The evening has fallen upon the mountain city of Griffonstone. The sky is filled with a small layer of clouds, the air is crisp and cool, and snow is steadily falling on every building and road. Wind can be heard whistling through the air, tossing snowflakes to and fro. Construction crews continue to labor away into the dead of night, doing their best to rebuild homes, places of business, and even the very branches of the titanic magic tree the city was built into. While not as friendly as their pony neighbors to the South, more and more griffons passing each other on the street could be seen being more cordial with each other as they went about their business that evening. Unfortunately, the relative serenity of the city all around was being drowned out by the chaos that is happening at a restaurant just a few miles from Downtown.
Greta's Baking Company, formerly Gilda's Baking Company, was about to become a war zone between two growing groups of hostile griffons and a small group of ponies that had arrived from Equestria. Griffons were starting to argue with each other and even started throwing things at one another, despite the 'ponies' best efforts to cool the hostilities of everyone present. Things inside the restaurant weren't faring much better.
Chef Ramsay and his new royal assistant Princess Twilight were doing their best to work with the two owners of the restaurant to fix their problems. The hostile Greta and her submissive boyfriend Garai have made things difficult for the human chef all day. Lunch was a complete disaster as round after round of dishes turned out raw, uncooked, and downright bizarre concoctions straight from Greta's kitchen.
Members of her staff were forced to endure her attitude and horribly slow cooking habits or risk being fired. Which included being forcibly thrown out by Greta's personal bouncers at the front door of the restaurant. Goldie Pheasant hadn't fared much better in the short amount of time she had been there. Gordon had learned from her that she was not allowed to look through orders, nor was she ever allowed to keep tips.
The kitchen staff had it the hardest. Her own sous chef had no control over the kitchen most of the time as Greta hovered over everyone and did the majority of the main courses herself. Talking to each member of the kitchen staff, Gordon learned that they were hardly ever allowed to handle any food themselves, despite each of their numerous years in the culinary field. Cleaning, stocking, and handling food deliveries was all they ever did most of the time. Only ever if Greta had a large order that she felt she was unable to do herself, would she call upon her staff's help. The only griffon in the kitchen who had free rein of her own work was the salad mixer, Gemma. She had told Gordon during her own interview that as long as she came nowhere near any of the meats used in the kitchen, Greta left her to her own devices.
Dinner service has arrived at the restaurant and Greta continued to deflect everything thrown at her. To make his point very clear to the stubborn griffons, Gordon decided to do a little research involving the customers who were currently eating in the restaurant that night. After getting express permission from the patrons at the restaurant for him to dispose of their food, Gordon walked right up to Garai and bent down so that he was looking straight into his eyes.
"Now are you going to fucking tell your "hen friend" about any of this? Or would you rather I be the actual male here with balls and do it?" Gordon growled.
"I'll do it! I'll do it!" Garai meekly replied as he dashed back into the kitchen.
"Alright my love, just for tonight, no more of those ravioli okay?" Garai tried to say.
However, Greta was in no mood at all for compromise.
"No more meat pies, no more burgers, no more nothing! People can only have cakes tonight," she snidely remarked.
"You know, throwing a temper tantrum isn't going to help yourself. I may not know much about the food industry, but I've run a business before and if you want to make money, listening to your customers does tend to help," Twilight tried to offer.
Greta just ignored whatever they were trying to say to them and went back to her business. Gordon pulled Garai by his crest feathers back into the dining room to try to get a better understanding of Greta's behavior.
"Why is she being such a stuck-up bitch? Why can't she take criticism? You need thick skin in this industry!"
"If I knew exactly chef, I would tell you. All I can think is it might have something to do with how her parents brought her up," Garai did his best to explain.
Meanwhile, Goldie was having quite a difficult time. Many customers had been without their food for well over an hour, and every dish that did make it out of the kitchen decreased in quality as the night went by. Every time she had a problem, she was forced to walk all the way across the room and get Garai just to look through their order records.
"Can you look on G4 and see if they have a ram meat pasta dish on their order?" Goldie asked.
Garai briefly looked through their order records with a tired look on his face and told Goldie that he was unable to find any such order. Afterward, he quickly made his way back into the kitchen, saying something under his breath about drinking after work.
"So, are you just ignoring a customer's problem?" she quietly asked the absent Garai. "That's pretty negligent.
Quickly looking through the box of previous order slips herself, Goldie eventually came across the slip she was looking for and tried bringing it to Garai's attention without causing problems for herself. Unfortunately, she ended up bumping into Greta and took the risk of asking her instead.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Greta snarked. "It goes to table B5."
"Are you sure? It wasn't on the slip," Goldie tried to ask.
"ARE YOU FUCKING QUESTIONING ME? GET THE HELL OUT AND GO BACK TO THAT CRUMBLING SHITHOLE YOU CALL A HOME IF YOU ARE GONNA QUESTION ME!
Goldie slunk back into the dining room saying I'm sorry over a dozen times, while Garai did his best to calm Greta down. Gordon's anger at Greta nearly exploded right out of his chest when he saw Goldie sneak into the bathroom, trying her best to stifle her tears. Rarity saw her and looked over to Gordon who nodded and pointed, giving Rarity the go to assist the distressed hen.
"Greta, that was not okay snapping at her like that--" Twilight tried to start.
"Are you two trying to talk to me right now? Cause I'm not listening to anyone and I'm not dealing with that pretty little shit of a griffon right now."
"Well, I'm just about ready to deal with YOU right now," Twilight growled under her breath.
"I have a feeling my dear, that you are probably going to get your wish very, very, soon here," Gordon replied with a sigh.
In the bathrooms, Rarity walked in over the white tiles hearing faint crying coming from one of the stalls at the far end of the room.
As the hours of the evening passed, food continues to leave the kitchen at a snail's pace and every time, it continued to leave restaurant-goers unsatisfied and disappointed. Count Le Grand even tried to order a simple Shepard's Pie to sate his appetite, but his order throughout the night went unanswered. Leaving him waiting for food for three hours.
When Goldie finally calmed down, she did her best to gather plates of food from unhappy customers and discreetly bring them back into the kitchen. Gordon took one of the plates from Goldie and decided to look at them for himself. It was even worse than what the patrons had described, forcing Gordon to try to get through Greta's hostile demeanor once again.
"Greta, this food has hardly been eaten at all. Do the servers or the customers tell you?"
"No, cause every time the customer doesn't even lick their plate, nobody tells me anything!"
"Nobody is licking that, let alone eating it!"
Brushing him off once again, Greta went back to her work, blissfully uncaring of all of the problems that were popping up all around her.
"Just ignore him," Greta says to Gemma. "I'm ignoring everything else going on tonight."
