomb,” Ryan said. “If they can make these and bring them into a place like Canterlot, the damage would be catastrophic.” It was a good thing Ryan was detonating their supply in this location.

There were only two paths for them this time, forward and to the left. The guys opted to go left, with Soarin’ taking the lead this time, Mac in the middle, and Ryan in last. They changed their placement in the line because they wanted to give Ryan a rest from taking the heart-pounding lead.

The corridor they were in now had a massive number of side rooms and doors in it. It made Ryan paranoid. What if they were ambushed and Soarin’ was at the front? Or if they were attacked from the side, and Mac was targeted? On that one, Ryan could respond swiftly, and if they were attacked from behind, at least Ryan would be in the back. It didn’t make him feel much better though.

The number of rooms was staggering here. When Ryan looked into some of them, it was clear that they weren’t even residential. Some of them had natural light from the ceiling, indicating an exit and possible area for Blazer to be held. Others had cages inside and animals making noises, more places to hide an old soldier. This was a huge floor with a lot of places to hide; only one of the guys still in the group was suitable to stay behind.

The guys passed a closed iron door, but as soon as Ryan was past it, it burst open and crashed into the cave wall with a loud clang. Ryan spun around and saw three gryphons coming out of the room armed with swords and armored with steel plate. Mac and Soarin’ spun around as well and took positions on either side of Ryan.

“They’ve got plate,” Soarin’ said. “I can’t dent that much.”

“Ah can,” Mac said. He huffed and pawed at the ground. “Ah’ll crush ‘em like rotten apples.”

“Soarin’, you and me have to be strategic,” Ryan said. “Mac… crush whatever you can get your hooves on.”

The gryphons and the guys all rushed each other at the same time, meeting three quarters of the way between the guys and the gryphons. The gryphons were heavily armored and slow, but they were nearly indestructible, which easily made up for their lack of speed.

Mac charged the one on the right and, when he was just in front of him, spun around and gave him a powerful buck to the chest. The gryphon yelled out as he flew back onto his back, coughing from the force of the hit and struggling to stand back up after losing his breath. With the gryphon on the ground, Mac took his opportunity and jumped up and landed on top of him. The steel plate on the gryphon’s chest dented halfway between the front plate and the back, cracking and breaking several of the gryphon’s ribs. The gryphon tried to take in breath, but its crushed chest didn’t have the space to expand and take in air, and he asphyxiated on the ground in his armor.

Ryan and Soarin’ had a harder time with their opponents. Ryan’s tried to swing his sword at him, but the weight of the armor and the sword together were too much for anything more than a slow attempt at raking Ryan’s belly. Ryan dodged it easily, but he couldn’t respond just yet. A bullet wouldn’t get through the thick steel plating he was wearing, and his knife would shatter, so he was going to have to find a weakness somewhere on the Juggernaut gryphon.

Soarin’ flew circles around his fighter, but the fighter didn’t try to follow, just waited. When he saw a chance, he swung his sword sideways in Soarin’s path. Soarin’ was just able to evade the slash, but the blade took part of his tail off and dragged at the section it didn’t tear off. Soarin’ lost control and careened to the side, ramming into the wall.

“Soarin’!” Ryan shouted.

Soarin’ recovered just in time to see a sword come falling toward him and rolled away, just barely evading the slicing edge. The blade screeched as metal dragged on stone, sending sparks flying and dulling the edge of the sword. The gryphon didn’t even flinch, didn’t notice anything, and retained its focus on striking down the pegasus stallion lying vulnerably on the ground before him.

Soarin’ hopped up and jumped back, soon pursued by the gryphon. Ryan wanted desperately to get in there and aid his friend, but the gryphon in front of him was giving him no easy time either. Ryan couldn’t get a good counter in because the only weak points were inconveniently located on its sides, under its arms. It would take some careful maneuvering to get into position.

Ryan soon didn’t have to worry about Soarin, though; Mac had him covered. While Soarin’s gryphon pursued him, Mac came up from behind and tackled the armored bird and sent it to the ground. The armor it was wearing was exceedingly heavy and it couldn’t get up. Mac finished it off by stomping on its helmet, cracking its skull and doing fatal damage to its brain inside its head.

The last one before Ryan witnessed its companion go down, but did not back down. Instead, he grew reckless, and tried to get close to Ryan to make sure that if he did fall, he would kill the human upon landing. When he rushed Ryan, Ryan couldn’t react fast enough except to get his arm up and place his hand on the gryphon’s chest.

Ryan stiffened his arm and was shoved back, landing on his rear and far away from the gryphon. The gryphon continued his charge, but Ryan rolled out of the way, and the bird ran straight into Mac and Soarin’.

Soarin’ flew low and to the side of the gryphon, drawing its attention away from Mac, while Mac reared one last time for one last, powerful buck. The gryphon tried to not only follow Soarin’ with its eyes, but also swing its blade at him. It missed, as Soarin’ was going too fast, but to make things worse for it, it also tripped and fell. When Mac’s powerful apple bucking legs connected, they connected with the side of the gryphon’s face, twisting its neck and eliciting a sickening cr-r-runch from it. It fell to the floor with a loud crash.

With the enemies dealt with and relative safety achieved, the guys made their way further into this level of the complex. They had found terrible and disturbing things on the first level, but no Blazer, so there was no telling how awful this floor would turn out to be. These gryphon fighters had horrifying secrets to their methods, secrets that if they were learned by the world, they would not likely be tolerated.

The guys continued through the hall, Ryan again taking the lead, taking several sharp turns but finding no intersections, searching for their charge. Later in the halls, they did encounter a couple of intersections, but neither of them had a slope or staircase that led up. Ryan was growing nervous that they might be going the wrong way, reducing their time to get out and increasing the amount of time the gryphons had to get Blazer to a new location.

The trio continued on with no real sense of direction, only their ears and eyes to guide them. There were no more ambushes on this floor, but there were plenty of rooms that could serve such a purpose.

As they ran through the halls, Ryan started hearing something coming from up ahead. Ryan slowed down and ultimately stopped, putting his hand up to tell Mac and Soarin’ to stop as well. Down toward the end of the hall, Ryan could see a turn to the right, and on the other side of that turn, the voices grew louder and angrier.

“Shit, hide!” Ryan ordered, ducking into a room to his right.

Mac and Soarin’ followed close behind him and they shut the door. Ryan had heard more than a few voices, it sounded like at least eight or ten. If they were caught in a frontal assault, where the forces against them weren’t split up, their chances of winning were much slimmer. The guys’ only chance was to hide and hope that the gryphons passed. Though that presented a problem for Fancy if they continued and found him.

Ryan couldn’t let Fancy be taken by surprise down below, so he thought quickly. He had to kill this large group of enemy fighters in an enclosed space without risking himself or his friends. He couldn’t fight them head on, at least probably not, and his gun wasn’t capable of mowing them down. They did have one weapon that had proven itself already, though.

“Whopper,” Ryan said. “I’m gonna need another orb.”

“Be careful,” Mac said as he gave one over. “They’ll be right outside.”

“You two move away form the door,” Ryan said. “When they get close enough, I’ll open it and toss it up and out. I’ll shut it and hopefully dive far enough away that I won’t get killed.”

Mac and Soarin’ moved to the far side of the room and waited. Ryan stood by the door, which was made of plywood and two by fours, and examined the orb in his hand. It was about the same size as the last one, if a bit smaller, so the blast was going to be intense. He would have to toss it pretty high to give himself time to get away from the door and behind cover. If he tossed it too high, though, it would smack the ceiling and detonate early. And if he tossed it in such a way that it had too much time, a gryphon might catch it and throw it back in.

