//------------------------------// // Canterlot Captured // Story: Friends and Enemies // by ObabScribbler //------------------------------// 3. Canterlot Captured Gryphona was a harsh, unrelenting place. Situated in the mountains where snow was common and the wind blew all year round, griffins made their eyries in crevices where chicks were least likely to fall out and built their wings muscles just fighting the strong gales. The air was thin and so was life there. Only the strong or special survived and you had to be exceptional at one or the other to compete for food, space and mating rights. As such, Gryphon society was more exacting than anything ponies could have envisioned and much less concerned with fripperies. Attractiveness was based on strength and your ability to survive to adulthood, not a nicely brushed coat or who your parents were. Unless, of course, your parents had come from Equestria. Then all bets were off. Gilda stood on a parapet and regarded the street below. Canterlot was a plush city. You just had to look at the architecture to know it was somewhere that had grown preoccupied with class in a different sense than Gryphonan society. In Canterlot you were judged by your family tree and how much money it had. There were exceptions for magical talent, but the wrought metal curlicue lampposts, city parks, municipal artwork and spotless public conveniences spoke volumes about what ponies valued in their lives. Luxury to Gryphons meant having enough to eat and the opportunity to procreate with the mate of your choice. Luxury to Canterlot ponies meant big houses, expensive clothes and garden parties where you played things like polo or croquet. One of the Claw Army soldiers raised a croquet mallet in his fist. “C’mon, you!” he bellowed at the line of ponies trailing past. They held their heads low and an air of defeat clung to them like stink on garbage. “Get the lead out! Move it, move it move, it!” Gilda watched him and wondered when her own feeling of triumph would arrive. She had expected to feel good about the ponies finally getting their comeuppance. They were all a bunch of judgemental hypocrites; she had first-hand experience of that. They would be friends to non-ponies only as long as they acted like ponies and not like anything else; certainly not true to their own natures. Heaven forbid a griffin acted like a griffin, or a minotaur like a minotaur, or a goat like a goat. Only pony ethics and values were acceptable. In Equestria it was all pony all the time and you either conformed or got out. One pink pony stumbled and knocked into the unicorn in front. Gilda was surprised to see a unicorn in with the earth ponies. The pegasi had already been separated off and it would have seemed obvious to her to contain the magic users. Then again, maybe King Claw’s generals were thinking it would be unwise to put so many magic users together. Individually no unicorn could take down a griffin platoon, especially since talents in Canterlot tended towards the trivial or showy. After years of only breeding with the ‘right’ sort of socially acceptable ponies, very few Canterlot unicorns possessed the raw power necessary to fight back, especially with the morale so low after the deaths of their princesses. King Claw had given special orders to hammer this fact into the prisoners: Celestia and Luna were dead, as were the Ponies of Harmony, or whatever they were called. There was no-one left to save them. The pink pony hastily got back into line, but it seemed the griffin with the croquet mallet was drunk on his own power. He strode forward and shoved the little earth pony so hard her yellow beehive mane, already unravelling, fell across her eyes. She trembled and shrank away from him. “Didn’t you hear me? I said to move it!” She whimpered and covered her head in fear. On top of her parapet Gilda watched the bullying griffin swing the mallet at her. It halted abruptly in mid-air and he stumbled, momentum forcing him to release it as his body carried on forward in an awkward lurch. The mallet hung, encased in the same magical glow that surrounded the unicorn’s horn when he turned around. “Leave her alone.” A griffin further along the line laughed at the spectacle. The now mallet-less griffin fluffed his neck feathers in embarrassment and tried to grab back his weapon, presumably so he could use it on the defiant unicorn. The unicorn was no fool and lifted it out of his reach. The embarrassed griffin flapped his wings and rose onto his hind legs, but the mallet lifted out of his reach again. Finally he let out an angry, frustrated screech. In response, the mallet twirled upside down and smacked him in the beak. His screech cut off sharply and he fell back, clutching his face. Griffins appeared, seemingly from everywhere. It would have looked strange if Gilda didn’t follow their lead, so she glided down to the melee, where the unicorn was using the mallet on anyone who got too close. Earth ponies cowered away out of trampling distance, leaving him to defy their captors alone. A couple tried to run for it but were soon stopped. They squealed like stuck piglets as they were pinned and either herded or carried back to the line while the unicorn was shepherded away from them, fighting all the way. “This is Equestria!” he yelled. “You griffins have no place here!” “This is our territory now!” replied a large buck with reddish head-feathers. “Never!” It took three griffins attacking simultaneously to bring the stallion down. He lay on his back under them, kicking wildly. Their claws tore off clumps of his tuxedo jacket and blue mane, which drifted through the air like a strange kind of mist above their beating wings. Gilda flew up and used her own claws on the mallet, shredding the wood so it was no use as a blunt weapon. The bits fell to earth, signalling that the magic suspending them had been cut off. The unicorn staggered between his captors, balanced unsteadily on his hind legs with his forelegs held behind his back. It would have been an unstable pose anyway but the rapidly swelling welts on his face made him extra wobbly. His moustache was crimson with the blood trickling from his nose. “You jutht made a big mithstake.” The original griffin who had attacked him stalked up, now sporting a large crack in his beak. His eyes blazed