Gordon just slapped his face in frustration as Twilight decided to step in with a solution.
"Gordon, if we can't get her to change anything, maybe we can get that boyfriend of hers's to. Cause I'm getting fed up with this place if you'll excuse the expression. There are griffons fighting outside, all of the people here haven't been served anything good all night, and I'm really getting tired of being around this girl. Her boyfriend seems to be a little more reasonable, let's try talking to him."
"No, that's alright. I'll deal with things for now. You go and see if you can't find anything that might help Miss Gilda. If her story is anything to go by, Greta and Garai have been suckering people for quite a while now." he replied. "Take a look around, but do it quietly mind you. We don't need any more trouble than we already have."
"I'll need a distraction then if I'm gonna get back into Greta's office. There are too many people around, and I'd rather not tangle with those mercenaries of hers's again."
"I think Greta will probably provide more than enough of a distraction for you once she starts screaming her head off like a ruffian," Rarity chimed in coming over to meet the two. "Perhaps though I can use a bit of my charm and display some of the finer pieces of my boutique.
"A bit unorthodox, but alright. Advertise to your heart's content. Please don't pull out that aluminum monstrosity you brought with us though. They might start vomiting all over the restaurant." Twilight wryly replied to the mare.
Rarity politely coughed into her hoof and sheepishly giggled.
"Oh alright, but it's gonna be fabulous when I finally get the details down," she proudly replied.
"Aluminum what?" Gordon asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Ugh, Rarity found some weird article on dresses made out of recycled things during our visit to Earth." Twilight explained while rolling her eyes. "Then, she started making the weirdest dresses imaginable."
"They weren't weird darling. I just haven't managed to capture their true inner beauty as of yet."
"Oh, those!" Gordon said in remembrance. "Yeah, I believe they were part of the green movement to encourage people and corporations to reuse various waste objects."
Rarity immediately went to work as she pulled out a large trunk she had brought with her to the restaurant and started displaying some of her more lavish pieces to the customers. The distraction worked flawlessly as the griffons' eyes were glued to many of the jewel-encrusted dresses the unicorn advertised. Their greedy instincts kicking in as a few of the younger griffons tried fighting off the urge to steal the ensembles. Meanwhile, Gordon went back to work trying to help Greta and Garai successfully get through dinner service. His next step was attempting to knock some sense into Garai about confidently talking to Greta. He found another dish that Goldie put straight into the sinks and brought it to the Neighgyptian griffon's attention.
"So that just goes right from the table, and straight into the wash?" Gordon asked.
"They probably did not like it," Garai replied.
"So if they didn't like it, what are we gonna do about it?!"
Garai vainly tried to calm down Gordon and get his attention on something else.
"Let's just finish for today and--"
"No! The kitchen needs to know!" Gordon urged.
"Fine, Fine, Fine," he relented. "Do not blame me though for what happens afterward."
Going back into the kitchen, Gordon accompanied Garai who looked like he was going to his own execution.
"Uh, Greta my sweet? The Fish platter? They didn't like it," Gara said cautiously.
"This is all just bullshit," she snidely remarked under her breath.
Greta just grabbed a large cleaver by the side of the wall and began violently chopping ribs. The action made Gordon rather nervous as he made sure there was enough space between each other.
"None of you seem to know about this because that young girl, Goldie, just brings dishes back from the dining room and plops them right into your pot wash there. Is that just a common thing that happens every day? Are your employees too damn scared to say something? You are making mistakes and this business is suffering as a result!"
"Fuck off! I don't want to talk to you right now," Greta said as she brushed him off. "That pony-loving hen is behind this I just know it."
For the moment, he thought it was best to give Greta some room to cool down before he brought down more things on her. Gordon went back out into the dining room where Garai was and found himself face to face with one of the most bizarre sights he had ever seen, Right in the middle of the restaurant, Rarity was conducting her own fashion show. Somehow, in the five minutes, he had been in the kitchen with Greta and Garai, Rarity found a way to construct a full-size walkway with flashing lights, dancers, and even a few griffons who participated in wearing her dresses. The entire dining room was fixed upon Rarity's impromptu show, who seemed to be enjoying it more than she should have been. Needless to say, Gordon's confusion only skyrocketed as he tried to figure out how Rarity could have accomplished all of this in such a short amount of time. The mare in question was standing beside the walkway on the floor below, cheering on many of the various models who were wearing her dresses.
"Rarity?... How did you do all of this?" he asked the white mare over the sound of the blaring music.
"Hm? Oh, Gordon darling, what do you think of my little show? It was quite difficult to find such wonderful models at the last minute but I did it nonetheless." she cheerfully replied.
"We just said to distract the patrons and those guards so Twilight could slip into the back office, we didn't say anything about putting together a whole damn fashion show. How did you even put all of this together?"
"Oh pish posh, this is nothing, you should see the events I'm able to put together back in Ponyville," she replied. "Besides, advertisement here will only do good for my boutiques back in Equestria. I've been running into something of a dry spell as far as customers go."
He looked at her in disbelief before just turning around and going over to a nearby wall. He pressed his face into it and breathed in and out deeply.
"I'll only end up giving myself a fucking stroke if I try to think too hard about it," he reassured himself as he pressed his hands together against his face. "It's not worth it, just let it go and breathe."
Trying desperately to shake a thought about crazy women, Gordon looked around the restaurant for something to check on, Gordon saw Garai at the register cashing out patrons after they had finished their meals. What was interesting is that when he walked closer, he heard a few of the guests offer to give a sizable tip to Goldie for doing such a good job. It was a big sack of bits one of the customers had dropped right onto the counter. They were speaking of her excellent service and her charming demeanor, despite the lackluster nature of their meals. Unfortunately, after the customers left, Gordon spotted Garai pocketing the tip for himself, forcing him to confront the male on the matter.
"That's a pretty nice tip there. Is that for you?" he asked sarcastically.
"Yes, of course. Why not?"
"Don't you think your employees deserve some tips tonight?" he asked accusingly.
"No. They get hourly."
"So do you think if I asked every customer, that when they leave a tip and it goes right into the owner's pocket, do you think they are going to be very happy about that? You know what, why don't I ask a nearby table?"
Gordon found a nearby table of ponies and griffons eating together who were watching Rarity's fashion show. They turned over towards the counter when Gordon called for their attention.
"Sir, if you intend to leave a tip for Goldie, your server, I just thought you should know that the owner takes those tips for himself."
"Wow...that's actually kinda horrible," the gray pony at the table said.
"Yeah, I mean we griffons are greedy, but we don't downright steal these days," a black griffon at the table added.
Garai however, wasn't going to hear anything else as he tried to interject.