Ryan cracked the door open and saw a group of lightly armored gryphons coming down the hall. None of them noticed the open door or the eye peeking out and kept their pace up. Ryan prepared himself. He would throw the orb toward them when they were close enough, so that it was away from the door, and then run forward on his side of the wall to avoid the pressure wave. It was the best option he had.

The gryphons drew closer, and right as Ryan could see the whites of their eyes, he pulled the door open enough for them to see and then tossed the orb at them. The firs tone in the group panicked and tried to stop, but ended up being bowled over by the ones behind him, resulting in a pile up, exposing more and more of them to the blast. Ryan shut the door and ran along the wall, and as he arrived at the wall perpendicular to the one next to him, he heard the loud boom and felt a shockwave rock the cave walls.

Mac and Soarin’ had their ears covered and their mouths open on the other side of the room. When the blast concluded, they released their vice-like grips on themselves and rushed to the door, followed soon after by Ryan. When they left the room, they found a pile of mangled and ripped-apart bodies thrown about the corridor every which way and a few groaning, fatally injured gryphons in the back. All in all, there were twelve gryphons in the group. They could have killed the trio without much trouble at all.

The guys advanced forward to the end of the hall. At the end, Ryan felt his heart skip a beat; they found the next slope up, and this was a long one. With any luck, it was the last one, and up there would be their way out and maybe Blazer. The gryphons’ leader would no doubt be up there as well, but Ryan would only be concerned with him if he presented an active barrier between him and his goal of rescuing the stallion.

“Alright, this looks like it could be the last level,” Ryan said as he turned to his friends. “Someone needs to stay here and search the massive number of rooms.”

“I’ll do it,” Soarin’ said.

“I was about to ask you if you would,” Ryan said.

“I knew,” Soarin’ replied. “You gave me a look while we were running. I’m a fast flier and I can search the level quickly. That slope can only be walked, not flown, since it’s so confined, and only a workhorse can make it. Mac is the best bet for making it up, besides also being the best fighter against those heavily armored guys.”

“Eeyup,” Mac said.

“You already put more thought into this than me,” Ryan said. “Thanks. Be safe.” Ryan and Mac turned and started their way up the slope.

“Your the ones who need to worry more about that I expect!” Soarin shouted back before flying off to search his level.

Ryan and Mac had to walk up the slope because the length and severity of the angle didn’t permit for running. Ryan kept his gun up and his knife out the whole way in case something got ugly, and Mac kept low to the ground so he wouldn’t be knocked back.

“It’ll be good to get home,’ Mac said out of the blue.

“You’re telling me,” Ryan said. “You’ve got a fiancé waiting for you. Of course you want to get home.”

“Ah can’t wait,” Mac said. Sweat was pouring from his and Ryan’s heads. “To just relax with her’ll be somethin’ wonderful.”

“Too bad we never got a chance to go shopping or something,” Ryan said. “You could’ve gotten her a gift and said that it reminded you of her on the trip.”

“Ah don’t doubt Ah would have found somethin’,” Mac said. “A necklace maybe. But she don’t really like those a ton.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Ryan said.

“Where did you get your necklace, Harkness?” Mac asked. “Ah don’t think Ah ever did learn.”

“I would have sworn I told you,” Ryan said.

“Remind me,” Mac said. “Get me t stop thinking about this damn slope.”

Ryan laughed. “It was a gift from my parents and Karate Sensei after I got my Shodan,” he explained. He could feel it bouncing against his chest. When he threw everything on after killing Bull’s Eye, he hadn’t even noticed putting it back on, it was so automatic to do. “It means ‘Spirit’. It reminds me to not give up on my goals and dreams. I forgot it for a while, but you guys made me remember. Maybe for me, it’s the spirit of friendship.”

“Now yer sounding like mah sister,” Mac said with a chuckle.

Ryan shared his amusement. “Yeah, well. Your world rubbed off on me just a tad.”

“Not as much as you rubbed off on this world,” Mac said, thinking of everything he learned from the man.

“I would say the same for you, but you’ve had a special somepony for long enough that I don’t think it works,” Ryan said with a grin.

“Hey now,” Mac warned.

“Library,” Ryan said. Mac grinned and shook his head as he and his best friend continued on.

Finally, they reached the top, only to find that it split into two directions; left, and forward. To their front was a long hall, but they could clearly see an end to the hall. If the rooms had extra halls behind them, that would be a problem, but that didn’t seem to be the layout of this place so far. To their left, at the end of a short hall, there was another split. On the left down there, natural light came in in huge quantities; a way out. The other direction likely had another hall.

This was clearly the final floor of the complex, and there were two ways they could go. There were also two guys left still moving and exploring. Ryan turned to Mac with a serious expression.

I got left, he said with his eyes.

Ah got the right. Ah’ll try not to take too long.

Ryan looked apprehensively down the hall. You don’t do anything reckless, buddy. This is the last stretch.

Ah ain’t the one who’s gonna be reckless here. You said you made a promise to bring us home. That don’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to make sure you come home too.

I’ll be careful. I always am.

Ah know.

Ryan turned to the hall to his left, but gave one last look to Mac. Stay safe, friend.

You too.

The stallion and human parted ways and ran down separate halls, wary of the dangers ahead and fully prepared to put an end to their journey once and for all.

Mac ran down the hall checking one room at a time. The first two had nothing particularly special. There were cots and nests in them, some nightstands, and a couple of lamps. Mac checked inside any drawers he saw for anything useful, a sheet of paper with information or a small weapon. They were totally empty, devoid of contents, telling Mac that the gryphons were either gone already or getting ready in the open area he spotted down the other hall.

The next few rooms were about as productive as the first two. These ones had wooden crates and boxes stacked all over the place, but when Mac knocked them over, they were all either empty or had junk in them, like scrap metal or burned books. It was possible that the books used to have valuable information, but in their current states, it was unlikely that they could help.

Mac was able to just glance into some of the other rooms and see that there was little of value. A couple of them used to have furniture, but were now empty rooms, only usable for echoes and a lonely emptiness. Mac bypassed them when he found them.

The last few rooms were of more interest. The first of them contained a smelter and forge, presumably for the scrap metal, and several molds for shaping swords, axes, bolts, and arrowheads. A rack on the wall had many newly forged weapons sitting on it, but none of them were very impressive. Mac could make a hammer with a better cutting edge, a HAMMER, using his own small forge, than these gryphons could make a sword with a cutting edge.

There were flames on the forge, which Mac doused using the cooling buckets filled with water. Even if this part of the cave did survive the coming explosion, this forge would be difficult to restart and use if they returned for it. Mac wanted to damage as much of the gryphons’ facilities as he could to reduce their fighting capabilities to rubble while he and the rest of his stallions reduced their numbers to the smallest possible amount.

Once the forge was doused, Mac took the weapons, set them against the wall, and bucked them, bending them out of shape and slashing them against the wall to make them unusable. He followed that by breaking the grindstone and scattering the pieces around the room, then throwing water into the smelter, then kicking it over. It was heavy and took some effort, but when he had it down, he felt proud of the work he did. He also noticed how much cooler the room got and how much steam there now was.

He moved onto the next room. It was a storage room. Mac pulled one of his orbs out of his saddlebag and rubbed it twice. If his memory were correct, this one would go off five minutes after the big explosion, so if this floor were even still intact after, it wouldn’t be in the end. Mac shut the door and moved on.

