//------------------------------// // Breakdown (5) // Story: Griffin the Griffin // by BlackWing //------------------------------// Breakdown "Oh Shit. What the hell! Son of a bitch!" Gilda watched as I paced around the cave, spouting random curses. "I could have DIED! What the hell was I thinking? Purposefully getting eaten?" Pretty much, as soon as the fear, shock, and adrenaline wore off after we had gotten to safety and Gilda was recovering, and I had caught dinner, my mind finally took the time to process what I just did and wound up just like her's when she saw me do it. It broke. "Hey Dumbass! Quit freaking out! It's over!" Gilda yelled, trying to snap me out of it. "I just killed a full grown, hungry, angry, DRAGON!" "Yeah, you did, and you saved both our lives. GET OVER IT!" Still trying to get me to think straight. "I have to go back." "What?" Gilda asked confused, tilting her head to the side. "I have to see it again, with my own eyes. I have to know for sure. I have to make sure I'm not crazy." After killing a dragon, I want to go back to the spot where I almost died? I definitely am crazy. "Then go. Go look at what you did, and then get your tail back here before you die again." She probably just wanted me to leave for a bit, my ranting must have been driving her crazy. I left the cave after making sure she was settled in, and flew back to the spot. It was much faster. Partly because I didn't have the extra weight, and partly because I was getting better at flying. I flew over head, and I spotted it. Flying down, I examined my handiwork more closely. It's blood had poured out onto the ground, and it's body looked a little deflated, due to being empty of fluids. It stank, but not the stench of rot. It smelled sour, and the smell was overwhelming. I held my claw over my beak and inspected to body more closely. I began to laugh, the crazy sort of laugh that makes people near you scared. "Heh,heh, heh, ha,ha! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" It was exhilarating, standing in front of that massive corpse, knowing I had killed it. I thought that this is what Shadow of the Colossus must feel like. A creature that can crush you like a bug, but you still fight it, and using nothing but your wit and determination, fell the beast. Then you come out of it drenched in blood with a wicked grin on your face. Suddenly, I felt like I was being watched. Again, from having to run, fight, and hide on my world, I knew when I was being followed, when someone was trying to hide from me. "Who's there?!" I demanded. I heard a noise, and instantly jumped to the left. First rule of engagement, if you can't see your enemy, MOVE. They're going to be aiming for you, but if you don't stop moving, and move in unpredictable ways, they'll miss you most of the time. A net, with heavy metal balls on the end landed where I had stood not a moment ago. I ran to the dragon's body and crouched next to it for momentary cover. I found the spot that I had pulled a scale from, and drew another of the razor sharp ovals. This time, since the base was exposed, I didn't injure my claws which had already been wrapped. It was much easier to hold when when my hands weren't in searing pain. "Show yourselves!" Judging by the noise, there were more than one. 'Wait, more than one, means a group, using tech like a net launcher, trying to kidnap me, a griffin.' *Loading* *Done* "Come out you mutts! You'll make a fine rug for my cave!" The Diamond Dogs knew they had been found, and went on the attack. Another net flew, but was easily sliced in half by the scale I now held in my beak. It was heavy, and so I held it with my mouth, but used my arms to support it as I waved it around. They couldn't see my face properly, if they could, they would have seen my evil smile, a smile that screamed confidence and malice, and would never have attacked. There were only five, two with net launchers, now spent, drawing some poorly crafted swords. They looked like sharpened pieces of rock. Two with makeshift spears, and one with some kind of glass vials strapped to him. 'Chems huh. Either poison or explosives. When the glass hits the ground, it shatters, and the contents mix with the air. He's obviously the leader. He probably has some of each. Knockout gas for capture, and explosives for dealing with 'bigger' problems. They probably net their target, then knock em out, and haul em off. Too bad they're a little far from home, and I'm no ordinary griffin.' The four dogs charged, and I easily dodged them. Back home, the punks had no skill or training with their knives, and were usually high off their asses. I could easily deal with them. These guys had even less skill, just swinging wildly. Looks like someone is a graduate of the Stormtrooper academy. When they saw that I didn't run, they started looking confused, but continued nevertheless. The first one was decapitated by my scale sword in an instant, since he basically ran into the damn thing. He didn't even let out a whimper. The second looked in horror as I drove my claws into his eyes. Dropping his pathetic spear, the dog clutched his eyes. The two who had dropped their net launchers looked at me with fear in their eyes as I cut off the second spear dog's head. I let the scale fall down, stabbing into the ground to act as a shield while I caught my breath. "What are you waiting for! Go get him! He is a male, and he is strong. He will haul many gems, and we can breed more slaves!" Said the leader with a whiny voice. 