"Don't FUCK around with me anymore you whimpering pansy!" Gordon growled.
"I WILL FUCK AROUND WITH YOU ALL I WANT, WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
"I'm the guy YOU and your little girlfriend called in to help you and pull your heads out of your arses. I'm tired and fed up with all of your damn bullshit."
"Don't speak to me like I'm some kind of villain," Garai replied with venom. "I am the gangster here, not you."
"Then fucking answer my damn question. Your customers need to be told that YOU are taking their gosh damn tips. Cause wonderful servers like Goldie there deserve them."
"Don't you fucking talk to me like that."
Their conversation devolved into a rant of questions, curses, and arguing as Gordon found absolutely no common ground with Garai. Eventually, the griffon just gave up and moved back into the kitchen to vent his frustrations out at Greta who was still in no mood to talk to anyone.
Meanwhile, Twilight was having her own problems as she rummaged through Greta's heavily disorganized office in the back. She had difficulty sneaking in with Spike in tow, but she miraculously found a way to do so. Each of the filing cabinets was stuffed to the brim with papers, junk mail, letters, financial statements, trash, inventory lists, and various other documents. The disarray of the office sent Twilight into a giggling frenzy as she caved into her base compulsive desire to organize everything in sight. Her attention was split all over the room as she levitated everything with her magic and examined everything. She was forced to shut the blinds when one of the employees passed down the hallway, nearly spotting her inside.
"Whew, that was close," she quietly said to herself. "Now, what system should I use here for these? Numerical, Relevance, or Alphabetical?
"Aren't we trying to trip them up or something? Why should we be helping them?" Spike asked with his tiny arms crossed. "And isn't this considered breaking?"
"Count Le Grand and Steward Denethor gave us the full legal reign of Greta's business as long as we stay within the city limits of Griffonstone. Also, we aren't helping them, Spike, more we are helping ourselves. Any office that's in this state needs expert hooves to return to its former tidiness. And I like to think that I am those expert hooves."
"Whatever you say, miss expert," Spike said rolling his eyes at the mare. "So what are we looking for exactly? Gordon didn't really give us an exact goal here to go by."
"Anything that might help prove Greta's criminal nature in stealing the rights and ownership of the restaurant away from Gilda."
Sighing at the prospect of shoveling through mountains of papers, Spike begrudgingly tromped through the mess of papers and trash in the office and started searching around on his hands and knees for anything that might be helpful to their efforts.
Twilight and Spike spent well over an hour searching through the cramped office but were no closer to finding anything that might help Gilda's plight. The mare continued to tediously search through every piece of paper in the office, levitating stacks at a time with her magic and float each one in front of her face. Organizing it by relevance and alphabetically as the filing cabinets all around the office soon became full and Twilight was forced to stack papers up against the wall.
"Twilight, this is getting us nowhere," Spike whined as he continued crawling against the ground. "We've been at this for a while. I'm starting to think that Greta didn't want to leave any clues for us to find--urkk!"
BANG
Twilight jumped at the gonging sound, nearly firing off one of her offensive spells.
"What was that?!" Twilight whispered fearfully as she searched around for the source of the loud sound with her glowing horn.
"Just me. Ow! Just me and my aching head. Owwwww! I think I bumped into something," the little drake said gripping his head in mild pain.
Twilight looked down at the drake and helped him up.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I get worse hits from the books back home."
Looking up, she shined her horn's magic light on what Spike's head bumped into. To her surprise, she found a small silver safe tucked underneath one of the desks. It was a fairly newer model, most likely purchased in Equestria. Up till Griffonstone rebuilt its crumbling economy a few months earlier, griffons had to special order certain things. Twilight figured that Gilda was most likely the one who acquired it, knowing that she used to live in Equestria.
"A safe huh? I wonder..." Twilight thought aloud as she approached the safe.
"Are you gonna try to open that thing?" Spike said in an annoyed tone as he rubbed his head.
"I've read a few books on safe cracking and acoustics. Although the only practice subject I've had recently was the Cakes recipe safe. This one is mostly magic-proof. I'll only be able to grip the knob with my magic without being forcefully shoved backward by all of the security measures."
"That was you?" Spike asked humorously. "Pinkie isn't going to be happy when she finds out."
"Hey, I'm trying to go on a diet and she wouldn't tell me what she puts into my breakfast muffins!"
"Go on a diet? Why? You look fine to me. Plus, I've never seen you worry about that sort of thing before. What, are you getting yourself pretty for someone? Unless it's for....ohohohohoho!"
Spike began to giggle mischievously as Twilight started to turn beat red.
"It IS for him!" Spike confirmed with glee and humor.
"NO!" the mare snapped quietly, clearly embarrassed. "I just thought, maybe he'd like to see me in better shape when he, you know, finishes his semester on Earth. Can we just skip this conversation, please? I'd rather get back to helping Gordon."
"Alright, alright..."
Pressing her ear up against the cold, rough metal of the safe, Twilight cast a hearing amplification spell on herself and started to turn the knob in front of the safe. She could hear the cogs and gears click, clack, twist, and turn every which way as she tried to figure out the combination.
Suddenly, a severely loud shouting match coming from the main dining room interrupted her progress, causing her to jump in alarm. The sudden emotion caused her to put more power than intended into her magical grip, which sent the knob on the safe flying off and right through the wall.
"Geez! I wish Gordon would warn us when he's going to start going rapid on people!" Spike said quietly.
"Well, it helped us this time I guess." Twilight chuckled tiredly. "Now, let's see if we can't find something useful here."
Calling Spike over, he placed his claw in the hole where the knob used to be as he pulled the heavy door of the safe wide open, revealing all of its contents inside.
Inside, they found a few large sacs of bits, four gold bars, a small bag of rare gems, and even a small tiara that appeared to have belonged to royalty.
Disappointed by their lack of progress, Twilight was just about to turn around and leave the room to apologize to Gordon. However, her eyes spotted something hiding under the literal treasure hoard that Greta had been hiding away. Lifting and moving the bags, she found an amber-colored folder with several files and letters inside. Quite a few of them appeared to have both Greta and Gilda's names on some of them.
"This is it! This is what we've been looking for!"
Flipping through the folder, she found several letters, correspondences, bank statements, and licenses to the building. She finally came across the deed to the restaurant that was in fact, under Gilda's name originally. Her name had been crossed out and Greta's name was placed above. A letter underneath from a member of the Griffon Royal Bank detailed a plan to root out griffin's friendly to Equestria and bankrupt them. Twilight tried to look for a name to put to the culprit, but none was written down.
"Why that little dirt-eating feather brain," Spike said angrily. "If Gordon doesn't do something to her, I can burn her tail feathers if you want. Gilda's our friend now, and nobody does something like that to her and gets away with it!"