The last room had a much better made wooden door than any others. It was obviously meant to be sturdy, but it wasn’t supposed to be indestructible. Or maybe it was meant to be more comfortable. Mac opened up the door and took a look inside.

His last theory was correct; it was meant to be more comfortable. Inside this room, there was a female gryphon with several little babies in front of her, behind the nest where Mac couldn’t actually see them. She was cowering in her nest, covering her little ones as best she could from the big, scary stallion that had come to take them from her.

“Stay back!” she screeched. Mac didn’t flinch. “I’m warning you, I’ll kill you!” Mac still didn’t move, only looked.

He moved inside and shut the door behind him, then looked back at the mother. She looked about ready to break into tears, to beg for mercy like Mac was here to murder her. Her talons, Mac noticed, weren’t sharp or dangerous. They had been dulled to the point where they were rounded stubs on her claws. The most she could do was beat something with them.

Finally, she burst into tears. “Please, don’t hurt my babies!” she said. “I can’t lose these ones! I can’t! I won’t let you take them!”

“Ah ain’t here for them,” Mac said slowly in his southern drawl.

The gryphon looked at him and blinked. “What?” she said.

“Ah ain’t here to take them,” Mac said. “Ah ain’t here for you at all. Ah came for a pony, Blazer. Ah don’t right care what you do, long as you don’t attack me.” The gryphon looked happy for a split second, but quickly went back to protective mode.

“How can I trust a pony?” she asked.

Mac looked around the rom for a moment. There were no decorations, save for pictures of some large gryphon that he assumed was the leader of this group. He was in several places, with large portraits, and only one of them had this female gryphon in it. There were no kids anywhere, other than the two that Mac hadn’t actually seen in the nest.

“’Cuz Ah’m not the one who holds you here,” Mac said.

The gryphon looked distrusting at him, but her expression softened, and she eased her tension a little. Mac could just make out the forms of the little ones, sleeping quietly despite their mother’s cries for mercy. The mother scooped them up and put them into a harness on her chest and stepped tentatively out of the nest, watching Mac all the while.

“You would just let me go, like that?” she asked. Mac nodded. “Why?”

“Mah fight ain’t with you,” Mac said. “Mah fight is with my search for mah fellow stallion.”

“I know where they have him, if he’s still there,” the gryphon said. “He’s in the open air area, just in the other hall. Probably caged up. He fights a lot, though, so he might have bought you some time.”

“Thanks,” Mac said, turning around to leave.

The gryphon flew out ahead of him and stopped outside the door. “Thank you,” she said. “For not bringing the fight to me.”

“So long as you don’t bring anyone else to the fight, we’re square,” Mac said. “So long as you do that.” The gryphon nodded emphatically and flew off down the hall, out of sight and out of mind.

Mac left the room and ran down the hall. The gryphon was already gone, but that was just as well. It was better that she got out, hopefully. Mac now knew where Blazer was, and if he knew Ryan, Ryan avoided that area as soon as he saw a small army in there. Ryan was either waiting there or working down the other hall, however long it was.

When Mac reached the end of his hall, he was about to make the turn when he heard something coming from the slope. He braced himself for combat, not even pulling his sword out, and instead opting to use his hooves. He couldn’t see into the sloped hall because of his angle, but he was ready to pounce on whatever came.

“Ah!” Mac gave a feral roar as he jumped up to startle the new fighters.

They weren’t new fighters, though. It was Soarin’ and Fancy Pants, coming up from searching their levels. Mac already knew that neither of them had found anything about Blazer, and anything else could wait until later. Before they could recover from the startle and say anything, Mac pointed down the hall.

“Blazer is in the open area, being moved! We gotta move!”

“Where’s Ryan?” Soarin’ asked.

“Somewhere in that direction,” Mac said. “Come on, let’s go find him!”

The stallions were back together again, and sprinted down the hall and to the right at the end to find their closest friend and best chance at escaping this hellish place.

Ryan left Mac to his hall and ran down his own. At the end, went straight to the right, ignoring the rainy opening in the other direction. If that were a way out, he would check it on his way out. In the meantime, he would see what lay in the other direction.

The hall he entered was short, with only three rooms. There was one to either side, and one at the end. The ones to the side were normal, like any others he had seen so far, but the one at the end was special. It had a very nice hardwood door, an actual doorframe, and an eagle claw painted on it. Underneath the eagle claw was a crude depiction of a pony being scooped away and screaming.

Ryan checked the doors to the left and right before going to the end. They were clearly for some elite fighters, probably those juggernauts he ad fought earlier. There were multiple sets of heavy armor inside each room and some very large swords. They weren’t quite the Scottish Claymore, but they certainly came close. Too bad the users were gone now.

Ryan stopped before the final door and listened. He pressed his ear against the door, hoping to get something, but nothing came through. Either there was nothing happening on the other side, or someone was being very quiet. Ryan didn’t like it. Carefully, gun in his right hand and knife in his left, he pushed the door open and kept his eyes forward as he entered the room.

It was extremely spacious inside. The ceiling went at least thirty feet up, and there were no stalactites on the ceiling, permitting for easy flight inside. That would be especially useful for reentering the cave from the outside. Around the room, there were various pieces of household furniture sitting around, though they were quite far apart. There were a couple of couches by the walls, a bed on the far end, some large box labeled “Cooling Box”, nightstands, tables, and rugs. Ryan would never put a nice rug on a cave floor, but then, he was no interior decorator.

When he walked in, a lone gryphon was sitting in a chair toward the center of the room, but a little bit closer a massive opening to the outside than to the door. He didn’t move to get up or see who had come in, just kept sitting there. Ryan saw him and froze, hoping he had been unnoticed. His hopes were dashed when the gryphon turned to look at him.

“I was wondering if you would make it here,” he said. Ryan pointed his gun at the gryphon. “Really? You would kill an unarmed, old, helpless gryphon?”

“You’re far from helpless,” Ryan said.

“True, true,” the gryphon said. He motioned his arm at another chair to his left. “Please, come and sit. Let’s talk.”

“No time for that,” Ryan said, glancing at his watch. “This whole cave is going to go down in ten minuets.”

“You found the explosives, didn’t you?” the gryphon asked, shaking his head. “I told them it was foolish to try something like that. Told them that it was better to wait until we were ready to attack Equestria in force.”

“Who the hell are you?” Ryan asked.

“I suppose my name doesn’t really matter to you very much,” the gryphon replied. He motioned to the chair again. “But very well. My name is Guifrond Wat.”

“That isn’t a name from around here,” Ryan said. He moved to the chair but didn’t sit.

“No, it isn’t,” Guifrond said. “I come from the Western Gryphon Colonies, far from here.”

“You’re sympathetic to their cause, right?” Ryan asked. He had heard about this all the time back home with terrorist fighters. “You came to provide them the means they needed and the leadership they deserved.”

“Yes,” Guifrond said. “I have always hated the ponies. That I can help my brethren destroy them is all I have wanted.”

“And why is that?” Ryan asked.

“Because they killed my mother’s family,” Guifrond said. “And my mother. She was in the South, here, when the ponies attacked. She was innocent, trying to get out with her family, when she was caught in the middle of a battle. The ponies killed her and never even admitted to it.”

“As sad as that is, I don’t give a shit,” Ryan said.

Guifrond sighed. “That’s the problem with you foreigners,” he said. “You never care until it affects you, and then, it is too late. Tragedies are unavoidable when that is how you do things, and I aim to make the ponies understand that.”