'I just killed two of them with ease, while standing in front of the corpse of a dragon, and they want to catch me to be used for breeding? I guess males really are rare in the pony and griffin species, while there actually seems to be an abundance of them in the dog population. I wonder why?' I cracked my neck, and rolled all my joints. The dogs with their sensitive ears heard the cracking, and flattened their ears to their heads. Did EVERYONE have a problem with joint cracking or something? The other two dogs charged, distracted by the sickening sound of my bones rolling around, and using my claws, I struck the nerves in the shoulder of their sword arms. Except my claws are like knives, and went right in, paralyzing their arms and making them howl in pain as they dropped their stone blades. I slit their throats and licked the blood off my claws. This was just too easy. The leader began to run, having his entire squad wiped out. "It was supposed to be easy! It's just a griffin! We've caught plenty of them! How did this happen?" The leader whined as it ran into the forest. He was fast, I was faster. I left the scale there for a moment to chase him. I pounced on him, knocking him onto his chest. His vials shattered, and he looked at the puddle of mixing chemicals with terror. "I killed a dragon, what made you think you'd stand a chance?" I laughed as the various substances began to mix in a sickening green and red. His eyes went wide when he realized that I was what killed it, not just some random incident. The dog began to stutter, and I flew away, uncaring. Once I cleared the tree tops, I heard a small boom, and looked down to see charred remains. I went back to the dragon and took some of it's teeth. After taking the scales off it's arm, I took the meat off and stored it, then took several of the smaller bones from the wrist. 'I wonder how dragon meat tastes? That is if I can even cook it.' I flew to a small river, and washed myself off. The water was frigid, seeing as how it was from melted snow on the mountain tops. Still, it felt fantastic to be clean, and the water was pure and pristine. Taking a good look at myself in the water's reflection, it started to sink in. This was real. This was my new life. I decided to keep my scale with me, as a keepsake and tool. Using some strips of clothing from the dead dogs, I made a strap to carry it on my back. I also took the gems off the dogs. Eventually, I would probably need money, and these would fetch a nice price. Besides, gems are useful. I flew back to Gilda's resting spot. "Well, I'm back, and I'm not crazy anymore. I got to have a bit of fun with some dogs, and got myself some nice swag." At the mention of 'dogs' Gilda's eyes went wide. "You moron, first you kill a dragon by flying down it's throat, then some diamond dogs? They capture griffins. They enslave griffins." "Yeah, well, after the dragon, the five of them didn't really have a chance. Two are missing their heads, two don't have any blood left, and the last one is a pile of ash and charred bone. Got some nice stuff though." It's funny. I wanted to go to Equestria to escape the violence and pain of my life, but now that I was here, it was kind of like an inhibitor had been removed. I killed stuff, and I liked doing it. I just killed five Diamond Dogs, that probably had families waiting for them. I didn't care. They attack me, so I killed them. What the hell? Shouldn't I feel guilty? I suppose I do a little, if they did have families then they might hate me and try to hunt me down, but that's not my fault. They were slavers, and they were bad at it, so they died. Out here, there were no laws, nothing to bind. It was anarchy, but it was also freedom. I didn't have the oppressive authority, constantly keeping me down unfairly. If I got attacked, I could fight back, without worry of consequence. I could live freely. There were no licenses, no taxes, no paperwork. If I wanted food, instead of having to try for a job, and not get hired, or get a hunting permit, I could just do it. No border patrol, because the only actual 'nation' was