The Fight
Jason pulled himself out of the sewer exit, turning around to lend a hoof to Dash. Unfortunately, the entrance was much smaller than the escape hatch in the castle and they were forced to climb up the slippery metal rungs to the top, instead of flying. Jason grabbed the doorknob of the rusty door that concealed the sewer entrance and slowly pushed it open. The door made a quiet creak as they were greeted by the smell of smoke and the sight of a rubble filled street through the small opening that was created. Jason carefully shut the door again as a pair of griffins walked by, lighting the area with a torch. Dash pointed to the guards and made a quiet cutting noise, creating a motion with her hoof across her neck. Jason shook his head, waiting for the guards to turn a corner before swinging the door fully open. They trotted along the side of a row of buildings before cutting into the doorway of one of them.
A griffin inside turned to see them, but before he could make a noise a hoof was over his mouth and he was toppled backwards. Dash drew a blade across his throat silently as they got up to move into the next room, leaving the quiet sounds of choking behind. Dash silently pushed open the door, letting out a sigh when she realized that the room was empty. They went through another empty room and peered out a window onto the next street. Another pair of griffins walked by, chuckling about something.
Jason pointed a hoof upwards, signaling that they should clear the upstairs before leaving. The made their way up the stairs quietly until Jason bumped the side of his hoof into the top step. The dull sound rang out, echoing slightly around the old house. They froze in place, attempting to figure out if the unintended noise had any affect. There was a slight commotion in the adjoining room before the voices once again calmed. Dash and Jason resumed walking, stopping at the door into the occupied room. They counted down and swung the door open.
One of the griffins had seemed to expect this, and threw a punch from the side of the door opening, hitting Jason square in the gut and hurling him into the wall. As Jason recovered from yet another crack in his armor, he saw Dash emerge from the shadows and stab the griffin in the side of the neck. Everything went silent again. Apparently the other griffin or griffins inside didn't have a good vantage point on the action, which had all taken place outside the room. Dash ran in and tackled a rather small griffin with ill fitting armor while Jason readied his knife.
"Wait don't kill me!" The griffin cried out. Jason paused for a moment. "I can help you!"
"And how's that?" He said, not lowering his fore hoof.
"There's an army intelligence station nearby, I can tell you where it is."
"And how do I know that that isn't a trap?" The griffin stumbled over his words. "Here's the deal. I'm going to tie you up, then hide you so that no one else will ever find you. If it isn't a trap, we come back and free you, but until you tell us more I don't think it's worth it to give you mercy."
"The building just down the street. The old church, second floor. There's a bombed-out back entrance on the castle side. Enter there."
"Fine. I'm sure you know that any false information that you give us will result in your death." The griffin gulped and struggled under Jason and Dash.
"There's a general there, he should have bright clothing, like war paint type stuff."
"That's all you know?"
"Yeah." Without another word, Jason grabbed some sheets off of a nearby bed and tore them into long strips, tying and gagging the Griffin. He opened a closet and moved some boxes, shoving the griffin under a huge pile of cloths.
"If I find out you managed to signal for help, I will track you down." Jason said as he dragged the other griffin body behind the bed. "Let's go Dash." He had just noticed that during that whole endeavor, she hadn't said a single word. "You okay? You look a little shaken up."
"I don't know what to think anymore, I mean, part of me want's to kill every griffin for what they've done to the ponies around here, but as soon as I actually have to kill one, the other half of me just screams to give them mercy. It's just hard, you know?"
"Yeah." He didn't really have much else to say. He knew what she was saying, but he had made peace with the idea that some people just didn't deserve to live. The problem was the huge gray line that that idea created, that he could never easily find boundaries for. Every time he killed someone, or in this case, a griffin, he almost felt like he was trying to play god, attempting to decide who had the right to live and who didn't. To say the least, he hated trying to make that decision, especially when it wasn't an easy choice, as it was just now. Dash sighed, pulling him out of his musings.
"So let's get this whole field intelligence thing taken out so we can just go home." Jason nodded his agreement and they left the room. They crouched under the front windows of the house again, watching yet another patrol go by. Jason looked closer and realized that it was the same patrol as before, and that they were still chuckling madly about something. They came dangerously close to the window, allowing Dash and Jason to pick up on part of their conversation.
"She smelled terrible, just like third wife!" The other griffin howled with laughter until the first one punched him. "Is not that funny."
"Sorry man, just trying to pass the time."
"Ugh, just like sixth wife"
"How many wives do you have?"
"Always asking questions like fourth wife..." The griffin's voices faded into the distance as Jason and Dash raised their heads from their hiding places. Dash made her way out the door and along the building front, followed closely by Jason, who had a rock in his magical grasp. He tossed the rock across the street, in front of the griffins, attracting their attention to the rock's landing. They made their moves on the griffins, managing to take them both out silently. Jason gestured to a rubble filled shop, and they dragged the bodies away, hiding them behind one of the shelves.