Ryan looked outside. “Those are my friends you’re talking about,” he said. “If you insist on doing this, I’ll have no choice but to take you out.”

“I understand that,” Guifrond said. “It affects you now. You must act. You have a rare chance to prevent a tragedy, and you want to take it.”

“I can’t unless you give me a reason,” Ryan said. “I don’t have my reason just yet. But I do have a question.”

“Yes?” Guifrond said.

“You know that what you do will hurt innocent ponies, so why do it?” Ryan asked. “You said yourself it would be a tragedy.”

“Because the ponies could have had their government end its fighting,” Guifrond said casually. “They did not. They could have acted to prevent my tragedies and what will soon enough be theirs. These are the consequences of their actions.”

“But you have the chance not to enact the tragedies,” Ryan replied. “How will it be their fault if you make their choice irrelevant by acting on your own whims?”

“My whims are shaped by their inactions,” Guifrond said. “But at least if I do it, it will happen the way I want. I have colleagues who would bomb the little fillies’ and colts’ schools. I will not start with such an act. I want this done in a certain way, in my methodical order, to get what I want.”

“You sound like a sociopath,” Ryan said.

Guifrond shrugged. “I would bet that you are,” he said. “How many lives have you taken, hm? Do you count like a psychopath, or like a guilty individual? Do you forget like a sociopath, or forget like an ashamed child?”

“I stopped counting,” Ryan said. “How many have you killed?”

“Seventy-eight,” Guifrond replied nonchalantly. “Though that number will soon increase.”

“You’re more of a sociopath than me, then,” Ryan said. “I don’t go out looking to kill people.”

“Don’t you?” Guifrond asked. He stood up. “You are here to find your friend. You knew that coming here would mean violence, yet you came while saying you didn’t seek to kill anyone. It is your basest instinct. All beings, save for a few exceptional individuals, have two needs; to create… and to destroy. You came here to make something you think is good by saving your friend and to destroy your enemies.”

“You aren’t my enemy,” Ryan said.

“I’m not?” Guifrond asked. He laughed. “Well, I guess that you can’t kill me then. Or any of my fighters that you’ve already killed. That would make you a murderer.”

“Does it?” Ryan asked. “What makes me a murderer? That I seek to destroy your acts of violence and your future acts of violence against the ponies? That I seek to protect the ponies that have cared for me? Where do we draw the line between good killing and bad killing? Is there a line?”

Guifrond looked outside. Here, they were just above the clouds. They could still hear the rain, but the sun shone through the opening like a normal day in an Equestrian pasture. The sun’s warmth, courtesy of Princess Celestia, ironically, was what made Guifrond’s living space pleasant enough to live in.

“There is no line,” Guifrond said. “Right and Wrong are one and the same. It all just depends upon whom you ask. I believe that fighting the ponies is right. You-“ he pointed at Ryan. “Believe that fighting me and protecting the ponies is right. So who, of the two of us, is truly evil?”

“When no one is evil, there can be no conflict,” Ryan said. “Yet here we stand.”

“In mutual evil and good,” Guifrond said.

“Fighting for what we believe in.” Ryan looked outside.

“One of us is leaving this place,” Guifrond said.

“Or two good men can leave,” Ryan said. He looked to Guifrond. “I won’t kill a good man.”

“No?” Guifrond said. He flared his wings. “That actually surprises me. Maybe you aren’t so evil.”

“I like to think not,” Ryan said. He put away his knife.

Guifrond positioned himself at his personal exit. “I hope that you will not regret this,” Guifrond said. “I will plan out my attacks on the ponies. And I will carry them out. I hope that by then, you can see how evil they are.”

“They aren’t evil,” Ryan said.

“I believe they are,” Guifrond said. “And I will start by eliminating their false symbols of righteousness; the hypocritical Elements of Harmony.” Ryan stared at Guifrond as the gryphon approached the ledge and was about to take off.

Before Guifrond got off the ground, an ear shattering bang erupted from behind him. He didn’t know what it was, but something small and as hot as a burning coal ripped through his chest. He watched as a spatter of his blood flew out before him and rained down onto the mountain below.

He clutched at the hole that went all the way through his chest and tried to breathe, but felt his chest sucking in. He turned around in shock to see the human standing behind him, pointing the L-shaped weapon directly at him. A small plume of smoke came out the front.

“You… you shot me,” he said.

“Yes,” Ryan replied uncaringly.

“You said you would not kill a good person,” Guifrond said angrily.

“That was before you said you would still kill my friends,” Ryan replied coldly.

“You son of a-”

Ryan fired twice at the gryphon, aiming low the first time and high the second. The first bullet flew through Guifrond’s gut, pushing his torso back and shoving his head forward. The second bullet slammed into his head, exploding into the right side and ripping away most of what was there. His skull shattered on that side of his head, revealing a torn up mass of brain tissue as the gryphon twisted and fell limp to the ground. His head and neck went over the edge, then dragged the rest of him away, falling off the ledge like a rag doll falling off a dresser.

Ryan looked at the empty space for a moment, then turned and walked away, dropping his empty magazine and loading a full one to continue his search for Blazer.

The guys heard three loud bangs come from the hall to the right. They knew what that meant; Ryan really wanted someone dead. When they hit the end of the hall they were in, Fancy Pants glanced left. There was a small army of gryphons in an open area, surrounded by boxes and small cages and sacks. Fancy didn’t get a good enough look to see where Blazer was, though.

The next hall was short, but they didn’t have to go far. Right as they turned, the door at the end opened slowly, and out walked Ryan with a face of pure ice. Ryan slowly made his way down the hall, walking right past the guys toward the open area.

“A lady gryphon said he was in that area,” Mac said.

“Good,” Ryan replied. “I had a feeling.”

The guys had to ignore Ryan’s attitude for the moment while they slowly approached the end of the hall and got really low. When Ryan hit the ground, his attitude turned right back around, and his face took on the same cautious, observant look it had before. He crawled slowly to the end just far enough so that he could poke his eyes over the edge.

The stallions joined him and they surveyed the room. There were boxes everywhere, getting ready for transport. The gryphons had sky carriages not unlike those of the ponies, but these ones were clearly meant for cargo, not royalty. They had straps and chains to keep stuff on as it flew in the unstable winds of the colonies.

They couldn’t see Blazer. He was in either a cage out of sight or in a box, that was for certain. It didn’t look like any carriages had left, if the full parking area was any indication. The guys had to hurry, too; they had less than ten minutes.

“We need to get down there,” Ryan said. “Any ideas?”

Mac looked over the edge. “These boxes below us should be good to hide behind,” he said. “Just gotta get down there.”

“Okay, that’s where we’re heading,” Ryan said. “Get up and run in three… two… one!”

Everyone got up and ran at the same time. Soarin’ launched himself over and glided down quickly, beating the others there. Mac and Fancy Pants slid down on their four hooves while Ryan had to take quick little steps to avoid further destroying his already broken down shoes.

But they took too long. “Up there!!” a gryphon shouted.

Before Ryan made it all the way down, bolts started flying at them. Mac and Fancy were just able to make it down before the majority of the barrage hit, but Ryan was still going when they came. He put his hands up to prevent them from hitting his head, and thankfully, none went in that particular area. Several, however, did come at him and strike his torso, on the steel plate he had installed in his vest as armor. They hit at an angle and didn’t pierce, luckily, but they did knock him down and send him tumbling to the floor.

“Aaahhh,” Ryan groaned, holding his gut.