as he drew back his claws. He clearly intended to swipe them across the unicorn’s exposed throat, but once again he was knocked off his feet, this time by a spindly white unicorn who galloped into him. He landed on his backside and let out an ear-piercing yelp. “Gaaah! My tail! My TAIL!” “Y-You leave Fancy Pants alone!” the spindly unicorn shouted. Her voice was uncertain, as if she was questioning what she was doing even as she did it. She was probably a beautiful pony usually, but her pale pink mane was caked with dirt and her elaborate eye make-up was streaked from crying. She set her hooves and lowered her head as if to use her horn as a spear. Gilda wondered why she hadn’t also used telekinesis the way the stallion had. Maybe this mare wasn’t very magically gifted. Her long legs trembled but, to her credit, she stood her ground between the stallion and the angry griffin buck. The griffin leapt back up, enraged and in pain. His neck feathers were so puffed up they looked like a real lion’s mane. Behind him his tail hung at a painful looking ninety degree angle, clearly broken when he had fallen on it. He forwent his screech for a full-throated roar – or at least that was what everyone thought until he looked surprised and closed his beak before the roar was finished. Captain Ripper landed amongst them like a lightning bolt striking the ground. He eyeballed the assembled crowd and single-clawedly caused a hush to fall over everything. “What,” he snarled, “is going on here?” “C-Captain,” stammered the griffin with the broken beak. He drew himself up and took a steadying breath. “Jutht quelling a mutiny, thir!” “Oh really?” Captain Ripper glared at him until he wilted. “It looks to me like you’re making a mockery of the entire Claw Army!” His voice rose in volume at the end and he leaned forward, pushing his face into the other griffin’s. “You had a simple duty: separate the three breeds and escort the ponies to their designated detainee areas. What breed was your responsibility, Subordinate?” “Uh, earth ponies, thir.” “And do these two look like earth ponies?” “… No, thir.” “Then why didn’t you alert your Corporal that these two were mixed in with the wrong group? Well? Answer me!” The griffin with the broken beak stammered and stuttered but made no reply. Gilda knew why: he had been so busy congratulating himself and bullying the captured ponies he hadn’t even noticed the two that were out of place. Evidently Captain Ripper noticed too, because he lashed out. The griffin with the broken beak yowled in fresh pain, new cuts opening up on one cheek. He didn’t fight back; just hung his head in shame and deference. He was in big trouble and he knew it. “What is your name, Subordinate?” “Bloodthpill, thir.” “Report to Captain Grimwing,” he snapped. “Subordinate Bloodspill, you’re hereby demoted to body recovery detail.” “Corpth collecting?!” The stupid griffin raised his head but quailed at the look in Captain Ripper’s eyes. “Uh, yes, thir.” He reluctantly backed off, not turning to fly away until he was at a respectable distance and couldn’t be accused of turning his back on his superior. Gilda could commiserate. Corpse collecting involved cleaning up bodies from the battlefield; those of your own fallen comrades and of the enemy. She guessed Bloodspill wouldn’t be given the honourable task of retrieving dead griffin warriors, but would instead be forced to recover dead ponies and carry them to wherever he was directed using his own claws. Since the sun had not gone down since the princesses were killed the bodies would probably be stinking up the place by now. “And as for the rest of you,” Captain Ripper bawled, turning to address them. “Remove those two unicorns and get these earth ponies to their detainee area, NOW!” “Sir! Yes, sir!” The griffins scrambled to comply. Gilda scrambled too, but paused at the sound of her name. Captain Ripper approached her, still angry, but his ire was clearly not directed at her. Instead he nodded in approval. “I saw what you did there, Underling Goldfeather. Only you used your brains enough to negate the unicorn’s hold on the weapon by making the weapon itself unusable.” “Sir, my efforts were in vain, sir. The others took him out and made what I did pointless, sir.” “Nevertheless, you thought outside the box. That’s a good quality to have.” Captain Ripper eyed her thoughtfully. “Added to your performance on the battlefield I can see you’re definitely one to watch, Goldfeather.” Gilda’s stomach twisted. She hoped he wasn’t watching her too closely. She had some things nobody needed to see – especially a captain. “Thank you, sir.” “What detail are you on right now?” “I was, uh, about to go to body recovery, sir.” “Not anymore. Bloodspill can have your spot. Go with Subordinates Killbeak, Redfeather and Smasher to remove these two unicorns. They could use some extra brainpower in case the scary pointy-headed ponies try anything again.” His sneer cut through the air like lemon juice in milk. Captain Ripper nodded once more and dismissed her. Gilda left, noting the hostile looks thrown her way by the other Subordinates who had also rushed to Bloodspill’s aid. They were technically above her in rank and believed they were above her in status, so her getting special attention from the captain didn’t exactly endear her to them. “Sir!” called one of the two griffins holding the unicorn stallion, whose head lolled onto his chest. The mare was being pinned by the griffin called Smasher, so Gilda went to help him. “Where do we take them?” “All unicorns are being contained in the dungeons below the castle,” Captain Ripper replied as if they should already know. “It’s magically sealed down there. Apparently Canterlot hasn’t always been as idyllic as the ponies want you to believe, since they’ve had to imprison each other in magically warded cells before.” The mare fought a little but there was no power behind it. Between them Gilda and Smasher carried her away from the line of earth ponies, Redfeather and Killbeak following behind with the semi-conscious stallion. The mare began to sob softly as they flew, staring at her own hooves dangling in the empty air. Despite her earlier bravery she radiated defeat and hung limply in their grasp. Gilda’s stomach twisted again but she shoved it down and flew on grimly.