• Published 22nd Feb 2012
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Griffin the Griffin - BlackWing

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Takeoff (35)

Takeoff

"Well, um, I guess we should do introductions?" Twilight suggested meekly. Nadene almost skipped forwards.

"Ahm Applejack, I run Sweet Apple Acre's with my brother, sister, and Granny." Applejack stated proudly.

"I am Rarity, and I must say, your outfits need a makeover. Make that all of you needs a makeover."

"I'm Pinkie Pie and we'll be the best of friends!" Pinkie bounced around, Nadene eyeing her like a cat does to a toy.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia."

"I'm Rainbow Dash, Fastest Flier in Equestria and future Wonderbolt!" She puffed herself up.

"I, um, I'm Fluttershy." She said whle hiding behind her mane.

"CUTE!" Nadene was about to run and hug her again, but got pounced by Pinkie, who then started bouncing around her, rambling about parties and such. After finally getting up and dusting herself off, they continued.



"Hi! I'm Nadene the cat! Griffin saved my tribe from impostors, and I joined his crew to go on adventures!" Happy cat is happy, and purrs a lot. She moved out of the way and showed Maria.

"Um, uh, I'm, Maria and um, well, I was.... one of the impostors but.... I didn't want to be, and um, I was scared but, Griffin saved me from being eaten and now they take care of me......" The young griffin said meekly, almost the same way Fluttershy talks, which caused the yellow pegasus to look out from behind her mane to see the griffin trying to avoid eye contact. Nadene responded by patting her head to make her feel more comfortable.

"I'm Etch.... this is Growl.... he doesn't talk much.... we were enslaved after our alpha got beaten, and he freed us and let us join him." The shorter dog introduced.

"Who was the dragon with the beautiful blue scales on Gilda's back?" Rarity asked.

"That was Shimmer, They found her by the body of her mother, who had died trying to protect her from another dragon. That was maybe.... three days ago? Poor thing..... I lost my mother too, and while Gilda won't tell her, she lost her's when she was only eight. When she escaped the mines, she had to leave her family behind. So, now, we've all made a new family." Nadene explained sullenly. She was really sad, remembering her own mother. Only just now realizing that the entire crew was made up of those who lost their families, the six ponies felt downright terrible about the situation. Applejack finally broke the silence.

"Doesn't it bother ya'll, you know, bein lied to?"

"What do you mean?" Maria asked.

"Well I mean, he's a liar. He's goin about, spillin some sob story to getch'all to follow him."

"He's not a liar! Okay, so maybe he lies, but NEVER to us! We're his crew, his family!" Nadene started glaring at the orange earth pony.

"He's really got ya'll believing that don't he? Let me guess, he told ya'll that he's an alien too?"

"Yes, and he showed us what he really looks like too!" Nadene was getting mad. Growl was... growling, in a low tone, clearly not happy at the accusations they were making.

"What, he draw ya a picture or somethin?"

"No, he used magic to change himself back."

"Then why's he still a griffin?" Twilight asked.

"Because his real form is weaker and doesn't have wings, so he changed back again." Nadene deadpanned. They all sat there for a moment before they burst out in laughter.

"Oh.... you really had us going there..... use magic?...... He's not a unicorn!" Nadene turned to the dogs, pointed at the group of ponies, then put a finger to her mouth. Etch and Growl got the hint, stepped forwards, pointed their gem spears and,

"Umbra."

Suddenly, everything went quiet. The ponies turned and looked to each other. They tried to talk, and when they realized they couldn't, all but Fluttershy gave a silent shriek of horror, which slowly gave way to an audible one.

"Wh... wh... wha? What? What did? How? Huh?" Twilight looked like her brain was about to break.

"Magic. Leader learned, taught to us." Growl stated in his low gravelly voice.

"But, there's no spells I know of that a unicorn can cast that can take away somepony's voice!"

"It's weaker, but, can do different things." Etch added. Nadene just smirked.