“Ryan!” Mac shouted carelessly, more concerned about his friend. He ran up and dragged him to cover with his teeth. “Are you hit?!”

“Nah, I’m good,” Ryan said through gritted teeth. “Steel plate.” He tapped the metal graciously.

“You clever bastard,” Fancy said.

The bolts were still coming, and not too far away, a small explosion rocked the room. “Dammit, they’ve got bombs!” Soarin’ shouted.

“We’re not getting’ out there without something to keep ‘em down,” Mac commented.

Ryan thought about the situation they were stuck in. They couldn’t press forward, not without taking a hundred bolts to their fronts and being killed in a heartbeat. If there were explosives being thrown at them, they wouldn’t be able to stay here. The enemy was in a heavily defensible position form the inside; from here, the guys were helpless.

From here.

Ryan turned to Soarin’. “Osprey!” he shouted, getting his attention. “You still have your bombs?”

“Got ‘em right here!” Soarin’ said.

“Good, ‘cuz we’re gonna need them! You see that opening?” Ryan asked, pointing at the opening. Soarin’ nodded. “There’s another one in the room at the end of that hall! Fly out that one, come back through there, and drop some ordnance on ‘em!”

“Gotcha!” Soarin’ shouted back. Like a bolt of lightning, he zipped out of the rom and followed Ryan’s instructions.

That left three of them still being barraged by the gryphons. The bolts weren’t stopping, like they were from automatic weapons or something. The explosions were few and far between, mostly being used as area denial weapons to keep the guys form getting close. If they started throwing them farther, though, that would be a real problem.

“We do not want to be here!” Fancy shouted.

“Just wait, Soarin’ll come through any second!” Ryan shouted back.

They waited for several seconds: no air support. “Harkness, are y’all sure he knows the way!?” Mac asked.

Just as Mac questioned Soarin’s navigational abilities, a blue bolt shot through the room and landed next to them, followed by the sounds of several large explosions rocking the latter half of the cave. Gryphons screamed and flew every which way, with body parts separating and blood flying. Boxes and cages fell over, making a huge mess to navigate and causing more than a little concern for Ryan.

“Where’s Blazer?” Ryan asked no one in particular.

“He wasn’t in that area,” Soarin’ replied. “That was all equipment.”

Ryan looked out from his cover. Up ahead, one specific zone had been leveled, destruction dominating the room. On the other side, everything was mostly intact, and gryphons were scrambling to get boxes onto carriages and out of the building.

One of the gryphons had a stallion on his back.

“THERE HE IS!” Ryan shouted, jumping out and running toward the gryphon.

The stallions followed close behind as Ryan sprinted toward his enemy. Ryan watched as the gryphon loaded Blazer onto a carriage, then turned around and panicked as he saw the human approach. The puller of the carriage freaked and started running, dragging the stallion with him.

The stallions addressed the several gryphons that were loading gear and boxes while Ryan chased after the carriage. It was about halfway to the runway when Ryan caught up. Ryan couldn’t stop the carriage by taking the actual carriage out, but he was able to tackle the gryphon dragging it to the exit. Tangled in a mess of harness and ropes, the gryphon was helpless to stop Ryan as he pulled out his knife and stabbed it in the neck.

When that was done, Ryan got up and walked over to the stallion, lying in the carriage only half awake. The carriage loading dock was short to the ground, around Ryan’s knees, so Ryan had to kneel down to look Blazer in the eye. As he lowered himself down, Blazer started to come to a bit more, looking at Ryan with a terrified expression.

“Wha- w-who are you?” he asked.

“Blazer?” Ryan asked. Blazer furrowed his brow, then nodded once.

“I’m here to take you home.”

Blazer looked shocked at Ryan, then turned to see what else was happening. When he saw three ponies, a Unicorn, Earth Pony, and Pegasus, fighting his captors and killing them, his eye started to tear up and his jaw quivered. He turned back to Ryan and weakly lifted his hoof up, which Ryan readily took and used to swing the stallion onto his back.

Blazer’s wing muscles were too weak to fold his wings, so an odd pair of leathery bat wings draped over Ryan’s body as he carried Blazer away from the action. Soon after, the action eased, and all was quiet in the cave, save for the sound of rain pattering away at the mountain below the clouds. Never again would any of them have to walk through the dark, freezing clouds. Hopefully.

Ryan was surrounded on all sides as he carried Blazer to the exit of the cave. The guys were all looking at Blazer kind of funny, like they never really expected to save him or see him.

“So this is a bat pony,” Soarin’ commented. Now Ryan understood.

“Exactly what Ah expected, honestly,” Mac said. “Wasn’t sure it would be.”

“I never have designed for one before,” Fancy Pants said. “I shall make him a special garment as a welcome home gift some time soon.”

“First we need to focus on getting home,” Ryan said. They were standing before the walkway to the rest of the complex. “There’s probably a map of the area in that room at the end of the ha-“

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The cave floor started to shake, and loud cracks and crackles sounded out everywhere. Ryan looked back at the opening to the cave and saw several incredibly hug cracks and breaks in the wall and floor. Before he could shout, some of it was falling away.

“RUUUN!” he shouted.

He and the guys sprinted up the steps in an absolute panic. Sweat poured off their brows and their muscles screamed at them for the exertion, but they didn’t notice the pain. Their survival instincts had kicked in, their blood was pumping, adrenaline rushing. They didn’t notice the walls of the cave releasing dust and small fragments around the, as they ran to the leader’s room.

Inside that room was no better. The ceiling, thankfully, had nothing large to drop on them, but that didn’t stop a huge crack from permeating the whole damn thing. If they stayed here, the whole thing might collapse and either trap them here or crush them all to death. It wouldn’t do that now, not when they were so close.

“What the hell do we do now!?” Soarin’ asked.

Ryan looked around, trying to think. There were no maps in here, there was no escape. Ryan pulled over Big Mac and placed Blazer on him, tying him down with the straps from Mac’s saddlebags. For safety, Ryan took Mac’s remaining orbs and tossed them out the opening. Seconds after they went outside, they hit the ground and detonated. From that, Ryan gleaned the most important piece of information eh could have asked for.

“Outside,” he said quietly to himself. He ran to the ledge and looked out; the clouds had been moved by the shockwave, and he could clearly see a mostly smooth rock face below. “Outside!”

The guys all ran over and looked. “You want us to go out there!?” Fancy Pants shouted. “We don’t know what to expect! We can’t see or stop ourselves!”

“You want to stay here!?” Ryan asked. Fancy Pants looked into the room.

“A fair point,” he conceded.

“Then come on, jump!”

Ryan took the lead, followed by Soarin’ who flew, then Mac with Blazer, and then Fancy, who used his magic to push a ball of light forward so they could see. When they passed the clouds, everything got loud and wet, and Ryan could feel the orb-damaged rock face become smooth as porcelain and slippery as a slip n’ slide. Thanks to Fancy’s magic light, he could just make out the airships from the city below. Talk about luck.

“There!” Ryan shouted, pointing at the airships. “Get to the ship!”

The guys continued to slide at the same speed down the slope with the light ahead of them. Down below, Ryan could see gryphons starting to come out of the city holding lamps and torches, trying to see what was happening. With the mountain’s shaking, many of them were fleeing and flying away, lights fading in the darkness of the storm.

The guys hit the bottom of the mountainside after several minutes of sliding. The mountain had stopped rumbling, meaning that the city might not be taken out, and the gryphons may return later in the day. Ryan didn’t care much, though. He and his friends wouldn’t be around much longer.