"Oh don't you worry. Once I bring this to Count Le Grand's attention, Greta and Garai won't be around for too much longer."
Back outside, things were starting to unravel as Greta finally gave up and decided to shut down the kitchen for the night, completely unable to handle her own stress and anger. Applejack and Count Le Grand weren't faring much better as they were finding it harder and harder to quell the violence of the growing crowd outside the restaurant.
When Goldie tried to go back into the kitchen to clean up before she left for the night, Greta found her and immediately started screaming at the distraught hen. Gordon couldn't believe his eyes what was happening as Greta just vented every ounce of her anger onto Goldie.
"Goldie, get the hell out of here, won't you?" Greta snapped.
She tried to quietly leave as best as she could, but Greta simply would not give her a single moment's peace.
"Don't you fucking walk away when I'm trying to talk to you. You don't work here anymore. And don't give me that sissy little crying."
Goldie just couldn't take any more pressure and bullying from Greta as she started bawling right in the middle of the dining room. Garai tried to comfort the hen, Goldie she just shoved him away, unable to process anything. Rarity just watched closely, completely saddened with how bad things had become for everyone there.
"I WASN'T DOING ANYTHING!" Goldie cried out desperately with tears streaming down her face. "I DID NOTHING!"
Garai loudly tried to interject, but everything just ended up turning into an incomprehensible noise.
"YOU'VE BEEN HAVING AN ATTITUDE WITH ME ALL NIGHT LONG!"
"FINE! FINE! I QUIT I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!"
"No, don't do that--" Garai tried to start.
"LET HER! SHE IS QUITTING! SHE COMES INTO MY KITCHEN AND GIVES ME FUCKING ATTITUDE!"
"I just, I...." Goldie tried to start.
She continued crying as she bolted out the door with Rarity following behind her.
"I'll talk to her Gordon. I think I have an idea for Goldie if you and Twilight will allow it." Rarity said with a sad smile.
"Sure, go ahead. She definitely needs it. I'll finish up here and I'll meet you back at uhhh...HQ".
"YOU CAN WALK AWAY WHEN I'M THROUGH TALKING TO YOU!"
Greta tried to sick her personal guards on Goldie but stopped when Gordon and Twilight stepped in front of her.
"Please Greta, if she doesn't work here anymore, then she is no longer your concern." Twilight wisely stated.
Greta just scoffed and walked back into the kitchen screaming her head off.
"WHAT THE HELL DOES SHE KNOW? WHO IS SHE? SHE IS GONE! THAT'S WHO SHE IS!"
Later, when the crowd outside started receding and going home, Applejack and Count Le Grand came back into the restaurant to find Twilight, Spike, and Gordon speaking with Greta and Garai in the center of the room.
"Now you've just fired that young girl," Gordon said in the calmest voice that he could muster. "Let's all just take a deep breath and see if we can't find some form of a resolution here."
The two said nothing, but they reluctantly nodded as Gordon continued.
"Believe it or not, my intentions are pure, despite what may or may not ultimately happen to this place," Gordon said looking at Twilight out of the corner of his eye.
Greta just continued with her bad attitude as she instinctively started shaking her head.
"You're shaking your head."
"I'm listening. Despite how much I don't want to," she added under her breath.
"Look, we are here to try to help this business, but you don't seem to want to let us," Twilight said firmly. "We came here because our best soldiers were getting sick after coming here."
"And that's my problem why?"
"I'm just an apple farmer, but I'd say harming another country's soldiers is the quickest way to create an international incident." Applejack said accusingly.
"Yeah, no kidding." Spike agreed.
"Regardless...the biggest thing here as far as the restaurant goes anyway is that you and Garai are completely unable to take any criticism. From anyone! Why is that?"
"Are you seriously asking me that?"
"Yes, I am. And I want a serious answer from you."
Greta tried answering Gordon, but Garai just interrupted once again, forcing the dysfunctional couple back into an unwinnable argument.
"What I do normally is good and I don't usually have all of this happening," she said.
"The reality of it is you don't know about anything that's going on! Food comes back and goes straight into the dishwasher. That's one of the biggest issues here and it really seems like you both have been avoiding everything! Behind you in that display case are some of the most amazing scones and pastries I've ever seen, even back on Earth. I'm starting to get the idea who was the real genius of this restaurant, and it certainly isn't you two. You are serving food that is crap frozen, and you will never convince anybody with a stable head on their shoulders that they are actually good."
Gordon just ignored the faces that they were giving him as he stood up with the others and prepared to leave for the night.
"Now. I'm going to give you a chance. But only a chance. If things work out, then great. I will be happy for you, but if not, well I will not be responsible for what happens. Come back in tomorrow with an open mind, and let's all try to find some kind of compromise here. Good night."
He walked out of the restaurant with his production crew and the ponies in tow as they started on their back to Gilda's apartment building to get some rest for the evening and plan the final phase of Gordon's attempt to bring order to Greta's Baking Company.
"Well that was one of the craziest things I've ever done," Applejack chuckled in pain.
"I concur Lady Apple," Le Grand replied. "it certainly has been a while since I've defended against a riot that large."
"Let's hope that we don't have to deal with anything like that tomorrow," Spike added. "I'm exhausted."
"Well, if what I found plays to our advantage, I have a feeling that Greta and Garai won't be there for much longer," Twilight said with a grin.
"What did you find?" Gordon asked curiously.
Twilight pulled out the folder and showed it to Gordon who read through each of the contents and slapped it closed.
"Gilda would probably appreciate seeing all of this very much. We should probably hurry back though. If Greta goes through her safe tonight, she's gonna go ballistic." Gordon stated.
"I say bring her on! That girl is more ornery than a cat with a thorn in its paw." Applejack said.
"What do you have if I may ask?" Count Le Grand inquired.
Gordon handed the folder over to the Count who went through it.
"This is quite serious. I'm going to have to take this up with the Steward. This letter was not written by any legal member of the Royal Bank I can tell you that. We got rid of that paper stock over two years ago."
"Well, it came from somebody who works or at least worked there!" Twilight snapped. "And that somebody is trying to get Greta to start a war with our two countries."
"That's what I'm afraid of milady. I'm afraid if Chef Gordon is unable to resolve this, the Castle shall be forced to take drastic actions to rectify the situation. I bid you all a good night. I must be off."
Then Count Le Grand took off into the night as he started his flight back to the royal griffon castle.
"I hope I'm not causing anything bad by being here Twilight," Gordon said apologetically.
"It's nothing you are doing Gordon. You've been nothing but helpful and nice to everypony since you got here. You've taken us all in stride and I'm thankful for that." Twilight replied reassuringly. "I'm just hoping what we are doing here doesn't provoke anybody to try something drastic or this is going to get ugly really fast."