"He learned magic for revealing hidden things, and he used it on himself to show us what he looks like."

"Really, well, that, I'd like to see. A whole new type of magic! So many possibilites!" And thus, Twilight began to geek out.

"Show me more!"

"No."

"What? Why not?" She pouted and had pleading eyes.

"Because, leader did not say to. We proved point, do not want to give away captain's secrets." Growl, explained. Strange for a guy who never talks.


"Attention passengers, we will be launching in five minutes! the deck will lift in thirty seconds, brace yourselves." Steelhorn's voice came over the speaker system.

"Well, let's go back to our rooms. It's going to get VERY hot up here in a couple of minutes." And with that, the crew headed below deck, followed by the mane six, as they were all headed to the same place.






"Alright, Gilda, pull the lever on three! One! Two! Three!" Pulling the levers at the same time, on opposite ends of the hangar, the four massive round triangles that made up the dome began to lift. At first, small cracks of like began seeping through, growing until the blinding light of the sun filtered in, in all it's glory. We shielded our eyes to it, after all, we had been looking at the soft, artificial lighting for the past day and a half. From the outside, it would have looked like it was a giant concrete flower opening. The four pieces finally rested in the full open position with a thud, a gust of hot wind blowing the cool air away and washing over my body.

'Man I hate the heat. Soon as I get this done, the sooner I can get back on the nice cold airship. Definitely downsides to being a Canadian white boy. I thought the jungle would get me used to it, but volcanoes are damn HOT.'

The sunlight shining off the metal hull of the ship made it sparkle like the finest cut diamond, in a dizzying array of colour. It was absolutely fucking gorgeous. Steelhorn had explained a little bit of the ship's mechanics to me. A seamless balloon that always contains the same amount of air, a large number of very small fire rubies inside. The conduits transfer power from an extremely large, rare sun diamond, which was grown for ten years while he build the ship. When fire rubies get overloaded, they generate heat. So, when the high magic slurry of gem water passes on the underside, they give more magic than the ruby can handle to it, which it turns into heat, which it gives into the balloon. This heats the air causing it to rise. To go down, it does the same thing, but with frost amethysts. The balloon itself doesn't expand or contract, only minimally, as it's actually attached to the solid skin of the hull. Quite ingenious if you think about it, the biggest weak point on the ship is permanently attached to a near impenetrable armor. It's an ironclad airship, except with varcalite, whatever that is, instead. He said it would take a nest of dragons to sink it, and I tried to forget about the fact that there were about ten or so nests just on this side of the volcano.


As the majestic ship rose into the air, Gilda and I flew around to make sure it didn't contact anything. Also, the reason the bunker was so cold was to make it easier for the ship to rise with the hot air inside it. There wasn't a problem at all. Big as it was, there was PLENTY of room all around. The engines, one of the only external parts, four of them, placed in an 'X' formation along the outside, began spinning up. It was nearly blinding to look at in the midday sun. The bastard had actually planned it that way to give the best first impression, clever devil. It steadily rose until it was completely free of it's confines. I flew up in front of the reinforced glass pane that held the bridge behind it and signaled that they were clear before the ship started moving north, towards the sea. Gilda motioned everything was good on her end, and the two of us flanked the Possibility on it's maiden voyage. It only took two minutes to get it to the sea, as the dock had been built fairly close to the shore, and despite being a blimp, it was much faster than most inflatable aircraft.

About an hour, and we were out on the open sea, the shore still visible in the distance, the cool ocean air replacing the heat of the Volcanic Wastes. Bidding that boiling hell goodbye, and so long to toxic ash clouds, the Possibility opened up, letting us land and get something to eat. We went to our rooms, took off our stuff, and then went to the mess hall, where the mane six were waiting. Steelhorn came down from upper levels on a ladder, standing on the landing deck for a moment to admire the sea, before coming down and joining us.

"So Grif, what do ya think? Will she be good enough ta bear ya to the old Dominion?"