At the bottom, in the darkness and with the light far ahead of them, none of the gryphons could see the guys as they ran from the steep slope and toward the air docks. The rain pressed down on the guys like an I-beam on a crane. They were dead tired, but they pressed on until they made it to the docks.

The docks, with the mountain’s sudden rumbling, had more guards hanging around, patrolling and making sure that the ships hadn’t been damaged or lost. As the guys came up on the docks, there were three guards watching the gate with directed lamps pointing in different directions.

One of them saw the guys. “Ponies!” he shouted.

Ryan pulled out his 1911 and shot the gryphons. He put one in the first gryphon’s chest, knocking him down and making him sputter for breath while blood drained into his lungs and drowned him. The other two tried to react, but couldn’t see well in the rain, and Ryan shot the first in the gut and then the second in the head. He followed it up with one last shot to the gut-shot gryphon’s head.

“Dude, they were guards!” Soarin’ shouted.

“They gave us up knowing that we would be killed,” Ryan said. “They’re just as much our enemy.” Soarin’ couldn’t argue, also still angry about being handed over by the citizens of the city to these thugs.

The guys ran straight to the first small airship they could get, the only kind Fancy could fly. When they boarded, there was no one on board, leaving them free to steal the ship and make their getaway. They forgot using their aliases, as they would be unnecessary for the duration of the travel.

Fancy Pants moved to the Captain’s Cabin, while Mac took Blazer to a sleeping cabin and Soarin’ and Ryan took topside to watch for enemies. No one came, and they were able to lift off without any problems. Mac came up out of the cabin just as they took off, taking a spot next to Soarin’ and Ryan as they watched the land behind them get smaller and smaller as they made their final getaway.

Fancy took them up above the clouds immediately, out of sight of anyone who might try to stop them. None of the gryphons were thinking about where they were flying, only that they had to avoid the mountain they loved because it might collapse and kill them all. The stallions thought they could finally relax.

Ryan couldn’t, though. Something felt off.

“I can’t believe we pulled it off,” Soarin’ said distantly.

“Eeyup,” Mac responded proudly. “Be proud of ourselves, saving that stallion like that.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “I’m gonna check on Fancy.”

Ryan made his way across the short, forty-foot deck to the captain’s cabin in the back and waltzed right in. Fancy was in the zone, a little too much really, keeping the balloon in the air. Ryan felt a sudden pang of panic; what if they took a ship without fuel?

“Welp, we did it, Fancy Pants,” Ryan said. He slapped Fancy on the back, ripping him out of his focus. “You did good.”

“Yes, yes,” Fancy said, not really paying attention.

“Something wrong?” Ryan asked.

Fancy shook his head lightly. “Probably nothing,” Fancy said. “But I know this model air ship. The fuel shouldn’t be going this fast.”

“Something wrong with the engine?” Ryan asked.

“Maybe,” Fancy said. “Would you mind checking it out?”

“Not a problem,” Ryan replied. “Where is it?”

“Down in the inner cargo bay, directly beneath us,” Fancy said. “Thanks. The fuel door is probably loose.”

Ryan nodded and walked out. Fancy Pants had abated his worries. Ryan expected some catastrophic failure, like an engine explosion. If there were someone down there, and they knew the ship was stolen, they would have taken it down already. Or come up to see what was happening.

He made his way down to the cargo bay at the bottom and found the engine. From a distance, nothing appeared wrong with it. The coals inside burned bright, providing the life-supporting flight of the airship. Ryan examined it closely and, to Fancy’s exact words, the fuel door was loose and hanging just barely ajar. Ryan corrected the problem and turned to exit.

Before he made it up the stairs, though, the door squeaked open again, this time landing a little more open and spilling a few hot embers. Ryan ran over and stomped out the embers on the wooden floor and then shut the door to the engine. He pondered the problem for a moment; the locking mechanism was busted. After a bit of thinking, he just shrugged and pushed a box in front of the door, blocking it closed. Ryan turned around to leave and started walking.

“You…”

Ryan froze. Slowly, he began to turn around, and, as if Luna had yanked his worst nightmare right out of his head, there stood his mirror image, leaning against the box in front of the engine door. The Wraith had a sickly smile on his face, smug and perturbing. He just leaned on that box, not saying anything else, tapping his fingers on the back of his hand.

“You...” Ryan said back.

“You made quite a bit of trouble back there,” the Wraith said. He pushed himself from the box. “Quite a bit of trouble that I have to fix.”

“You better find a wrench then,” Ryan said. “You’re gonna need it.”

“Oh, I have one already,” the Wraith said, picking up a wrench from nearby and holding it in his right hand like a knife. “I know exactly how to fix the problem, too.”

“You’ll need more than a wrench to fix your biggest problem,” Ryan said. “Might I recommend a proctologist to get my foot out of your ass when we’re done here?”

“I think I may need a plastic surgeon, actually,” the Wraith said. “You have changed just enough that we don’t look quite the same. I need to fix that.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes at the Wraith. “More like to fix your nose after I shove it into your head.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” the Wraith said. “I’ve got you alone, away from the ponies. I have you all to myself, with only those pathetic stallions nearby. They can’t stop me, I can just fool them into thinking I’m you.”

Ryan’s eyes widened. “Wait,” he said.

“I’m going to kill you here, Ryan,” the Wraith said. “You see, it’s been hard getting you here. I had to get you alone, ultimately. But that was just one late step in a sequence. I had to fix you, you see. You were a hopeless pile of trash when you came here. I’m not; I could never imitate that kind of disgusting level of sadness. I had to fix you, being you up… that way I could tear you down.”

“You didn’t account for one thing,” Ryan said.

“Oh, but I did!” the Wraith said. “I know you’re better at fighting now. And I’ve prepared for that. You know that gun of yours won’t work-“

“It worked last time,” Ryan interrupted.

The Wraith went on. “Because I am prepared for anything you throw at me now. I can’t be killed. You, though…” The Wraith smirked like a wild beast and held up the wrench. A feral look took control of his eyes, changing them. They didn’t change physically, but there was something new, something Ryan had never seen. “You’re nothing more than flesh and bone.”

The Wraith leapt at Ryan and raised the wrench high into the air. Ryan ducked sideways and rolled away, standing up quickly and ramming into a pile of boxes. When the Wraith brought the wrench down, it broke through the floor, splintering the wood and ruining a perfectly good finish. The Wraith immediately jumped sideways to swing at Ryan again, but this time, the human ducked below and did a high clock to keep the wrench up.

The wrench lodged itself into a support beam and stuck there. He tried for a brief moment to pull it out, but in that brief moment, Ryan elbowed him in the face and knocked him away. While the Wraith was down, Ryan yanked out the wrench and tossed it to the side. It wouldn’t work on the Wraith anyhow.

The Wraith held his nose, and when he took his hand away, he found blood on his hand. He looked confused at first, but something dawned on him, and he returned his attention to Ryan.

“I have to be human to take your place, I guess,” he said. “But I still have my strength and speed.”

“Why do you want my place?” Ryan asked. “What would you do with it?”

“Please, Ryan, if you don’t understand by now, you really are thick,” the Wraith said. “I am you. From Asia. I am more than just a man; I am your desire to destroy, the joy you take out of ending and destroying lives. This world, this ‘wonderful place’… I hate it. I can’t stay here, not when it’s like this.”

Ryan felt his breath catch. “You can’t,” he said.

The Wraith laughed dementedly. “I will bring this world down. REALLY make it perfect.”