As soon as they got back to the apartment, they found Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie playing cards with Gilda who was starting to look a lot better than she did before. She appeared to be a lot cleaner too than when they first had met. Gordon theorized that the girls had finally convinced the griffon to finally bathe and take care of herself. The apartment was somewhat cleaner as well. Trash had been picked up and thrown out, the dust had been cleaned out, the shag carpeting was cleaned, and even her large stacks of dishes had disappeared.
"Oh hey, you're back," Gilda greeted tiredly. "Good to see you survived that place."
"Sooooo, how did it go?" Pinkie cheerfully asked.
"Did that grumpy bird finally get some comeuppance?"
"Not quite...yet anyway," Twilight admitted. "A lot has happened today that's for sure."
As if to extenuate her point, Rarity came into the apartment with a still sobbing Goldie.
"Hello! We're back!" Rarity greeted. "Give this one a minute, the poor daring needs some time to get her thoughts together."
Gilda lifted her head and her face somewhat brightened up when she recognized the hen.
"Goldie? Is that you? What are you doing here?" Gilda asked curiously.
"M-Miss Gilda? Oh, I'm so, so sorry, I had no idea that this was your apartment. I'll just go and be on my way," Goldie said as she tried to leave.
"No! Wait! It's...cool. I like you. You can stay if you want, but...why are you here exactly?"
"I'm afraid that's my doing Gilda dear," Rarity chimed in. "After what happened at the restaurant, Goldie wandered the streets for well over two hours before I convinced her to come here with me."
"What...happened at the restaurant exactly?" Gilda asked cautiously.
"From the way you look, it must not have been very fun," Pinkie added.
"Or safe," Fluttershy said. "You have a lot of scratches on you Applejack! I'll get some of the bandages and patch you right up."
"I hope I didn't miss the chance to bash some skulls in," Rainbow said with humor and vague irritation.
"Ya didn't miss much sugarcube," Applejack said while rolling her eyes. "Just a bunch of dumb drunk males throwing ale bottles and knocking heads at each other."
"Getting back on topic..." Gordon said firmly to the group. "We definitely have quite a few things to update you on. Especially given that it's your restaurant that I'm evaluating at the moment."
Twilight, Spike, and Gordon recounted to the group everything that had happened that day up to that current point. Gilda's expression meanwhile remained unchanged and disappointed the whole time their tales of the day were told as if she had expected everything from the beginning. When Gordon got to the point about what happened to Goldie, Gilda got up onto her paws
"Greta and Garai...fired you, FOR THAT?" Gilda asked in a dangerously low tone. "AND MADE YOU CRY?!!!?"
The griffon inhaled and let out a roar that shook the entire apartment, scaring Fluttershy to flee underneath the cushions of her couch. Her roar was so thunderous that it shook the very floor beneath their feet. Some nighttime passersby could hear it all the way down from the street below. The other members of the group, including Gordon, covered their ears and tried to subtly distance themselves from the griffon. All the while, Pinkie and Rainbow just sat still with grins on their faces.
"Hold on Gildie, hold on!" Pinkie said encouragingly. "Your cuttlebone! Where's your cuttlebone? Where's your cuttlebone? Get your cuttlebone!"
The griffon struggled to control her anger as she pulled a giant tan bone with a strange texture-out of a nearby drawer and started to grind her beak down on it. The sound of her beak grinding against the bone was horrible, like nails on a chalkboard. However, the strange method seemed to work as she started to calm down after a few minutes.
Placing her cuttlebone back where it was, she walked up to Goldie and hugged her.
"Why didn't you come to me earlier kid?" Gilda asked. "You're my pal, and you were my best employee. You can trust me."
"I...just didn't want to see you disappointed in me Miss Gilda," Goldie said sadly. "You've always been so kind and helpful, ever since you hired me. When I was thrown out by Greta, I just...didn't have the heart to come to see you. It took a lot of convincing from Miss Rarity to finally come to see you."
"What happened isn't your fault Gold. It's mine," Gilda lamented. "I was so caught up with the idea of making a new griffon friend in Greta that I didn't stop to see what kind of person she was first. I tried to help her when she met Garai, but nothing I said seemed to do much of anything to change her mind. Heh, maybe I can write one of those little letters to that pony princess of yours Dash. Might make me feel a little better venting to someone."
"I think we can arrange that," Twilight said approvingly.
"Why don't you stick around for the night Goldie?" Gilda asked. "I'd love to have ya."
"Really? I'd hate to be a burden on you." Goldie said while pathetically clawing at the floor.
"Na, you're fine," she reassured. "We're all friends here."
"The big point I wanted to get to though, is while I was reviewing the restaurant, Twilight and Spike found something very important that I think you should see," Gordon said.
He had the griffon's attention as Twilight levitated the folder over to her with all of its incriminating evidence against Greta.
The griffon snatched the folder out of the air as soon as it was close enough to her and read through everything, just as Twilight, Gordon, and the Count had done prior. As soon as she was done, she angrily slammed it onto her coffee table with a pained look in her eyes.
"I KNEW IT! SHE HAD IT IN FOR ME FROM THE VERY START!" she cried. "ALL BECAUSE I LIKE YOU GUYS! She-she was never my friend at all was she?"
"This is bigger than just Greta I'm afraid. Somebody in your government is trying to return the Griffon Lands to the way they were thousands of years ago by rooting out griffons who closely affiliate themselves with ponies." Twilight added. "Count Le Grand said he would look into it, but I have to admit, I'm not expecting much from his intervention."
"So what happens now then?" she sniffed out.
"Now, I'm gonna try one more thing to try to get through to Greta. But unfortunately, if I can't, Twilight has told me that your Steward has finally allowed us to use some...extreme measures, now that he's heard some of Equestria's troops were more or less poisoned by Greta there." Gordon explained. "It will probably be even more necessary knowing that riots are starting to crowd outside of that place daily.
"What kind of drastic measures do you have in mind?"
After getting some well-needed rest, Gordon, the girls, and the production crew return to the restaurant once again for their final attempt to make some sort of headway with Greta and Garai.
When they approached the restaurant that morning, they were confused to find it unusually dark. Gordon tried approaching the doors to open them, but when he gave one of the handles a tug, he found them locked uptight.
"Oh fuckin hell..." he swore under his breath.
"Anyone at home?" Pinkie asked in a sing-song voice as she pressed her muzzle up against the glass.
"It doesn't seem like it," Gordon said. "I've seen this before. Sometimes, it's rare, but sometimes when the restaurant owner isn't there, they have the restaurant closed. Even if it's on business weekdays."