"Hot damn Steel, it's so shiny it looked like there were two suns out there. An oddly shaped, rainbow coloured sun, but a sun none the less. Forget guns, we'll just blind em!"

"Thing of beauty isn't she. Twenty five years.... and she's finally lifted off. She's my dream, and she's finally taking flight." The old minotaur had a tear in his eye.

"Yer cat's got flyin the thing down, they're the ones you brought her out of port. I have ta say, I like the captain's chair, although I suppose for the next while, you'll be sittin in it won't ye?"

"Ah no, I can't take that away from you. I'm more of an up front kind of guy. I'll let you captain the ship, while I captain the crew. Fair deal?"

"Aye." He shook my claw.

"Well, I ought ta leave ya to yer meal. I been up the past three days tryin ta get her ready, I think I'll go lie down fer a bit." And then he marched off to get some rest.


"So then, you're the buyer?" Twilight looked at me strangely.

"Yep. I raided an ancient temple and got a load of gold out of it. And it's not really buying as much as it is renting. Once we're done with it, he'll get it back and sell it, although, considering only Celestia and Luna can afford the damn thing, maybe Fancy Pants, he doesn't really have that much of a pick of buyers. He says it's all about the money, but I know a sailor when I see one. The journey is his dream, not the money, although getting loaded can't hurt! Now, I know you're all dying with questions, so, ask away, I'll answer if I feel like it."

"Do you really know magic?" Twilight started almost immediately.

"Yes, I do. Figured it out in the jungle. It's really simple. I mean, as soon as I found an example of how to use it, I put it together with whatever else I already knew from legends and bam, I got a whole load of spells. I taught some of the more useful ones to the crew."

"Would you mind, you know, showing me?" She asked, fluttering her eyes.

"No, and I don't mean I don't mind, I mean no, I won't show you. You've already got magic, I'm not just about to tell you how mine works." She pouted angrily, then let out a sigh of defeat.

"Well, we're stuck with each other for the next week, and our rooms are right next door to yours, so I suggest we get along. I don't want anyone getting thrown off the ship."

"Is it true that yer an alien, or we're ya just lyin about that too...." Applejack scowled.

"That's right! You told me you were an alien, and then stole those books! Give them back!" Twilight demanded with renewed vigor.

"Hey, I didn't steal them, I borrowed them. You said borrowing them was okay. This was just, for an unknown amount of time is all. I have them in my room, and I've copied all the important stuff into my own notes anyways. So sure, you can have em back. As for if I'm an alien or not, I am, and because of that, I knew a fair bit about this world before I got here. Well, about Equestria anyway. Didn't know about the rest of it, and the rest of it is so similar to home that it sickens me. I couldn't do anything about it there, but here, I can, so I'm gonna."

"He ain't lying Twi, I can tell, although I think he's just crazy and really believes what he's tellin us." Applejack added.

"Oh well, believe whatever you want to."

"Hey! I know! Why don't you show us all what you really look like Griffy?" Pinkie piped up.

"Yeah, then we'd know ya aren't lyin, or crazy." AJ added.

"I wanna see what you look like without the wings and claws. I beat the stuffing out of you before, I bet I could do it when you're yourself." Dash bragged.

"Nope. I'm not gonna show you. One, Dash will kill me, I am weaker and wingless in that form, with no claws or beak. I'm literally defenseless, and I don't feel like dying. Two, I don't want you to know what I look like, how else am I supposed to hide later on if everyone knows both my forms? Three, I'm not showing you my magic, because then I'll spend the next forever being an egghead with Twilight."

"Rationalize it all you want, the fact that ya won't show us just proves that yer makin it up." Applejack spat. I gave a sigh.

"Try and convince me all you want, but the fact that Dashie here will kick my ass is all the motivation I need to NOT show you. Let's go get the books, Twi, come with me."