“That doesn’t explain why me,” Ryan said.

“Because,” the Wraith said. “I am you. And nothing is more enjoyable than watching you suffer, as I already saw. I’m going to start with your friends, take out those Elements of Harmony, the only things that can kill me.”

Ryan growled at the Wraith. “They aren’t the only things that can kill you,” he said. Ryan ripped his gun back out and went to aim for the Wraith.

The Wraith hadn’t lied about his speed and strength, though. Like a cheetah, he was on Ryan in an instant and knocked the gun right tout of his hands with a quick swipe. The pistol landed toward the wall, just below a button next to a set of mechanical releases.

The Wraith went after Ryan like a dog chasing a rabbit. He followed his swipe with one punch, then another, straight into Ryan’s solar plexus. The man felt a strong urge to vomit, but promptly forgot it when the Wraith pulled his face up and punched him straight on in the nose, smashing it and drawing blood. Ryan fell back, out of the Wraith’s grip, and hit the ground.

With the man dazed and aching, the Wraith dragged him over to the button on the wall and pressed it. Slowly, Ryan could hear a door lowering behind him, and wind howling past in the high skies. Sunlight poured into the cabin, casting an angry orange glow on the Wraith’s rage-contorted face.

Ryan could feel himself being pushed out the now open cargo door. He did whatever eh could to prevent himself from being shoved out. He grabbed onto the wall with his left hand, the Wraith’s shoulder with his right. He could feel the pressure on his shoulder, threatening to dislocate it if it got to be too much more.

“You’re done, Ryan!” the Wraith shouted madly. “I am going to kill you!”

Ryan gripped hard at the wall to his left. His hand started sliding down the wall, losing its grip. He stared into the Wraith’s eyes; all he saw was rage. The rage he left behind in Southeast Asia, he rage he experienced when he shot Blueblood, everything he had ever done out of his anger. It startled him to see that.

And it just served to piss him off.

Ryan felt his left hand touch something metal at the all. Using one finger, he was able to maneuver it just enough to figure out what it was. When he knew, he could barely contain his glee, and a cynical smile crossed his face.

“What?” the Wraith asked.

Ryan got a good grip on the gun. For just a moment, he turned his head to look behind him. They were coming up on several mountains that just managed to breach the cloudline, showing jagged points to avoid and carved paths leading down into the rain.

“You can kill me,” Ryan said. “But I'll take you with me!”

The Wraith understood just as Ryan released his left hand and started pulling the gun up to shoot him. Time seemed to slow as the two Ryan’s made their moves. Ryan focused everything he had on getting the Wraith off the aircraft, gripping his shoulder tight and taking aim with the gun. The Wraith released his pressure on the man with one arm to bring it around to block the gun, his eyes going wild with hope that he would make it.

And he did; he blocked the gun, and Ryan discharged a round right into the ceiling.

“Hah!” the Wraith shouted triumphantly.

“’Hah’ yourself,” Ryan said. The Wraith didn’t seem to understand what Ryan meant. He still had a grip on the Wraith’s shoulder.

Ryan, with one powerful lurch and push of his legs, shoved his body upward and knocked the Wraith off balance. The Wraith tried to get back to his position, but Ryan was not having any part of that. Ryan pushed once more with his legs and yanked the Wraith by the shoulder, throwing him over the edge and into the clouds.

The Wraith was not one to be fooled so easily, though. He maintained his grip on Ryan just enough that when he fell, he was able to bring his other hand back around and grab Ryan by the ankle before he fell to the abyss. Ryan felt the heavy weight tug on him, trying to drag him down.

The airship dipped a little into the clouds, obscuring the Wraith from view. Ryan held tight, though, trying to shake the Wraith loose. He was stuck here, and if he fell, it was over.

“GUYS!!” he shouted.

From above, Soarin’ poked his head over. “Ryan!” he shouted. “What are you-”

“Keep going to Equestria!” the young man shouted. Before Soarin' could respond, Ryan lost his grip and fell back into the darkness of the storm within the valley.

“RYAAAN!!!!!!”

Ryan fell through the clouds blind and silent. He didn’t know what lay beneath, but he knew it wouldn’t be good, whatever it was. The Wraith still had a vice grip on him, too, so even if he did survive, it wasn’t’ over yet.

In the darkness of the storm, Ryan couldn’t see far and held his arms against his face in case he hit something. It turned out to be a good idea; there was a mountaintop not far from where he fell out of the ship, and he and the Wraith crashed into it with a wet SLAP.

After the initial contact, the pair slid down the side of the mountaintop with rapidly increasing speed. Subconsciously, Ryan registered that he might fall off the mountain and his heart started to race even faster as he thought about falling to his death. Luckily though, there was some sort of path cut into the mountain that led up above the clouds, and Ryan hit the flat path and rolled to a stop just before the edge.

Ryan grunted and stood up, barely keeping his footing stable and almost slipping off his hands. In the distance, a bolt of lightning exploded into the dark sky, illuminating everything for a brief moment. Ryan could see down the side of the mountain before him and moved away from the ledge in a panic. There were more levels of paths below, but the distance between them increased exponentially, going from eight feet, to fifteen, then to twenty and further into darker, invisible distances.

Ryan moved back and sat against the wall of the mountain. When he landed, he landed partially on his front and side, and had a hard landing on his back on the path. Pained and cold, Ryan feebly stood up with his hand on the wall. His shoes were the only reason he wasn’t stuck lying on the ground, with the rubber-plastic soles keeping their friction in the water.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the area, this time landing much closer, revealing the Wraith getting up a few yards ahead on the path. The bolt was much closer this time, and when the thunder hit, the mountaintop shook, ever so slightly, throwing both Ryan and the Wraith off.

“Not the end I imagined for you!” the Wraith shouted.

“Same!” Ryan shouted.

The Wraith stood up and looked out over the edge of the path. More lighting flashed through the sky, all over the place, revealing the landscape as few had ever seen it. The valleys were deep, miles, potentially, and everything was smooth, polished by the rain. Gryphons could be seen, still flying away form the broken mountain, drawing a laugh from the Wraith.

“You really are more like me than you know!” he shouted.

“They were ready to kill me and my friends,” Ryan replied. He pulled out his knife with his right hand; he had dropped his gun. “And other ponies. It’s justified.”

The Wraith frowned. “Maybe I’ll hand you off to them,” he said. “Let you see justice.”

“There is no justice,” Ryan shouted. More lightning, thunder, rocking the mountaintop. “You know that. It’s how I’m still alive.”

The Wraith stood ready. “Not for long.”

They ran at each other in the rain, kicking up water behind them and shattering rain droplets, and collided in a massive explosion of rain. The Wraith thrust his fist forward at Ryan’s face, but Ryan dodged it and threw his own fist up into the Wraith’s gut, pushing him back. With the Wraith off him and on the defense, Ryan went for a backhanded slash with his knife, going for the Wraith’s throat.

The Wraith back stepped and got out of the way just in time, and the knife swung straight into the rock face, shattering to pieces. Undaunted, Ryan continued with the broken obsidian blade and stabbed it into the Wraith’s shoulder.

The knife, being broken, didn’t go far, though, and the Wraith was able to swipe it away and send the handle over the edge of the path and into the abyss. The Wraith followed it with a roundhouse punch across Ryan’s face, knocking him back and toward the edge, and then kicked him in the rear.

Ryan let his body go limp just as the kick connected, letting his right hip twist while his left remained where it was. It prevented him from falling forward and sent him spiraling to the side, where he hit the stone ground and rolled away. He jumped up, using the momentum of his roll, and put up his fists.

