Lavertica, capital of the Griffon Kingdom
...Oh wait, no, it's the living room first. My bad, my bad. Mulligan.
Golden Oaks Library, living room
It took a while to develop a plan to infiltrate the griffon capital. Initially, Dan wanted to storm the city, commit what amounted to at least a dozen war crimes, pretty much declare war on a neighboring semi-friendly kingdom and raze it to the ground. Second plan was to create a diversion, ransack the city with an elite commando team(comprised of himself, Phoenix, Spike, Chrys and Twilight) and steal everything that wasn't nailed down. So, from the first plan to the second, we did see a significant reduction in overall violence, but lost that when Dan came up with the third plan-
"Let's just bomb the whole place to dust!"
"How is that different from launching an all-out attack and burning the city to the ground?" Spike asked. He was the only one who even remotely gave the plan merit; the others had already moved on in their minds.
"Because," Dan pointed at the dry erase board, "with the bombs, we don't risk our own troops going into the city, AND it cuts down on the time spent fighting, AND-"
"And it's far too violent, risks too many innocent lives and is pretty much completely amoral, reprehensible and evil," Twilight said.
Dan raised a finger. "But would it work?"
"No," they all went.
Dan scrubbed the dry erase board. "Eh, you're right. Probably would've blown up the treasury in the process anyway. So, let's rexamine Plan A- All-Out Assault. IF we come in from the east, we-"
And for the next two hours, they tuned Dan out, got lunch, did some light reading before Spike actually came up with the best idea. They send in one spy to quickly get all the information they can and get out without anybody even noticing they were there in the first place. Unsurprisingly, the best one for the job happened to be-
"This is Chrys-one, in position," Chrys said.
Cliffside, Griffon Town, north-eastern Equestria. Wait, no, I mean north-WESTern. Yeah, that. So we're still not quite at the main city yet, we're-
"Buddy, can you keep it down?"
Okay, sorry.
Cliffside
"Can you see everything okay?"
"Yeah. Not quite as dumpy as I imagined it," Dan said. Back at the library, the rest of the gang was watching through a fiber-optic camera and listening through a mic to everything going on around Chrys. It was the same headpiece and spy gear that Dan had neglected when he went to rescue the CMC from the planet depths. Chrys was finding more use for it.
"Remind me to thank Gilda for letting me borrow her... everything," Chrys said.
"You're welcome," Gilda said over the mic. As part of her infiltration of the hanging city, it was decided Chrys would go disguised as a griffon. Specifically, she would be disguised as the only griffon that they really knew, and one that happened to be related to someone important.
"Just don't do anything too crazy as me."
"Wasn't planning on it," Chrys replied. She walked down the street to the town of Cliffside.
The town of Cliffside was so named because it was built into a cliff. On it and the side of it, as griffons were a naturally cliff-dwelling species. Cliffside itself did not see much traffic; other than supply runs, visitors to Lavertica usually came via airship or flew on their own wings. Like Cloudsdale, it wasn't a place the ground-bound usually tread.
The main street was lined with wood and stone buildings, almost like out of a western. Behind them were houses, also partly stone and wood, almost resembling something out of the Flintstones. A few griffons were about but otherwise, not much activity. Chrys was able to follow the street right towards the tram.
"The tram's lucky if it gets more than two passengers a day. It's gonna look weird if I'm using it."
"You're kind-of a renegade, aren't you? Doing spontaneous things fits your profile," Chrys said to Gilda.
"You can talk your way through it. I know you can, babe," Dan's voice said.
Chrys smiled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence." She walked quickly, but casually towards the tram station.
The tram attendant was exiting the tram as Chrys approached.
"Hey! Got room for one more?" The passenger compartment was clearly empty as Chrys waved.
"Gilda?"
"Crap," Chrys said through her closed beak. "Gilda, he recognizes me. As you. Who is he? What do I say?"
"He knows me because I'm the sky marshal's daughter. Relax and play it cool."
Chrys waved back at the attendant. "Hi there... homey! What's shakin'?"
"...Okay, you're clearly too much of an idiot to be me."
"I thought the impression was spot-on."
"Shut up, Dan."
"You're doing great, honey! Tone down the dorkiness a bit. Play it casual."
"O-okay..." Chrys said nervously.
"You're not here often. And you don't usually take the tram."
"Ah, well uh, it was a long walk. Flight. Flight here. And I could use the rest."
The attendant, a brown griffon with a tan head raised an eyebrow at her. "If you say so." He opened the doors for her. "My regards to your parents."
"Thaaaaanks. I'll let 'em know as soon as I see 'em." The doors closed and the tram departed.
"Smooth babe. Smooth. Just like I taught you."
"I don't want you talking to anyone as me. Can you find another griffon to turn into?"
"You know any other griffons conveniently living in Equestria?" Chrys asked. "If I turn into someone here, I could run into them, raise suspicions. This is the safest way."
"Yeah, Gilda, relax. It doesn't matter if Chrys ruins your reputation and embarrasses you. You're never around there, anyway."