The purple unicorn and I walked through the bowels of the ship, and I noticed she was looking at me funny. Probably a mix of fear and curiosity, after all, I'm a pirate who discovered magic, so, I'm a brutish barbarian scholar with a sense of humor and talent for acting. Yep, she has no idea what's going on in my head, she probably think's I'm nuts.


"*Burp* Oh, excuse me..... LETTERS!" I snatched them before Twilight could pick them up.

"Hey!"

"What?"

"Only Princess Celestia sends letters like that!"

"So?"

"She's obviously trying to contact me!"

"Guess again."

"What?" I showed her the first line of the both letters, each saying Dear Griffin the griffin, and she backed off.

"So.... you write letters to the princess too?" She asked nervously, trying to take a peek at what was on them.

"Yep, quite often in fact."

"Did you happen to ask how ponies can hold things without fingers?" She raised her eyebrow.

"I knew it."

"Knew what?" She asked.

"She told me, 'Such information is integral to the Equestrian lifestyle and will not be given to pirates', basically, she didn't know. That's been killing me forever! I mean, how? I kind of figured she might ask you about that one when she said that."

"Do you have any idea how much trouble that's been giving me!" She got red in the face.

"I spent weeks and barely figured out anything! And then I started seeing other things, like I put a scroll away, but I didn't have saddle bags!"

"Yeah, I kind of noticed that too, but I wasn't going to ask till I got an answer back on the hoof thing. I mean, Pinkie has her party cannon which comes out of nowhere, right?"

"How do you know about the party cannon?"

"Alien, remember?"

"Riiiiiiight."



We reached the rooms, I went into mine and brought out her books, passing them to her.

"Go store these in your room, I need to write a letter to the princesses, and then I'll be right out."

She took them in her telekinetic grasp, then went in her room and closed the door, presumably to check them for damage. I changed into my human form, then wrote a response letter.


Dear Princesses Celestia and Luna,

In response to your letters, no, Echo is not a member of my crew. We met for a time, but went our separate ways. He's a hero in Wethoof now for dealing with the hydra problem. He deserves a medal or something.

Luna, sorry, but I killed your pet. Actually, my crew did, while it was distracted trying to EAT ME. Considering the fact that you raised an eight legged demon, and all spiders exist for the sole purpose of tormenting me, I regretfully inform you that you are no longer best pony. That honour goes to Twilight, who is the only one who didn't try to hurt me or cower in fear.

Speaking of which, all your element bearers are belong to us! That's right, they found me, and they're here with me now. Don't worry, they're fine, and while they'll still try to capture me, I'll be dumping them off when we reach port. You'll hear from them when they get to Ponyville, because against her better judgement, Twilight left Spike home AGAIN. Seriously, why does she cut herself off from her only lifeline if she get's in trouble she can't handle? I mean, she could just write you a letter telling you where we are, and you'd come and arrest us, but nooooo, she has to do things the hard way. Can you please talk some sense into her?

Also, I really am an alien. There are actually a couple of us running around, having been changed into ponies, diamond dogs, griffins, and whatever else by Equestria's magic or something. One was brought here by Discord to cause chaos, but instead wound up playing hero and is surprisingly good at it. I don't know who sent me here, just some old guy.

Sincerely, Equestria's most wanted, Griffin.

Ps: Mayor Frost Snap is a dick. Endangering the entire village he's in charge of to try and get a revenge he enacted long ago on a diamond dog, (Echo) who's only crime was trying to help? He's got more screws loose than I do. Hopefully I gave him a bit of humility.



I sent the letter off, then walked out of my room and knocked on Twilight's door.

"Yeah, hold on, I'm coming." She opened it up.

"Oh, um, hello.... how can I help you?" She asked nervously, seeing that I was far taller than her.

"What's the matter? Don't you recognize me? For shame Twilight." At hearing my voice, her pupils turned to pinpricks.

"What, cat got your tongue? Or should I say, griffin?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Then... you really are....." She just stared. I snickered.

"Yep."

"So, you weren't lying."