The Wraith cried out in rage and ran at Ryan, determined to send him over the edge. Ryan moved right, toward the wall, and lowered his center of gravity. When the Wraith was on him, Ryan let himself fall onto his back and stuck his foot out. The Wraith ran straight into it, and Ryan threw him backwards in a rain-blinded Tomoe Nage. The Wraith flew helplessly through the air and landed on his face on the stone path.

Ryan spun around on the ground and stood up. Ahead, he saw the Wraith standing up already with a bloody face being washed off by the rain. His nose was clearly broken, but that was all that the throw had accomplished. Ryan silently cursed, as he knew that the Wraith was still perfectly capable of fighting and had plenty of energy to spare.

Ryan put his guard up in a Hindiandi guard, keeping his hands and arms close to his body to keep the Wraith from hitting him. He could just see him thanks to lightning in the distance and by making educated guesses as to where the being was.

It wasn’t perfect though. Nearby, a bright flash of lightning lit up the clouds and valley, binding Ryan for just a moment. In that same moment, the Wraith seemed to teleport across the distance between them and close on Ryan.

Taking the man by surprise, the Wraith threw his foot at Ryan’s shin, not a terrible hit, but a strong distraction and stance weakener. Ryan’s stance faltered, and the Wraith took advantage.

He threw a powerful uppercut into Ryan’s gut, pressing past his guard and knocking his wind out. He followed it with another uppercut, this time to Ryan’s face, smashing his nose and making Ryan see a flash of light. Dazed, Ryan tried to fall back, but the Wraith still had him, and he threw the man to the side, toward the wall.

Ryan hit the wall face first and tried to push away, but the Wraith was waiting for him and grabbed his shoulder. He ferociously spun Ryan around by the shoulder, punching him again across the face. Ryan heard what might have been a small crack in his jaw, but wasn’t able to think clearly enough at the moment to know what might have happened. The Wraith punched him directly in the face several times, damaging small bones and cutting the man’s face.

Ryan felt himself thrown rom the wall to the side, where he slid across the smooth rock and stopped just before the edge. He looked back and just registered the Wraith closing in on him. Desperate, he looked for anything he might be able to use, but there was nothing.

He looked over the edge and found a godsend; there was his gun, in the middle of the path below. It was steeper here than other spots, though, over ten feet, and there were rocks on the way down and on the path. Boulders covered the area below; if he landed wrong, he might crack his skull, and regardless of what that meant, he would be killed.

But he didn’t have much of a choice; he couldn’t win here, not any more. Just as the Wraith was coming up on him, Ryan pulled himself over the edge and swung his feet around so they would go first. The Wraith watched with disinterest as Ryan went over the edge, as he could easily follow him without harming himself.

Ryan slid down the edge and hit the ground, where he staggered to stop himself with the rocks and boulders. The darkness was worse down here, as he was farther from the clouds, and light had a harder time penetrating the clouds and rain. He fumbled around for his gun, hoping to find it before the Wraith could come down.

Another lightning bolt flashed nearby, and Ryan was greeted with the sight of the Wraith sitting on one of the boulders ahead of him. Ryan stopped where he was and looked up at the Wraith. When he tried to stand up, his ankle felt like it was on fire.

“Not the most graceful landing,” the Wraith said. Ryan didn’t respond. “I guess you just ended yourself, huh?” The Wraith almost seemed to look sadly at Ryan. “No one wants to go that way.”

He walked over to Ryan and picked him up with weak resistance from the young man. Ryan tried to reach up and grab at the Wraith’s hands, but couldn’t reach, and couldn’t stop himself from being thrown onto a boulder. There, the Wraith turned him around and pinned him on his back and hit him several times in the ribs. He managed to crack one of them, then threw Ryan over the boulder.

Ryan rolled away and hit another boulder and rolled a little away from the boulder. He opened his beaten, exhausted eyes and watched in slow motion as the Wraith came over the boulder to chase after him. Going purely off his survival instincts, he turned around and pulled himself away from his attacker, even if there was a wall.

Ryan stopped. He was on top of several rocks, oddly shaped and cold. Ryan stuck his hand under himself and found rocks, some smooth and some strangely sharp. And one that felt odd.

The wraith stopped and looked at Ryan. “You humans really are sad when you’ve lost,” he said. “You can’t accept it when you’ve lost. You still try to fight.”

Ryan held his fist to his chest and stood up, despite his pained ankle. He had to lean on his other leg, making sure not to reveal his hand to the Wraith by turning around. He took in a deep breath and calmed himself down, relaxing his muscles for maximum speed.

“When you threaten my friends, I can’t give up,” Ryan said.

“Noble, I suppose,” the Wraith said. “But it won’t do you any good.” The Wraith raised both fists into the air to bring them down on Ryan’s neck, ending the fight once and for all.

Ryan spun around and launched himself at the Wraith, shooting his left hand forward to grab the being and keeping his right, armed hand close to his torso. The Wraith hadn’t seen it coming, and Ryan was on him, locked in place and too close for an attack.

The Wraith hadn’t known what was coming, but when it came, he knew exactly what it was. Ryan pressed the Colt M1911 he picked up from underneath himself before turning around against the bottom of the Wraith’s chin. The wraith didn’t look angry as the cold metal barrel was shoved into him, he didn’t look shocked or scared. He simply had this look of mild surprise.

Ryan held the Wraith close as he pulled the trigger, sending one 230 grain, .45 caliber bullet crashing through the Wraith’s jaw and into his skull. The Wraith’s face didn’t change at all while the bullet tore through, or after it exploded out the top of his head. He just maintained that look of mild surprise that Ryan had bested him.

The Wraith’s eyes rolled back, and he fell to the ground. Ryan stood there, staring at the Wraith’s perforated head as blood and brain and bone fell to the ground in a lifeless heap. His breathing was heavy and he shook violently. It wasn’t from the cold or his exhaustion, though. He only felt weak-kneed.

Ryan stepped back and leaned on one of the boulders as the lightning continued to flash. Every time, the blinding light would force him to look away or close his eyes, and every time, he expected the Wraith to disappear. But he didn’t. The Wraith just lay there, head exploded, bleeding onto the smooth, stone path. Thunder roared and shook the mountains, lightning left the smell of burnt air lingering, but the Wraith remained, unmoving and unliving.

Ryan stood there in the rain, all alone. Finally, all alone.

It didn’t last, though. His friends weren’t about to abandon him.

“Ryan!?” Soarin’ yelled form up high.

“Down here!” Ryan shouted back without thinking.

Soarin’ made his way down, following the echo of Ryan’s voice, and found him, beaten, bloody, and exhausted. He looked like he had been through hell. There were no gryphons nearby, and he couldn’t immediately see any bodies, so he figured Ryan tossed it over the edge. He landed next to Ryan and tapped his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” Soarin’ asked.

“Yeah,” Ryan replied distantly. “I’m good.”

Soarin’ looked out into the storm. “It’ll be good to leave this behind,” he said. “Let’s go!”

He floated up and held his forelegs out for Ryan to grab on. Ryan moved slowly due to his pain, but was able to hold on strong enough for Soarin’ to be able to fly away with him.

Soarin’ looked down at Ryan, expecting to talk to him, but said nothing when he saw Ryan looking back at that mountaintop. In no time, the pair was above the storm clouds and back in the light of the sun, leaving more than just their short war with the gryphons behind. Ryan looked forward and closed his eyes. It was over.

It was finally over.