//------------------------------//
// Manifest Journey 
// Story: Gryphon Six 
// by Sunsong 
//------------------------------//

Hey bronies and pegasisters, sorry it’s been a while. But I have a good excuse… umm lets see excuses page 2 option 36… HOMEWORK yeah I had lots of homework, *crickets chirp in the distance* wait how long has it been? 12 MONTHS?! Sheesh time flies. No way I had that much homework so I guess I have to tell you the truth… lets see page 5 of better excuses option 13… depression! Wait no, thats fucked up… lets go with option 27 bored/tired, that can work. To be honest, I’ve been burnt out by writing (not by mlp) and have been taking some time off to work on other projects like school and bettering myself. With the opportunity covidland has provided I’ve been able to work more and start feeling better about myself, and now I also have more time to connect with my family (to varying degrees of success). So I hope this chapter will start getting those writer’s blocks broken down to some degree enough for me to enjoy writing again. With no hope of success and fear for my future, this is Sunsong (formerly Azure Nights, formerly Wolfgarm,) signing off. 



“500.”

“600.”

“550.”

“Come on! These are quality jewels!” I slammed my fist into the jewelers counter.

The Mule looked at my heavily armored, gun toting form. “They might be stolen…”

“...550.”

“Deal, try not to spend all your gryms in one place now, but if you do, my brother owns the gun store next door.”

“Thanks!... jackass.” I left the Mule & Co. Fine Jewelry store and walked next door to Mule & Co. Fine Guns store. “I knew it… I’m surrounded by jackasses!” I normally had nothing against the creatures, but these fine gents were all covetous, narcissistic, sarcastic, ASSHOLES!

I just about kicked down the gun shop’s door and entered. Arend was sitting on a stack of mortar shells, flipping through a magazine on prench cuisine. And Sunset was haggling down the price of a box of mangoes (surprisingly not the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a gunshop). I took a seat next to Arend and took an inventory of our supplies, it had taken a while to find someone who would purchase sapphires, jewelry, and unmarked equestrian bits, but there was always someone who could fence stuff for you in a gryphonian town.

Putting my Pip-boy down, I looked around the shop, one corner had barrels filled to the brim with battle axes and boomerangs, while the wall was loaded with guns, spray paint (note to self, stock up on tagging materials), and instant noodles. There was also a poster behind the counter, it had some kind of weird creature with black chitin and blue eyes, “CHANGELINGS the Hidden Enemy! Is your neighbor truly who you think they are?” Paranoid much?

We bought some more ammo, grabbed some more grenades, and got Sunset her mangoes. On the way out, I perused the gun selection. There was nothing special, a few 9mm, some 12 gauges, and even an assault rifle or two, but nothing even close to the Gun Runner’s quality selection. We left the Gun shop and walked down the street. I turned to Sunset, “Any jobs in the area? We’re still a ways out of Eaglecrest and extra funding can never hurt.”

“Nadda Gav’, there's a whole lot of nothing happening here but not much else, though I did hear about some business colts coming in from Equestria, I think their names are… Jim and Slim? Fat and Flat? No…” Sunset shrugged her shoulders, “Shouldn’t be much of an issue though, with our luck, a job will come flying out of nowhere and land right in our laps.”

As we were walking down the street, the window to the saloon shattered under the force of two stallions being thrown out of them, landing a couple of feet away from us. They both stood up and started to brush the dust off of each other. They both had the same peach fur and red/white manes, but one had a mustache. Probably twins.

“Well Flim, turns out she DIDN’T have acute ‘gullibilis idiotis’, in fact she still has ‘allher moneycidas’!”

“Well Flam, our hides are still ‘intacticus’ so let's get out of town before they figure out that our ‘Bit Cards’ are just pieces of painted paper.”

Sunset grinned and turned to us, “Well, not exactly in our laps, but close enough! I smell an opportunity.” I shrugged and shared a look with Arend, if Sunset wanted to get involved with a couple of con colts, then who were we to say no.