"Mr. and Mrs. Cake always try to have people handling the bakery whenever they aren't around." Pinkie said. "That's why they hired me to be their new manager!"
"Something I'm afraid Greta, it seems did not take to heart Pinkie," Twilight added. "So what do we do now?"
"Now, we do a bit more background searching. Why don't we see if we can't find former employees of the restaurant?" Gordon suggested.
Doing a bit of searching, Gordon eventually found two former employees of the restaurant a few hours later. He arranged for them to meet him at a fountain near the restaurant where they could talk about their experiences at Greta's Baking Company. The group found two sitting at a table next to the fountain, as Gordon approached them in a friendly manner.
"Hi there. I'm Chef Gordon, nice to meet the two of you." he greeted.
"Likewise. I'm Gus and this is Gwen," the male griffon reciprocated.
Gordon pulled out a chair opposite from them and sat down, leaning forward slightly. The girls decided to hang back as they continued to observe Gordon's methods from afar.
"So what was your job at the restaurant when Gilda hired you, Gwen?" Gordon asked.
"At first, I was hired as a food runner," she explained. "Garai told me that they didn't like griffons who went to culinary school in Equestria. He said that he thought we didn't really know anything. When Miss Gilda was thrown out, I was only allowed to pour water glasses for the customers and set them at the table. So I worked upfront for a few months and I basically had to beg on my claws and back knees to get back into the kitchen."
"Wow!" Gordon said with disbelief. "What about you Gus?"
"I was a busser for the most part," he answered.
"How long ago were you there?" Gordon asked.
"A little over a month."
"And what kind of things did you see in the dining room?"
Gus adjusted his chair to let his tail move more freely and scooted in so that his elbows were resting on the table before he continued.
"Garai and Greta were always in a bad mood in one way or another. I've never seen them in a good mood ever. I don't think they are capable of taking complaints professionally. That's not even the worse part."
Gus's face started to turn red with anger and embarrassment as he started to recall a rather painful memory.
"Did something happen?" Gordon asked cautiously.
"Garai...made me wash his damn racing chariot one day," Gus said through a gritted beak.
"What???"
"That was probably the most humiliating thing I've ever been forced to do by them."
"Chef, I think I've seen at least 70 people come and go from that restaurant while I was working there," Gwen added. "I know we griffons can be a bit difficult sometimes, but we aren't exactly assholes to each other anymore. Which is why I don't get why Greta is acting like this is still ancient times when we were at war and shit."
"Excuse me, 70???"
"Yeah, and they were just in and out of that place so fast."
Gordon swore he could vaguely hear Rarity, Applejack, and Twilight mumble to themselves about the inept managing of a business, but he decided to ignore it for the time being.
"What happens there exactly, when customers complain about their food?"
"They get told that they're wrong," Gwen explained. "They are always like, "No, your wrong. We have the best food in the world and nobody can tell us differently." There have been many times when customers have gotten food that never so much as touched a stove and when they tell Greta or Garai to cook it, they get insulted, and in the rare occasion, she has her little guards throw the poor souls out of the restaurant and on to the dirt. The customer is always wrong there."
"That is insane."
"Those two couldn't manage a restaurant if you personally taught them to, Chef," Gus said. "Everything was awesome when Gilda was running things."
"Yeah! I remember how she would always compliment us when we were doing a good job"
"And don't you remember when she baked us all of those great scones to have on our break that one time?"
"Yeah, she was the best."
Rainbow and Pinkie were silently congratulating themselves for helping the former bully unlock such a tender side of herself.
The two griffons sat there for a moment with content smiles on their faces, recalling good memories, until Gordon cleared his throat to get their attention.
"So what exactly do you personally think is their problem?" Gordon asked sincerely.
"I don't think it's anything exact chef," Gwen stated. "I have no idea what it is, but either she's doing it intentionally or they genuinely believe that the entire world is just going out of its way to attack them at every possible moment. That hen and her boyfriend are nuttier than squirrels."
After the interview, Gordon thanked them for the feedback and went on his way with the rest of the girls, feeling that he now had enough to confront Greta and Garai.
When they returned to the restaurant later that afternoon, Pinkie and Rainbow said that they were going to head back to Gilda's apartment, but they never clarified why.
Going inside once again, the group found Greta and Garai wandering around the front house of the restaurant preparing for their early evening service.
"Afternoon, you two,"
"Afternoon" Greta replied in a monotone voice.
Garai just grumbled something under his breath.
"You don't seem very happy right now Garai," Gordon stated.
"I'm exhausted," he replied.
"Well, today is a new day, and that's always a good thing."
"Yeah, I hope so. I've never had an experience like this before, and it's very tiring."
"Well, that certainly makes two of us because I've never had an experience quite like this either.
Going over to a table in the middle of the room, Gordon motioned for them to sit down on one side while he sat down on the other. Greta looked like she was putting on the fakest smile imaginable as she went into an apologetic tirade.
"We wished to clarify a few things with you, good sir," she said in a rehearsed tone. "Just so that there is no longer any animosity between any of us."
"Gotta try a lot harder than that for that to be a reality," Applejack muttered under her breath.
Greta was trying her hardest to ignore the wave of glares that was coming from the group of ponies that had come with the human.
"Alright, let's clarify. What exactly did you want to clarify?" Gordon asked the duo patronizingly.
"What I had a problem with is the comments you were making to me last night when I was trying to focus on the food," Greta said indignantly.
"Let's just look at one thing at a time, as I will try to be brutally honest with you," he replied. "For me, coming to Griffonstone to help the ponies was only part of it. The biggest part of coming here was to uncover the truth in many aspects. As far as the food goes, I definitely uncovered a few things. When I'm told the ravioli are fresh--"
"Nobody told you that," Greta snidely interrupted.
"Can I finish? Thank you. When your boyfriend told me that the ravioli were fresh, I naturally wanted to order them. The ravioli I got were disgusting and they certainly were not fresh as you claimed."
"I forget, why is that such a big deal?" Rainbow whispered to Twilight.
"Apparently Gordon is a stickler for the claims people make about their food," she replied quietly.
"Well of course sugar cube," Applejack quietly chimed in. "I of all ponies would like him to call me out if my family doesn't use fresh ingredients for our recipes. The freshness of our products is something the Apple family is known for. And we are sure darn proud of it. It would be a sin to use any of that chemical crud companies use nowadays."
"If you are going to try and continue to pull the wool over the customer's eyes by sending them fake-made raviolis, they need to know," the man continued. "That set my alarm bells off."
Greta tried to interrupt but a look that the girls couldn't see made the griffon look off in a different direction.