"Nope."

"And you're not crazy."

"Jury's still out on that one." I chuckled.

For a couple minutes, she just stood there, looking me over. My brown hair, blue eyes, Red and black shirt, jeans, shoes, my stature and form. I snapped my fingers, bringing her to attention again.

"Oh, huh? Sorry."

"Well, as much as I'd like to stand here and let you gawk at me while making mental notes, we'd better get back before Rainbow and AJ think I've kidnapped you or something, and come down here to beat me up." I went into my room, closed the door, and as quickly as I could, removed the amulet, said 'Reverti' and replaced it, then put on my armor and weapons.

"Alright, let's go." I began walking, and she just stayed where she was.

"Why?" She asked.

"Why what?"

"Why did you show me that?"

"Simple. We're the same. And no, I don't mean species or goals, I mean personality. We're both excellent planners, it's how I got this far, we have a hunger for knowledge, and a nasty case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Everything has to be just so or we freak out. We try to control every aspect of our lives, plan for every possible outcome. You a bit more so than I, as I know how to be spontaneous as well, as I proved with Pinkie during that improvisation, which, by the way, you should definitely work with Rarity and Fluttershy to make a romance novel out of. The fact is, if I were in your position, not knowing whether or not a being not native to this universe was standing right in front of me would drive me insane. So, I spared you the self doubt. What? I'm not heartless." Then I continued walking. She gave a warm smile, then instead of walking behind me to make sure I didn't try anything, walked next to me.

"So, the reason you ran into your room and closed the door was you didn't want me to see your magic?"

"You got it."

"Aww, why not?" She pouted.

"Again, if you figured out how it works, then knowing you, brilliant as you are, you'd find a way to use it against me. Let's not forget, I'm still a pirate, and you're still a pirate hunter. We're technically enemies, so despite us being pleasant with each other, eventually, when we reach port, you're going to try to capture me, and I'm going to try to escape. I don't want to give you any more information than I have to."

"It's a shame, under different circumstances, we'd be friends....."

"Yeah, we could spend all day going over magical theory, I'd probably be famous at the Canterlot institute or academy or whatever. Finding a way to let pegasi, earth ponies, and even griffins and diamond dogs, use magic, I'd have worldwide renown. How about this, if you capture me, I'll spend as much time as you want explaining it to you from prison, sound fair?" She giggled.

"Deal."






"So, let me get this straight, more than a million times the information held in the Canterlot library, and you can access any amount of it, anytime you want?"

"Yep, all from something that fits in your hoof."

"No sorting or filing, and it's brought to the exact page, paragraph, sentence, all in order of relevance to what you searched?"

"That's right, except that ANYONE can put stuff in there, and despite having unlimited capacity, the majority of it is stuff you'd only find if you opened up Discord's head."

"Why's that?"

"That's because despite not having magic of any kind, we're more chaotic than draconnequines. Discord actually came to my world before yours, and he couldn't do anything. Anytime he tried causing chaos, nothing would happen because it was already too chaotic. He enjoyed it, then decided he wanted to cause chaos instead of finding a pile of it to roll in, so he found your world and started wrecking havoc."

"So, THAT'S why your world is like the Everfree forest, animals taking care of themselves and clouds moving all on their own. It sounds awful."

"The thing is, we're the weakest creature in our weight class. No fangs, claws, poison, or defenses of any kind. We had to become cruel and cunning to survive. Now the world changed, and it was no longer needed, but we haven't gotten rid of it yet, and we never will."

"Why?"

"Because, people are cruel to each other, and so to survive, you have to become the same way. I didn't, so it was hell for me.... or, Tartarus, as you ponies would say. I won't go into detail, because I already told enough of the specifics to Rarity. But, that's why I'm trying so hard, breaking the rules, not letting anything stand in my way. Because, this world is amazing, but there's a part of it that's broken and needs fixing. Nobody else is going to do it, so I am. I hope I can pull it off, because griffins don't have another thousand years."