Arend opened one of the pockets of his trench coat, “Geld leihen bastarde… walk with care, zey can smell money a mile away.” Arend reached into his stash of goodies and pulled out some glazed sugar plums while I fiddled with a Sunset Sarsaparilla watching as Sunset talked to the two con artists. They started chatting back and forth, with the twins switching who was talking every time the conversation got back to them. I was going pretty well considering, well… us. No one was drawing weapons on each other, no one was asking for my manager (I’m not a fucking retail worker, I’m a self employed/contracted Mercenary with a big ass shotgun on my back, followed by an ornary Unicorn with Mommy issues, and a displaced soldier from the third Reich who likes to bake… what the fuck is wrong with my life?), and thankfully no one was drunk.

But it all went downhill from there, wellllll… not the conversation, that was splendid, who would have guessed that these fine colts enjoyed Shake Spear’s works? It was the cabbages… and the alfalfa… aaaand the broccoli… plus some watermelons. The fruits and veggies came barreling out of nowhere, we were being pummeled my pickles, smacked by squash, thwarted by tomatoes, assaulted by apples, and badgered by bananas! Arend and I dove under the nearby alcohol stand (this town is starting to grow on me) after snatching some of the product, the street was quickly turned into a warzone. “Herr Gavin! Verr is ze artillery coming from! Zis is not ze Western Front!”

After the downpour of healthy (hah!) food ended, we crawled out and looked for our missing comrade, after a bit of garden management, we parted the fruit sea and found a pony butt sticking out of a pile of vegetables, Suns prominently featured on the flanks. I grabbed her by the hips and tugged. She popped out without too much trouble, a scowl decorating her face. 

“You good Sunbutt?” SMACK! “...I deserve that.” Carefully taking my talons off of her hips I pulled a handkerchief out from my pip-boy, and wiped some fruit stains off of her face.

She huffed a bit and looked at the carnage around us, “Where in Equiss did all of this come from? I could swear the Equestrian Postal Service doesn't deliver way out here.” 

I pointed up the hill, where a couple of heavily laden wood carts had apparently crashed into each other and the resulting disaster caused the ‘fruits of their labor’ (heh) to fall on us. “Accident I guess, there are better ways to kill someone, and by falling food isn’t one of them.”

“Hey! Where are Flim and Flam?”


“Vhat?” “Who?”

“The two stallions I was talking to!”


“I thought their names were Fat and Flat?”

“Nein, you said zey were named Jim and Slim.”

“No! I, they! Ughhhh! They called themselves Flim and Flam!” She stomped her hoof into the ground and kicked a melon, “We were just discussing our payment for the job.”

“Job?” “Ve got a job?”

“Yeah, if you’ll let me finish…” She flicked her mane out of her face and stated to kick the ruined food off of her hoof boots. “They saw that we were Mercs,” “Soldiers of Fortune and Glory!” “I’ll drink to zhat… Sturmtroopen soldiers got paid vith ammo and new helmets, not even zeh good ones either...”

“...Fine, Soldiers of Fortune and Ass-kicking, so they wanted us to guard their caravan on the way to the next few towns, and luckily they're also heading to Eaglecrest, since they want to get a boat back to Equestria.” She started to look around, probably for the aforementioned stallions, “So we started talking prices and danger fees… then the Fruitagedon happened and I can’t find them anymore.” 

As we waded through the healthy debree, Arend pulled a half squashed tomato out of a random pile. “Zhat is still better zan Sturmtruppen rations. Not halfway rotten, perfect for soup of war.” Arend’s tales from the front were half battle stories and half food stories… I don’t know which are more terrifying. After a while we finally got out, the streets crowding up with various creatures, loading up on the free food.

“Well, no reason to stay in town anymore. We can clean our clothes by the river and see if we can find Flim and Flam’s caravan out of town. What do you say Gav?” 

“We got what we need and have no reason to stay, so let's split.”



I might have another reason to jump town too, it may have a little to do with the broken lockpick in the Jeweler’s empty safe… or it may not, you may never know.