"Now you may want to sit there and argue, but you do not seem to be prepared to know that I am here to show you what is the right thing to do here. I am actually trying to help you, but you can't seem to take that."
"I have no problem with the food."
"I told you about the burger and again you refused to listen,"
"I ASKED YOU WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT," she snapped.
"Again, you come with excuse after excuse, after excuse, and I did tell you what was wrong with it."
As if to put her into her place, he signaled to his producer, two of his cameramen quickly set up a projection screen that played a recording of what happened the day before.
The camera played the footage that was captured in the kitchen:
-----
"Fucking wake up! My food was undercooked! Something that obviously shouldn't be happening!"
Greta looked like she was about to bite off her own tongue.
"I don't think your lamb rack was undercooked. I checked it after I took it out of the oven, just like I do with every dish that I take out of there, and to me, it was cooked and brown like good meat should be."
"Okay, okay," Gordon replied annoyed. "That's your fairy tale version, 'cause you didn't see it come back. However, the lamb was pink as my earth pony friend's fuzzy arse, and my burger was soggy as hell in the bun and all of those ingredients. The bacon bits, the bleu cheese, the marinated mushrooms, the white truffle oil. Those first three things are amazing on more successful burger recipes, but the fourth thing completely ruins the rest. Who comes up with those ideas?"
"I did," Greta said through a gritted beak.
"Cause there are certain things that just do not go together at all."
-----
When the recording stopped, both of the griffons were starting to boil as Gordon could hear some of the girls behind him, try to stifle their giggling.
"W-Well, what about the salmon burger? It didn't seem that you could make your mind up about it. You said it was wet and you said it was dry, well which one is it?"
"I TOLD YOU IT WAS FUCKING DRY! IT WAS FUCKIN RANCID YOU STUPID DONKEY!!!"
Somewhere back in Canterlot Castle, Luna had a strangely pleasant sensation go down her spine like a tingle. Like the feeling of adrenaline rushing into her blood before a violent battle. She looked dreamily out of a window thinking of the human chef and fantasizing about the damage he could do to his enemies.
"One of the things that astounded me most of all is the way that you screamed at that delightful young girl last night."
"Would YOU let anybody come into your restaurant and your kitchen and speak to you the way that that little harlot spoke to me last night?" she growled.
"Yeah," he replied nonchalantly. "She was just asking a question. A simple clarifying question."
"Do you think we are gonna let some fucking punk hold a sword to our necks and we're gonna give them our ass and let them do anything they want from us?" the griffon ranted.
"All she asked, is are you sure?"
"NO, she said that with an attitude. A serious attitude."
"No, she didn't. She was working late for you, she was tired, and her voice just dropped a little in tone," Twilight added. "A common side effect of exhaustion."
"Nicely said." Gordon thanked. "And YOU are over exaggerating again. You blame her, and you blame the customers, but customers were waiting for their food, through your boyfriend's constant mistakes.
Garai tried his hardest to brush off the negative emotions he was feeling and negotiate with Gordon.
"Let's just forget all of that for today, if we are gonna continue the show and we are going to try to start here from scratch--" Garai started.
"I'm going to forget that you said the word show, cause while the recording equipment is here for people back on Earth, all of this here is not a show for me," Gordon stated. "I was brought here to root out restaurants and hotels starting mass epidemics all over the world, which at the moment, includes this restaurant as well."
"I don't know what you want to call it then," Garai angrily said back.
"This is a dead restaurant with a delusional owner that can't take criticism or when she does get it, she physically harms the people that give it out. I met two of your former employees, Gwen and Gus. And I got told some pretty awful things. The way you treat staff, they are forced to clean racing vehicles in the middle of service because the boss wants his racing chariot cleaned, and then witnessing over 70 staff members be fired. 70! In such a short time."
"Really?" she sneered at Gordon. "You are saying that I fired 70 staff members since those two were here, YOU are saying that?"
"I am."
"Can you prove that to me?"
"Here we go again Greta, just look at yourself," Twilight said sitting down in the chair next to Gordon. "Just look at how bitter you are being at everyone who talks to you. Gordon and I tried to help you at first, despite how much I dislike you for the things you did to my new friend, but you just keep rejecting everything!"
"TELL ME RIGHT NOW! HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FIRED HERE?" Gordon growled at the two.
Greta went silent, defiantly refusing to answer his question until it looked like Garai had something to say. He tried to move his beak, but looking over at Greta caused him to seize up.
"GARAI!" Twilight shouted. "Do you have anything to add to all of this? It looks like you do."
He just looked back and forth at everybody in the room sweating profusely, until he nervously let out his answer.
"Sh-She was wrong your highness." he stuttered. "It's not 70, it's closer to 1200. Maybe more."
Gordon, Twilight, and Applejack simultaneously nearly had a heart attack when that number was spoken.
"Fucking wow! So the stats are actually a LOT worse than even what Goldie told me they were, cause she said a thousand."
"Are you even able to tell your hen friend that?" Applejack interjected as she approached the table herself. "You don't have enough balls to tell that to your own girl? My big brother hardly says a word and his gall could probably block out the sun compared to you."
Rainbow and Pinkie had to shove their hooves into their mouths to keep themselves from violently laughing.
Greta just angrily got up, telling everyone that she needed a drink.
"Where are you going exactly? We still have more than a few bones to pick with you lady," Applejack snapped.
Greta retreated once again to the safety of her walk-in cooler as her top was about to blow off for good.
Twilight and Gordon and the rest of the group could hear her ranting and raving all the way from the dining room as they all prepared for the worst.
"I DID NOT COME HERE TO BE ABUSED IN MY OWN FUCKING RESTAURANT!" she roared as she came back out to the dining room. "All that has been happening all week is we have been constantly attacked."
"Attacked?" Gordon breathed out.
"YOU have been the one that's been attacked?" Applejack cried incredulously. "Give me a break."
"YEAH! FUCKING ATTACKED!"
"Why do you behave like this all the time Greta?" Twilight asked genuinely. "We've seen you like this when we first stepped into those doors a few days ago."
"BECAUSE YOU FUCKERS INSULT ME EVERY FUCKING DAY! YOU INSULTED ME YESTERDAY AND I BIT DOWN ON MY TONGUE TO KEEP MYSELF FROM RIPPING YOUR THROAT OUT! I DIDN'T TELL YOU ANY NASTY THINGS!"
"Really?" the whole group asked in unison
"Every time I told you about an issue with my food, you constantly refused to listen and you still refuse to listen now," Gordon said.
"YOU ARE JUDGING ME BASED ON YOU COMING IN HERE AND DISRUPTING THE SERVICE!"
"Disrupting???"
"YOU DID DISRUPT US YOU FUCKING SMART ASS!"