Equestria. We could go anywhere we wanted, nobody to tell us what to do. Gilda looked strangely at me, as I began using a particularly large diamond to make a hole in the flat of the dragon scale, near the base. Once the hole was all the way through, I took the dragon wrist bone, and jammed it into the relatively soft scale base. Then using pieces of cloth, I wrapped the bone, fed the cloth through the hole several times, then wrapped the bone again. After repeating this process, I had given the scale a handle. The scale's base was the hilt, and the scale itself, the blade. It looked like a fan, except it was razor sharp. It was kind of like a cross between a sword and an ax. Made of dragon scale, which is extremely durable due to the minerals from the gems they eat being used to form them, it was the equivalent of a diamond battle fan. I admired my craftsmanship. It was crap. The blade was wobbly, and I had to tighten the straps several times just to keep it from falling apart. I'll probably have to replace the cloth several times as well, as they'll wear out as it's used. Still, not bad for someone with no skill whatsoever. "Has the range and stabbing capability of a sword, the weight and curvature of an ax, and the area of a shield, plus the leverage of a pole arm. It's almost the length of my body, and much lighter than if it were made of comparable metal. Dragonscale Greatsword. I think I like it." Once again, video games have made my life easier. This specific bit came from Monster Hunter. Examining the black edge of the blade, I noticed that even though it had sliced through a net with ease, as well as the neck bones of two man sized dogs, it didn't have a scratch on it. The only downside is that given it's size, I wouldn't be able to swing it in close quarters, on enclosed areas. It had to have room. The thing is, I also had my claws, sharp as knives, to be used in those situations, meaning I now had covered short, medium, and long melee range, plus defense. Gilda was just looking at me in amazement. "What the hell are you? I can't decide whether you're an idiot or a genius, brilliant or mad. You show up out of nowhere in the badlands, no memory. You know how to make fire just using rocks, we normally have to venture into the badlands and fire something already burning and bring it back. You expertly kill a deer, then a dragon, then 5 diamond dogs, which are trained to catch griffins like us, then you make an amazing weapon out of the remains. You knew how to make a salve to deal with burns. What ARE you? There is no way that after all that, you don't remember anything. Don't lie to me." 'CRAP, she got me. There's no getting out of it this time. If I don't come clean, this isn't going to work out. SHIT! I didn't want to do this.' "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." "Try me." She said. Right, she's just as stubborn as I am, of course she wouldn't give up. "Okay, the whole amnesia thing? Complete lies. I remember everything about my past, I just want to forget it. As for what I am? I'm a geek, a nerd, a LOSER. I know things that are completely useless where I come from. Survival training isn't needed there, because there is no need to survive, it's taken care of. The problem is, by no longer needing to survive, we've forgotten how to live." "But that doesn't explain the way you move, or when you first got here. You were stumbling over yourself, didn't know how to fly." She reasoned. "That's because I'm not a griffin. A griffin who's name is Griffin? That's just stupid, although my parents really are dumb enough to think that one up. I'm a human. I'm a bipedal creature, much like a diamond dog, except no tail, no fur, no claws, and not stupid. We don't live underground, we live in buildings the stretch to the sky, in a world of grey stone." She looked dumbfounded. Her mouth was agape, and she wanted further explanation, but she couldn't say anything. "Don't bother looking for humans here, because they don't exist. I was sitting in a café, a place where you go to buy coffee, and a guy came up to me and asked if I'd like to go to another world. Rather than telling him to take a hike, I told him why not, because my world sucks. He sent me here. When I woke up, I had a new body, and was looking at you." "Your life couldn't have been that bad, compared to here." She tried to reason. "Oh? Have you ever had your head stuck in a toilet, right after it was used? As I told you before, I was a loser. That meant I got picked on." "Then why didn't you fight back?" She didn't understand my world. "Because those with authority favour some over others. My tormentors had friends in high places, I did not. Think of it like being whipped every day by a pony, but you can't turn around and fight back, because Celestia is watching