Us three amigos walked down the road, “Another week on the road and we’ll reach Eaglecrest. And if we can get that job with Flim and Flam, we won’t even have to worry about getting lost!”

“Sunset… you know I care about you, but if you challenge the powers of the Wild Wasteland again, I will personally clobber you with a rolling pin.”

“Vhy do I veel like their is a story there?”


“Three old ladies in pink dresses confronted me after leaving a shop that used to sell personal Robot servants, then they tried to kill me with rolling pins and bags of flour.”

“...Herr Sunset, please do not disturb zhe powers known as zhe Vild Vasteland.”



After a quick lunch we headed back to town to look for the twins, Fat and Flat. As we got closer we noticed a brown carriage with a red and white striped roof. With no other leads we headed to the carriage and knocked on the door. When it opened Flat and Fat walked out, perfectly clean and free of stains. “Ah! The Mercs we wanted to hire!”

‘Wanted?’ Sunset put on a thin smile and walked up to the two, “I believe that we were ready to start discussing prices before the Fruitamagedon correct?”

“Well… about that.” Twitch, “You seeeeee, after the fruit cocktail went glass up we found a pair of mighty fine gentlecol… gentlebulls who would do the same job,” Twitch “...for half the price.” Twitch.

Arend and I exchanged looks before backing up, Flea and Tick’s life spans were about to be cut in half by the fury of a mare scorned. “And where are these, fine gentlebulls, hmm?” she seethed through clenched teeth.

“Ah, they should be here any second… and here they are now! Big Will! Small Will! Over here!” Flee shook his hoof in the sky, drawing the attention of two minotaurs. They were… well, they say it all in the name isn’t it? One was pretty tall and broad shouldered with the smallest set of horns I’d ever seen, while the other was only about four feet tall, but his horns gave him an extra foot or so. 

“SO! Your the bulls who stol- ahem, got the job we were looking into right?”

The big bull looked at the small one, and the small one opened its mouth and in the deepest (flutterguy deep) voice I’d ever heard said, “Prett’y much, gatta problem girlie?” As the bull’s turned to speak to the duo. Sunset’s eye twitched, her tail flicked, and then she looked straight at me. Shit. 

She swaggered up to me and put her hooves on my shoulders, leaned in close and said, “Beat these motherbuckers to hell and high water for me? Please?” 

“Only for you Sunset, only for you.” I pulled out a weapon I hadn’t used in a while, Ulysses’ staff, Old Glory.

With the staff in my talons, I walked up to where the two minotaurs were talking to Flint and Flock. Going up to the short one, I tapped his shoulder. “Whada you wan-” When he turned around I brought the head of my staff up right in between his legs, crunch. He howled and sunk to his knees. I hooked the back of his hooves with the Eagle on the staff and pulled, yanking out his legs out from under him. Then spun the staff in a crescent and drove one of Old Glory’s wings into the bulls nose, breaking his nose on impact. One down. 

The tall bull recovered from it’s shock, staring at the unconscious body of his ally and in a high squeaky shouted “BIG WILL!”.

“WAIT! THAT’S BIG WILL!?” Everyone collectively shouted,

I swung Old Glory into the ground, digging up some dirt and loose rocks, and flung it into Small Will’s face. He screamed and started to claw at his eyes. I used my wings to fly behind him, hooked Old Glory around his ankles, and kicked him in the small of his back. He landed heavily, his head bouncing off of the ground.

I walked back to Sunset, pausing once to drive the bottom of Old Glory’s staff into Big Will’s skull, knocking him back into lala land. Dematerializing the staff once again I walked back to Sunset’s side and turned to look at the twins. 

“W...w...well, I guess you’ll be taking the job?”

“Thank you gents, when are we leaving?”

“Well… ah, we leave in the morning.”

As we turned to find a place to make camp, I swear I heard one of the two whisper to the other, “Sweet Celestia, it’s Manehatten all over again.”