"What about my lunch? What about everyone's food that they were waiting patiently for YOU to get your claws out of your ass? Who disrupted you then?" Gordon asked.
"EVERYONE!!!!!!! ALL OF YOU!!!! EVERY LAST FUCKING PONY, PONY LOVER AND LIMP DICK GRIFFON WHO COMES INTO MY PLACE!!!!"
The kitchen door slammed open as everyone turned their heads to see a familiar griffon step out with teary eyes filled with rage.
"Your place?" Gilda said in a low roar."It wasn't ever your place. It was MY place. Until you stole it from me."
"What are YOU doing here? You aren't allowed in here anymore. BOYS!!!"
She tried to call for her mercenaries, but Rarity just stepped out from behind Gilda giggling like a schoolgirl.
"I'm afraid your boys are a little tied up at the moment darling," Rarity said mischievously.
Somewhere in a nearby ditch, three griffons were tightly bound up in durable twine and clothing fabric, struggling desperately for their lives.
"Did--Did you ever like me at all? Was our friendship ever real?" Gilda asked with tears falling down her cheeks.
"Of course not you weak, little runt!" Greta vilely spat out. "You were only ever my payday to get to the top. My helpless in need girl act caught you hook, line, and sinker back then, and you fell for all of it. Besides, you could have helped me with my bigger plans, but you were too caught up in the stuff your little "pony friends" taught to you. Fucking gag me! This is my money machine and I'm never gonna ever let it get away from me. It doesn't matter anyway, I'll just rip all of you to shreds and clean up the trash before dinner service comes around".
Greta roared and tackled Gordon and Twilight to the ground before they could react. They struggled to hold back her beak and her powerful talons from ripping into their flesh. Gordon grunted in pain as Greta managed to make deep scratches into his arms, sending blood trickling down. Twilight didn't fare much better as Greta managed to latch her beak onto her shoulder, making her scream from the searing pain. Her back paws dug into Twilight's leg, scratching it badly
"GET OFF OF THEM!!!!!" Gilda screamed at the top of her lungs as she launched herself across the room.
The others jumped in to help as they tried to pull Greta off of the two while also fending off Garai who was trying his best to defend his mate.
Gilda used her beak to bite down onto Greta's tail, causing her to shriek as she turned onto her new target. Pinkie and Applejack lifted a nearby table and smashed it into Greta's head, sending her into a daze. Gordon got up onto his feet and got in three solid punches to the face and chest before Twilight finally blasted her through the front windows, sending millions of shards of glass flying in every direction. Greta slid over ten feet across the dirt outside before she finally came to a stop and slipped into unconsciousness.
"Greta! My dear! Why you!" Garai tried to start before Gilda smashed his face into the front counter and knocked him out.
"I never did like that guy."
Pinkie just started giggling, which sent the whole group into a fit of laughter for two minutes, before they returned to the reality of the present moment.
"Ow, that definitely makes a record on Kitchen Nightmares," Gordon groaned painfully as Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash gently helped him off of the floor. "I just hope that this doesn't start becoming a habit you know. As much as I like all of you, I'd rather get back to Earth alive,"
"Most violent probably," Twilight added as Applejack and Pinkie supported her.
"Don't worry, Gordon, we got your back every step of the way." Rainbow proudly proclaimed.
Silence returned for a few seconds as they gathered themselves until Gilda finally said something.
"I think...you guys can do that thing that you said. That extreme thing," she said sadly.
"Are you sure? Cause once I do it, it can't be reversed. Without the Elements, even I'm not powerful enough to." Twilight asked.
"No, that's okay. This place died off long ago. And I think it's time that I moved on. Just give me a moment all right?"
"Take all the time you need Gil," Rainbow Dash said kindly. "We are in no rush."
For the next twenty minutes, they watched the griffon slowly go through the entire restaurant, looking at things of significance or stroking items that she had used in the past. It was heartbreaking for everyone who watched, like seeing somebody say goodbye to an old friend for the last time. After she was done, she somberly walked outside onto the curb with everyone. Gordon's production team took only ten more minutes to take down all of the gear that they had set up inside the restaurant. Pinkie went back inside one more time to grab Garai by the tail as she dragged him across the floor and outside, where they were all standing, waiting for something to happen.
Gordon turned to Twilight who nodded at him and stepped forward.
"I can't believe in my lifetime that I get the chance to say this, but: "You may fire when ready," he said with an unsure voice.
Twilight kneeled and closed her eyes as her horn started to whir and glow brighter and brighter. The whirring became louder and louder with each passing second until finally, her eyes opened, showing an explosion of power as her horn blasted out a blinding beam that engulfed the entire restaurant. The light became so bright that everyone present was forced to cover their eyes.
When they opened their eyes, they found that the restaurant had completely disappeared, leaving nothing but a black smoldering spot where the restaurant used to be.
"Holy shit," Gordon swore. "You vaporized the place."
"Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be moved from one place to another," Twilight recited. "I hope that's right anyway."
"What?" everyone asked in unison.
"I didn't destroy it, I just, teleported it. I'm not entirely sure where though," she remarked.
Meanwhile, a certain draconeques took quite a scare seeing a building pop into existence right outside of his shower room window.
The thundering sound of marching could be heard from behind them as the group turned to find a small platoon of guards led by Count Le Grand approaching what was left of the restaurant.
"Ah, I take it then that things didn't go too well. Are you quite alright milady Sparkle?" the Count asked earnestly.
"They got in a few scratches, but all in all, I think we're alright," Twilight chuckled.
The Count merely shook his head in disapproval and ordered his men to gather up Greta and Garai. They were picked up off the ground and placed in cuffs as they were slung across their backs.
"For the crime of not only harming the soldiers of a fellow nation and attacking a ruler AND an ambassador of two separate nations," Le Grand proclaimed referring to Gordon and Twilight. "The Griffonstone citizens Greta and Garai shall be sent to prison where they will await trial in the high court. I am truly sorry that it had to come to this Lady Sparkle and Ambassador Ramsay. I must also apologize to you too as well Miss Gilda."
"Me? Why apologize to me?" she asked confused.
"My son Gustav has spoken highly of you. I believe he used to be your teacher?"
"Chef Gustav is your son? Yeah, I took a lot of his classes way back when."
"He often spoke of how beautiful your mind and soul were when you interacted with food. It is tragic what happened to your legacy here, and I failed to stop it. For that, I feel as if I should apologize to you."
"It's not your fault," she assured.
"While you can't control the actions of others, you can control the people you hang out with, in time, the difference between a false friend and a true friend will surely come to light," Gordon recited.
"Hey, that's my line," Twilight jabbed at Gordon with a giggle.
"It sounded good at least."
Next Time: Down the Mountain.