"Nick, you wouldn't happen to be taking clients here in Equestria, would you?"
"Sure. You can pay me with all this money none of us have."
"There's more than one way I can pay you, Nick~"
"I... gonna-gonna go get some...drink. Eat. One of those."
"Will you idiots just shut up and look at this? Just... look."
Lavertica, the hanging city literally hung, suspended by massive cables that connected it to pillars jutting out of the ocean. Another cliff on the other side held Farside, a town similar to Cliffside but with more green. The capital city of the griffon kingdom, Lavertica was a giant, gilded birdcage-like structure constructed over centuries. The buildings, streets, structures, all were metal. Six cables and three stone pillars held the city in place, with additional smaller cables connecting to the top of the structure delivering water from the cliffs. There were waterfalls, as well as water draining out of the bottom of the cage-structure, creating a perpetual mist that billowed up from the rocky, choppy ocean below.
Very few vessels could traverse the sea beneath the hanging city, within the massive cove it was located in. Airships of various kinds filled the births located on the outside at various points. Wire-like rails took supply pods and passenger trolleys, similar to those seen in New Troy throughout the city.
Amid the metal, there was green, too. Gardens were spread on the vertical outer beams of the cage, covered in various fruited vines and trees. Griffons with baskets on their fronts and backs collected fruits, vegetables and tended to the plants, constantly fed water from the vertical aqueduct system.
Atop this grand structure was the Gilded Palace, home to the griffon royal family and nobility. The tram took Chrys to one of the middle rings of the city. There were nine rings in total, with portions of a tenth at the very bottom.
"Looks like the tram might've been a good call. Is there usually a line of airships docking at this place?"
"No, not unless the city's on high alert. Air patrol's probably out in force, too."
"I don't see any patrols."
"You're not supposed to see them," Gilda said.
"Oh." Chrys backed away from the window and sat down. Best not to draw attention.
The tram docked at a platform. Another attendant opened the door, followed by two freight workers.
"Oh! Miss Gilda. What are you... doing on the tram?"
"Uh, disembarking? What does it look like?" Chrys said, in her best Gilda-like tough gal voice. She pushed past them before they could question her further.
"Nailed it."
"I do NOT act like that. At all."
"Nailed it."
"So where do I go from here?"
"Well, if it's new treasure, it'll be at Processing on the bottom. Ring Seven. Security will be extremely tight and uh... well, I don't exactly have clearance to be on processing."
Chrys looked down. Clouds of steam and the strange layout of the hanging buildings made it nearly impossible to see where anything was. Probably felt more natural for actual griffon. Interior rings at each level held buildings. All the buildings hung on bars that ran around the city. Homes, businesses, warehouses, bars, restaurants, schools, all hung on the bars. It truly was a hanging city. A lot of it looked very steampunk-ish, too.
"How do I get to Processing?"
"Freight eleva-*rssssh-rrrr* -er, from there,"
"Say again. Repeat that, there was some static."
"That's probably going to get worse as you go deeper. Might lose contact."
Chrys nodded. "Okay, so make it quick."
"Right, the only way in our out of Processing is the elevator in the center, it *kzzzzshh-kzzz-kzzzt lockdown-"
Chrys tapped her headset. "Say again." A moment later she added, nervously, "Please?"
"*krrrrrkk-rrrrrrk*" Static answered her. The connection was gone, and Chrys was on her own. That was right; the same thing had happened to Dan when he'd been underground. They really needed to find a way to boost the signal on these things.
She made her way to the center area. She flew, which hopefully wouldn't be too out-of-place for her. There weren't too many other griffons flying, but there were a few. In fact a large group of griffons let out of one building, a theater by the looks of it.
"I don't know if you guys can hear me, but I think I found the movies." Curiosity got the better of her. Chrys didn't deliberately fly over to the theater, but she did adjust her flight pattern so she passed by a bit closer on her way to the center of the ring.
Four movie posters hung on the side of the cinema building, banners for the biggest shows. A rom-com about griffon dorks in college, Wanting U was in its fourth week, a new race drama called Reflective was just starting its run, and Potential Energy 3, an action series based on a comic book about gems that grant superpowers was being teased. Chrys thought she might drag Dan to see the rom-com, or at least rent it.
But the final movie was the one that caught her eye. Because it looked like she was in it.
A poster of Gilda holding a broken tiara in one claw, staring at the audience with a hard look on her face. The title of the movie was Gods Don't Have Hooves. It was coming out this summer.
Chrys found her beak was hanging open.
"Looks good, doesn't it?" A griffon said. She didn't know how long he'd been flying next to her and didn't care. "I'm taking my girlfriend to see this day one! I mean... well, she's not my girlfriend yet."
"Ah, uh... yeah, good luck!"
"Heheh, thanks hey- wait, aren't you in it? Yeah, you're Gilda!"
"Shhh," she pulled him away. "Keep it down, right? I'm uh... incognito. Celebrity life, right? Don't want to excite the paparazzi right?"