the whole thing and letting it happen. There is no freedom. There is no justice. The rule of the strong survive has gone out the window. Those with influence move up, and those without move down. Any without who try to move up get kicked down even farther. Here, I CAN fight back. Back there, it wasn't even an option." I had tears in my eyes, from remembering. I hadn't cried in years, but finally telling someone had been too much." "How do you know so much?" Was her next question. "Because my people don't have fangs or claws. In order to survive, we had to make some of our own. We couldn't kill, so we made blades. When blades couldn't reach far enough, we made guns. Think of cannon's that are small enough to hold, and don't need to be reloaded between each shot. We couldn't fly, so we built planes. They are kind of like flying carts, and can move faster than sound. Carts were too heavy to move, since we are weak, so we made them like trains, to move on their own. We easily got sick, so we made medicine, we were easily hurt, so we learned anatomy, in order to better repair damage, and to prevent it in the first place, we made armor. We learned about metals, gems, everything! If anything existed, we would find everything out about it, come up with 20 original uses, and limitless ways to use it with other things we already had. We're far, far more advanced than Equestria, and we don't even have magic, although a lot of what we do seems like it." Gilda just sat in awe. The advancement my people made was ridiculous. Unheard of here. "We perfected the art of killing. Right now, the nation I lived in has the ability to obliterate the entire planet. I mean literally scour the surface of all life, and we're not even the violent ones. If someone put their mind to it, they could blow a good chunk of it out into space. Speaking of space, we've already landed on the moon, and are building a colony there. We are so far ahead, and at the same time, so far behind. We've forgotten what it's like to fight for our lives. That is why this place is paradise to me. I truly feel alive! When I went back to the dragon, I never felt better. I did something that could only happen in dreams, and that's why I had to make sure it was real." She finally understood. I didn't cry, I fought back the tears. "So, the reason you let me call you dumbass, the reason you snap when you get mad, and kill everything, the reason you can move, think, and everything that fast..." "Is because I'm used to it. When you're being hunted by those who want to hurt you, you learn to hide. When you're being chased after they found you, you learn to run. When you've been caught by them, you learn to fight. When you beat them, and they call you names, it doesn't hurt anymore. I learned everything I could about staying alive, because, one day, I intended to go to one of the few untamed places left on my world, and live like I'm living now. I knew exactly how to kill that dragon, because I've run the simulation a hundred times in my head. Dragons don't even exist in my world. I have 60 different plans for surviving a zombie attack, even though zombies aren't real. Then again, neither are diamond dogs, griffins, magic, or talking ponies, yet here I am." "This whole time, all of this, is like a dream to you? You like this? Nearly dying, having to fight for your life, facing enslavement by diamond dogs, killing." She didn't know what to say. "They come for my blood, but drown in their own. As I wade through the river of those who have fallen before me, I laugh, even as I am struck down, because I had fun. I know that one day, my body or wit will fail me. Someone stronger, faster, or smarter will come along, and they will best me. It's all about climbing to the top, then staying there as long as you can, having fun along the way. That is why I want to travel. I want to see it all, and sit on top of the world, even if just for a moment. I might get called a hero, I might get called a tyrant, I might get called a dumbass, but at least I did something worthwhile. Back home, there ISN'T anything worthwhile to do, so we die of boredom. Don't tell me that when you're chasing a deer, you don't feel excitement. Don't tell me that when you catch it and kill it, you don't feel proud. Don't tell me that when when you eat the spoils of the hunt, it doesn't taste far better than when it is simply given to you. That is what being alive is about. Doing something with the time you have." "You thought about this a lot, haven't you?" Gilda asked. "When there is nothing else to do, all we can do is think. Sometimes, I think we think too much." Okay, I went a little poetic in this, a little philisophical, and a tiny bit earth sucks, but this IS from the POV of a teenager who hates EVERYTHING. What do you expect?