In the morning we set out with the peppermint brothers. They had hired two stallions to pull the carriage, we didn’t bother them and vise versa. As the only one who could fly with a mediocum of ability (Sunset’s a unicorn and Arend has never flown in his life, having spent all his time in his new body either digging a trench or working with us,) I was in charge of scouting out the road ahead of us. Sunset rode upfront with a rifle in her lap, and Arend guarded the back.

Nothing major popped up all day, so when night fell we felt pretty relaxed… which probably should have been our first warning. 

I popped the cork from a bottle of Cat Eye, even though my gryphon night vision was much better than my old human one, and my Ranger helmet increased that advantage twofold, I felt better with the Cat Eye. Everything just became a little sharper, a little clearer, and maybe it was the only thing that saved my life that night.

As I finished putting the bottle away, and putting my helmet back on, I noticed a glint in the woods around us. Looking closer revealed something poking through the brush, it was hard to see but it looked almost like a… My eyes widened under my helmet as I dived to the side. *Bang!* The bullet clipped my shoulder pauldron and sent me sprawling behind the log I had been sitting on, ignoring the throbbing pain I shouted “AMBUSH!”.

I unslung my Airborne Rifle from over my shoulder and sprayed into the brush. Something screeched and an armored gryphon broke cover, charging me. I quickly drew my shotgun from my shoulder and racked a shell into the barrel. The 12 gauge plasma shot burst threw the gryphon’s head, throwing the cadaver’s trajectory off enough for me to jump out of the way.

Materializing a flare gun I shot it into the sky, revealing a dozen or so bandits hiding in the woods. Their metal armor glinting in the red flare’s light. Behind me I heard Sunset and Arend unloading ammo into the bandits, I joined them by unleashing a salvo of shotgun fire into the brush. The return fire came almost immediately but was largely inaccurate. Low caliber fire mixed with a slow rate of fire made for an ineffective assault that was largely the same across worlds apparently.

I dove behind the log I had been sitting on a moment before the firefight had started while loading some more shells into my shotgun, the gryphon bandits charged out from behind the trees, rushing us in an attempt to overwhelm us in a wall of lead and steel. Arend’s machine gun cut down five before they even left the tree line, while Sunset’s precise accuracy put them down one by one. 

When Arend’s machine gun ran out of belt ammo to be fed into the war machine, he pulled a grenade off of his harness, gripping the long handle he uncapped the bottom and pulled. A few seconds later my helmet’s visor polarized while the bandits eye’s were blinded by the white phosphorus. Using the opening Arend provided us with, I counter charged the bandit vanguard, seven plasma shots met seven bandits, each one used to great effect. Instead of loading more shells, I let my shotgun hang by it’s strap while I drew Light in one hand and my blade in the other. The Armor Piercing 45. acp burrowed great holes in the heads of my more heavily armored foes, while the closer mooks were met with the edge of my katana, a few tried to match blades once their eyes recovered, but their disoriented wits meant that even if their swordsmanship was better than my own, I was still faster.

After a few more minutes of brutal gunplay and swordsmanship, the last of the bandits met their end. The gold, ammo, and weaponry that they carried now lined our pockets (aka interdimensional rift/pocket dimension/intergalactic warp tech that the RobCo, Pip-Boy used.) so their attack was not so pointless, for us at least. None of the cargo had sustained any damage, and the Flamboyant brothers snoozed like not even a thorough shelling by NCR forces could have woken them up.

We piled the bodies into the woods and cleaned the camp, shoveling fresh dirt over the blood stains. Arend looked right at home among the surplus of ‘new’ body armor and gun parts, cleaning off the blood and gore with a quick and ruthless efficiency that spoke of repetition and familiarity with the soul staining work.

In the morning we were ready to set off again, a few more bruises and bags under our eyes for our trouble. The Fluorescent duo looked no worse for wear on the other hand, their peppy song and dance routine doing nothing to lift out spirits. We set out for Eaglecrest, only half a day’s walk away… we’re getting close.