"The what?"
"Hey, Ima go- good luck with your almost-girlfriend! Hope she goes out with you!"
"I-uh, yeah! Thanks!"
An anti-pony propaganda movie. Chrys thought about yelling over her shoulder to the guy and telling him to go see Wanting U for his date instead. Boys had something in common when they reached dating age: stupidity. No girl, and in fact nobody wanted to see a propaganda flick, especially not one starring an attractive female for the first date. And yes, that was a stereotype but there was a good chance it might help a kid meet someone nice to nest up with.
"Hey buddy!" Chrys flew back to him.
"Uhm, yeah?"
She took him by the shoulders. "Listen, you don't wanna see that movie. It's not very good. Trust me; I'm in it. Take her to see that movie."
"Wanting U? Oh gawd, those movies are terrible. The jokes and references are so dated, the cast is are all comedy stars that can't make it in funny movies any more."
"Yeah, well, Adam Sandler and his friends need to eat, too."
"Who's Adam Sandler?"
"*kzzzzrrrt*"
"Go buy those tickets! Offer to buy the popcorn, bring a bottled water!" She flew off before he could ask anything further.
Chrys flew through the city about as fast as she could. Already, there was news to report back. She didn't know what kind of movie Gods Don't Have Hooves was but it didn't look good. She told herself she was jumping to conclusions to assume it was some sort of anti-pony, anti-alicorn, anti-Equestria movie. But it wouldn't be surprising. Equestria and the Griffon Kingdom were barely trading partners at best, and rivals at worst. Griffons refused to police their pirates but also let ponies do basically whatever they wanted with the ones they caught. Mostly, they released them, minus anything they stole.
The griffons still stole a lot. Regularly. They were a greedy race by nature, still.
Chrys saw a problem with the elevator to processing. There didn't seem to be a way to get to it. There was just a giant, glass tube that ran up all the way to the upper rings. There were no openings or holes, nothing she saw that she could get through.
So, she had to improvise. Using her magic, Chrys added a revolving glass door to the tube and walked through it. Another flash and it was back to normal, and she was now inside the tube. Hopefully, no one saw it.
She flew downward in the tube. It took a while. Thankfully, no elevators were coming up. She made her way to Processing with ease and then magic'd a hatch to let herself out. Again, hopefully no one saw her. Every use of magic was a risk.
The processing structure had more rails. It was divided into four sections- an inspection area, the first stop for new pods, a separation area for sorting, a treatment area for extra intervention and more intense inspection and the final section was a massive furnace. Metal and supplies, mostly stolen ore and gems were then sent up the center pipe where they would then go to banks, vaults or the royal palace. The rich got their pick of everything.
The Processing ring had several floors. The pods and containers were identical; it would take hours to search all of them. She needed a quicker way. Maybe they were keeping an inventory ledger on inspection, the lowest floor.
Thankfully, there were stairs that led there.
Chrys raced down the stairs as quickly as she could. If Gilda wasn't welcome there, it wouldn't matter if how well she could act like her. Nailed that second impression, though. Totally. Maybe she could knock someone out and put them in a closet somewhere, impersonate them while they were unconscious. Risky, as they could be found early but she might have to do it.
She passed by one of the storage areas and stopped. Once again, she saw something she didn't think she'd see. Planes. Dozens, hundreds of planes. Not planes, starfighters. Like the one Barro had used. EXACTLY like the one I had used. They were packed tightly with their wings folded, barely a centimeter of space between them.
The griffons had stolen Barro's starfighter design and used it to build hundreds of copies. And they were building more. Enough for an invasion, possibly of Equestria.
"Maintenance team to Deck-three. Maintenance to Deck-three. Again."
Chrys didn't know what that was, but there were griffons flying all over the place on this floor. And close to the far wall, something else, something she had to see. Taking the risk, she flew closer.
There were so many fighters. Why did they need so many? Barro had threatened them and the planet easily with just one. This was overkill. They all had weapons and the same cannon on the back, almost looking like a fleet of winged scorpions waiting to strike.
She flew to the back wall. Fortunately, the other griffons were too busy to notice her at the moment. Too risky for her to turn into an insect or rodent, something small that would've been easy for her to hide. Griffons had excellent eyesight, would've either squished her or possibly eaten her depending on the griffon. Most griffons preferred fish or other sources for protein, but like humans, they ate just about everything.
A giant mold was on the back wall. It looked like it was a mold for a weapon of some sort, and Chrys' first instinct was to think it might've been for a Sword Spell. On closer inspection, it was something far worse.
It was a talon. A giant mold for a giant talon, larger than any living griffon. But for another type of griffon all together.
It all made sense now. At least, Chrys thought it did. There was precious little metal in Equestria. Rare earth ores, just as rare as those on Earth, give or take. There was only one project, one thing that required so much metal, so much rare material, so much sophisticated technology and secrecy to construct and complete. They had stolen much more than just treasure.
The griffons were building their own Magic Gear.