"Huh?"

"7000 living free, dwindling due to hunger, sickness, and being eaten by dragons, manticores, whatever. Who knows how many in captivity? The mortality rate is high, and the birth rate is near nonexistent. By my guess, ten, twenty years tops, before griffins go extinct. Since most animals get taken care of around here, there are no endangered species problems, and since griffins aren't animals as much as people, they don't fit the bill. Disturbing that nobody knows about this. Ignorance is the problem. One day, a species just blinks out of existence, and nobody would know till it's too late to do anything about it. Promise me this, if I fail, you'll spread awareness. Ponies are good natured. If enough of them stand up to do something about it, they might actually change it. That way, even if I die or spend the rest of my life behind bars, I'll have succeeded."

"Okay. I promise."

"Good, now let's get you back to your friends."





"Ooh ooh! Maybe, maybe he's an octopus alien like the ones I see in the comics from Japony."

"NO! And why are you reading those things?" Rarity asked, disturbed by the mental image.

"They're interesting!"

"Hah! I never thought someone like YOU would be into pontai." Gilda laughed at the apparently perverse pink party pony.

'I've seen enough My Little Pony to know where this is going....... what is wrong with my brain?'

"Well, you're back. Took you long enough." Dash tapped her hoof impatiently.

"Yeah, I ended up showing Twilight what I look like, and we talked for a bit, so it took a little longer than we thought."

"So then, is he?" Applejack began.

"Yes AJ, he's an alien."

"OOH! Does he have tentacles?" Pinkie piped up.

"No, I look like Nadene, no fur, no tail."

"We were just having fun letting her guess." Maria, who had become a bit more sociable, stated.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, I suggest we settle in. We'll be pleasant with each other till we reach port in a week, and then we'll fight or whatever. So, anybody got a deck a cards?"


Just as Pinkie pulled a deck out of nowhere, which earned her a thoughtful glare from Twilight, who then dismissed it as just Pinkie being Pinkie, an alarm began to blare, making her drop them.


"All hands, battle stations! Inbound targets from the south. Total count, six. Prepare to raise the deck!"

I looked out the back of the deck, still able to see the Volcanic Wastes on the horizon, with a number of black specks slowly getting larger as they approached.

'Big, fast, flying things coming from the south. The sun is shining off the ship, making us a beacon for dragons! Good thing I got my sword charged. I'll have to drink dragon blood while I'm out there.'

"All of you, get to your rooms. This place is going to get busy in a sec. Trix, get on. Gilda, Nadene, your bows will be useless out there, stay with the ship and direct the crew. You six, get to the bridge, you can watch the action from there. Etch, Growl, keep them safe. If Steelhorn tries to kick you out, tell him I told you to go there. Go!" All did as they were told, except Twilight and Shimmer, who stayed behind to ask,

"What's going on?"

"Shimmer, remember the dragon your mom fought?" She thought for a sec and then started crying. The unicorn suddenly realized what I meant.

"How many?" Twilight asked.

"Six, maybe more."

"Sweet Celestia, just one of them took down the ship we arrived on."

"And now, you're about to see why I am Equestria's most wanted. Shimmer, go with Twilight to the bridge, you'll be safe there. I've got dragons to kill."

I dove out of the ship right before it sealed itself shut. I flew around to the back of it as it came about, it's cannons popping out of the side, preparing to meet the attack head on. I looked back to see the mane six and Shimmer on the other side of the glass, with Steelhorn in the captain's chair, wearing a Napoleon hat and smoking a pipe. The ponies and dragon looked worried, while the minotaur looked stern. Hovering between the gleaming airship Possibility, and six approaching dragons who were now visible, a full two rows of cannons behind me, pointing out of their hatches, ready to open up on the armored lizards once they got in range, I drew my blade and held it at my side, brought it around, and swung it forward to face the approaching threat.

"Here there be dragons..... HAVE AT YE!"

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