The Bounty Catching, Freedom Dreaming, Winged Wolf Phenomenon

by Cloud_Surfer

Endings Are Just New Beginnings

After Azragni gurgled his last breath through the small pool of blood in his throat, I just stood there for a bit. I had just cut the last tie I really had to staying in Tailton. I could just fly out the window and never look back, but then I’d definitely get a bounty and wouldn’t be able to pick up my money from Gustave’s place.

Not wanting that, and not being able to find anything that I could light the body on fire with, I just figured I would take my chances of staying in the hospital and playing dumb. I really doubted the fact that I was the only one that wanted this diamond dog dead. That plus the fact that there was a small population of griffins in town meant there would be plenty of suspects.

With that line of thinking, I threw open the window, and then left the room and stumbled back to my own. After quickly locking the door and the window, just in case, I dropped onto my bed and passed out.

The hospital was in complete chaos the next morning. The nurses that were on duty were flipped out at and almost lost their jobs, a few members of the Royal Guard that were supposed to be getting ready to head to Wethoof had gotten reassigned to figure out the murder, and the doctors had to explain to Soarin and Fleetfoot why their important witness was killed in the hospital. I on the other hand was laughing to myself the whole time.

Unsurprisingly, I was the first creature they came to interrogate that morning. Fleetfoot was up in my face the entire time, accusing me of cold murder, how I was nothing but a “miserable mutt”, you know the same old shit from the racist. Soarin on the other paw was trying his best to be “good cop” throughout the whole process.

On my part, I just stuck to my story I thought up of stumbling back to the room. I joined the nurses for some drinks, and after they all passed out I went back to my room, locked the door, and passed out. It WAS partially true anyway. I just left out the part where I killed Azragni. No biggie.

The rest of the day was boring though, no visitors or anything. The only positive was that the doctor told me I would be able to leave tomorrow afternoon. After the meager meal, and cursing the kitchen staff and hospitals in general, I fell back into slumber’s embrace.

“Wake up you lazy sack of bits!”

I just rolled over and ignored whoever it was that was yelling at me to wake up the next morning. I was just about to fall asleep one more time when a hoof smacked me in the back of the head in another attempt to rouse me from my sleep. Now normally that wouldn’t have worked, or had just caused me to swat away the offenders hoof, but having recently recovered from a severe concussion, my head started throbbing like crazy.

I yelped in pain and shot straight up in the air with my wings. Once I had settled back onto the bed, I glanced over and saw an angry looking Spitfire, sans uniform, glaring at me.

Why does this seem familiar? Oh right, pissed off mare that I didn’t sleep with yelling at me to wake up. Fuck me sideways.

“What do I owe the lovely pleasure Spitfire?” I asked, not trying at all to hide the anger in my voice at being woken up.

“Well besides it being like, three in the afternoon and you being discharged at one, I have my day off duty today and I said I would visit. So here I am, and I’ll be damned if I let you sleep through my day off!” Spitfire declared, her voice having steadily gotten louder during the course of her speech. The glare she was giving me almost made me want to go back and fight Azragni again in the mines.

I said almost!

I glanced over at the door, wondering if I’d be able to make a break for it before Spitfire could get me, and saw the doctor standing there. I waved him in, and saw his sigh of relief. “So let me guess doc, you were hiding out there since Tartarus has no fury like that of a mare’s scorn right?”

The doctor just laughed as he started to undo the bandages on my head. After a quick inspection, he signed me off and said I was free to go. I glanced at a mirror before I left, and the only visible differences were the two scars I now had. A long thin one streaking down the left side of my body, and another thin scar going over my left eye vertically. Pretty fucking badass if I say so myself.

As we left the hospital and headed into town, Spitfire kept giving me sidelong glances, just to look away anytime I tried to meet her gaze. Eventually, I got fed up with her acting like a high schooler with a crush, so I initiated an age old tactic to get them to stop.

Embarrass the hell out of them.

“You know if you take a picture it’ll last longer right?” I joked with a wry grin plastered on my face. Spitfire jumped at that one, blush on her face. That was all it took for me to keep goading her. “I mean, I know chicks dig scars and all, but no reason to throw yourself at me.”

In all of my laughing at Spitfire’s misfortune, I didn’t notice the hoof she threw and was knocked into the ground by it. The blow wasn’t a hard one, but enough so I was looking up at her flustered face.

“I’m not much into the hitting stuff personally, but if that’s what you want I guess I can swing that way Spitfire,” I joked, adding a wink for good measure. I just barely managed to avoid the yellow hoof from hitting me again.

“Zeta, I swear if you keep this up, I’ll buck you into next Tuesday!” Spitfire snarled.

I should’ve known better than to keep pushing it, but that set-up was just too good to waste. “Whoa Spitfire, slow down there. I’m not one for ‘bucking’ on the first date, specially not for only knowing you a week! I’m a classy guy who likes dinner and a movie first, perhaps followed by a walk on the beach,” I jokingly barked out. I was laughing to a bit afterwards, until a Spitfire decided her hoof and my muzzle needed to be best friends.

“You are unbearable sometimes Zeta,” Spitfire declared as she continued to saunter off towards Gustave’s restaurant. I just hopped back up to my paws and followed to catch up.

Once we got into the eating establishment, Gustave ushered us into the back room and brought us some food and drinks before joining us himself. I was genuinely happy at that moment in time just sitting around a table joking around with my two new friends. After we had all finished our meals and a couple drinks, I realized I needed Gustave to answer a few questions.

“So my feathery amigo, why’d you take my feather again?”

“Ah, yes. Allow me to properly explain now. Each of my fine establishments have a magic line connected to zem. Zis line allows me to announce my arrivals,” Gustave began. “By connecting zat line with your feather, I’ll be able to send you messages from any of my restaurants wiz contracts that you could fulfill if you wish.”

I just stared at him while I put together what he was saying. “So will these letters just materialize out of thin air in front of me or something?” The prospect seemed really interesting, and profitable as long as I wouldn’t be puking out letters like Spike did in the show.

Gustave plucked a feather from his wing and handed it over to me. “I’ve already put ze instructions to construct the port in a house in your saddle bags. Ze letters would be sent to your house, or wherever you build your box.”

“Sounds good to me, but will I be able to build the box on my own? I’m not exactly good with tools…” I replied, rubbing the back of my neck.

Spitfire just sighed and answered for the griffin. “You can hire somepony to build it for you. They aren’t that hard to make really.” Then she reached over and plucked a feather from my wing too.

“What the hell? I’m not preening, so why are you ripping out my feathers out?” I yelped.

“Well the Wonderbolts have the same type of communication lines. Being a military organization in a peaceful country means we often get asked by higher class ponies to be escorts on their trading caravans and stuff. The problem is we can’t help if they leave Equestrian borders,” Spitfire explained quickly. “If we get any of those requests, I’ll send them your way, since you don’t have to deal with international rules, even if Equestria is the only ‘real’ country.” She finished it off by tickling my nose with my own feather, laughing at the expression it caused me.

“I’m pretty sure that’s cruel and unusual torture, using a cynogriffin’s own feather to tickle him,” I laughed, attempting to knock Spitfire’s hoof away.

Gustave just laughed as he excused himself to the front of the restaurant. Spitfire followed me upstairs so I could check on my things and make sure all of my money is in order.

“Don’t bother counting it, I delivered the money here myself. I even let you keep the ‘Live’ bounty on the Beta you killed,” Spitfire stated rather bluntly. Before I could even utter out a syllable to defend myself, she cut me off. “And don’t try and deny that you did. I’m not an idiot, and neither is Soarin. We both know that it was you, but we just turned the blind eye, so to speak.”

I just stopped and stared at her as she walked by after that revelation. She hopped onto the bed Gustave set aside from me and laid down, and started staring at me somewhat seductively. After a bit of awkward silence and staring between the two of us, she finally relented.

“So, you are going to join me here or what?” Spitfire purred, rubbing the spot on the bed next to her.

It honestly took all of my will power not to start laughing at that point in time. I’ve known this mare for like a week, and she wants me to sleep with her. Hell, I may be a frat boy, but I still have standards.

“Sorry Spitfire, like I said I’m a classy guy. First dates are dinner and a movie, maybe a romantic stroll down a beach during the sunset,” I managed to get out without laughing. “Maybe next time, ok?” I added after noticing the upset look on her face. I sat down next to her and put my paw on her face.

“Listen, I’m not exactly someone you want to get involved with Spitfire. You’ve got a great military career in front of you. I kill people. It never would’ve worked between us.” Again Jack Sparrow, you never fail me.

Spitfire continued to stare at me sadly, but realization was slowly dawning on her. Pretty soon she was blushing pretty hard, realizing how crazy her idea was. “Um…think we can pretend that never happened?”

I laughed at her, until the hurt look she gave me shut me up. “Let’s put it this way, I’ll never let you live it down, but we’ll keep it as our own little private joke.” This apparently didn’t fly well with her since I had to jump over the lunging mare. As she did, I managed to get one of her feathers and reach my bags.

Reaching the window as pillows started to fly over my head; I threw them open and spread my wings. Turning my head I gave her a sly wink with my left eye, showing off the badassery that my new scar gave, before shouting out to her, “M'lady. You will always remember this as the day that you almost caught Zeta! The Winged! Wolf!" and I sonic rainboomed my ass out of there, never looking back.

Well, until I read in a newspaper about a week later that the entire city was burnt down by a dragon, but does that count as looking back?

A/N:

Finally finished the Tailton Arc. I bet you guys thought I was going to have Zeta cave into Spitfire's seduction didn't you. Well, joke's on you. Also, incase the title confuses anyone, this isn't the end of the story, just the end of the Arc.

Sorry for the delay in posting as well, but Thardoc was making some crazy shit in Minecraft, but he still got it all edited in under 24 hours. Though his Minecraft Project is pretty awesome and I think you'll all enjoy it if he decides to post it for public viewing.

I'm also going to be working on two more spoof one-shots like my Nazi Pony Zombies, so look forward to them.

Next up for Zeta is a 6 or 7 chapter Mini Arc I'm simply labeling as 'Living' before the next big one, so I can have a time skip and build his characterization a bit more. Soon you'll get the full story as to what happened to Zeta on Earth that made him hate rich people so much. See ya around!