The next five minutes were spent slowly moving down the street after a much more aware patrol. The patrol took a turn to the castle, in the opposite direction of the church that they had assumed was the place of the field intelligence. Dash noticed another sewer entrance pointed it out to Jason, who nodded. That should come in handy. The duo got to the old church and made their way around back. The griffin was right so far, there was a rather large hole in the back of the church, easily big enough for them to fit through. Jason and Dash peered into the church, attempting to find any of the griffins, although the prisoner's story was starting to look notwithstanding. There was a single griffin sitting in one of the pews, looking towards the front entrance. They both moved inside, slowly moving between pews towards the griffin, who was now slowly spinning her spear. Jason started to move up behind her when Dash jumped up from the pew direcly behind her and slit her throat. Jason stared at her.
"Hey, if this were a game, I've got to win right?" She stuck out her tongue.
"There's also no I in team." Jason responded with a deadpan look.
"Just let me have my fun." She looked at the corpse, dawning a slightly disgusted look. "Well, you know what I mean." She looked around. "I thought that there was supposed to be an intelligence thingy around here or something."
"Yeah, there was..." Jason spotted a door behind the podium. He briefly wondered what religion ponies could possibly warship, especially when they had the equivalent of tangible gods living in the city. Disregarding the mental comment, he made his way to the door, carefully putting an ear up to it. There were definitely griffins inside. He listened for longer, finding he could hear at least three distinguished voices. He whispered the new to Dash before slowly pushing the door open.
No one. Just an empty room, with another door. The voices were much more clear, causing Jason to change his number to at least five griffins. The good news: this was almost definitely the intelligence outpost. The bad news: they had only fought two griffins before, at least when it was just them. Time to switch it up a bit. Jason pulled out a flash-bang, and took a deep breath before signaling for Dash to open the door and priming the grenade. The door flew open and the flash-bang entered in a show of almost flawless timing. The griffins turned their heads from the map they were scouring as the bomb flew straight towards them, bumping into the table.
It didn't go off.
Dash and Jason stood mortified as they looked at the group of rather large griffins get up and grab their weapons. They both took on a fighting stance as two griffins flung themselves out the door. The first two were dealt with before any others could come to their aid. The others, though attacked in a group, partially surrounding Dash and Jason against the wall they had been pushed back to. Dash ran between some griffins, stabbing one in the back leg and distracting another while Jason jumped up and stabbed the distracted one in the neck. His knife got stuck though, and before he knew what was happening, another griffin had grabbed him and threw him against the wall. He slid down to the floor and laid there, slouched and dazed. The griffin, apparently the officer by his attire, walked over and signaled to the others to take care of Dash, while Jason regained a fraction of his thought. Raising his spear, the officer brought it down as Jason raised a hoof to block it.
The spear went neatly through one of the holes in his hoof, finding purchase in the crack he had sustained earlier and plunging into his chest. He screamed in pain as the griffin briefly smiled, only to get stabbed in the side by Dash. He let go of the spear, quickly picked up another one, and turned towards Dash. Jason broke off part of the handle of the spear to free his hoof while Dash took down another griffin. Another griffin raised his spear behind her, only to be silenced by a quick throw by Jason of one of his knives. Jason proceeded to double over and cough onto the ground, leaving splotches of blood.
Dash faced down the officer, the last griffin standing. He lunged with his spear, glancing the blade off her face as Dash reciprocated the action with one of her blades. She briefly recovered before the griffin attempted to strike again. This time she ducked under the spear and quickly ran under it, coming face to face with the griffin. She smiled at him before burying a blade in his chest, then another. She pulled out the blades and pushed the griffin over, making sure that he wasn't ever getting up.
She made her way to Jason, who was lying in a dishearteningly large pool of blood, with tears in her eyes. "I'm not...going out...like this," he said, clutching at the part of the spear protruding from his chest. "I don't think it hit anything... major," He couched, leaving another few splotches of blood. "Nicked a lung though." He took a deep, ragged breath. "I'm just...so tired, all of a sudden," he said as his eyes drooped.
"Don't fall asleep!" He stared at her with an annoyed expression. "You have to stay awake Jason, you're going to make it out of this." She pulled him onto her back and galloped out of the back of the church. "Don't die on me, not like this..." Dash was beyond the point of tears. The adrenaline in her system was keeping her full of rage, although she no longer had anyone to be mad at; she had killed that griffin. She would have sighed if she could get herself to stop grinding her teeth together. She made her way back down the street towards the maintenance tunnel she knew they had passed by. Jason was eerily quiet on her back. "Jason, say something!"
"Something, Ha." he said quietly. Dash could feel sticky wetness seeping between the cracks in her armor, staining her sky blue coat crimson read.
"What did you do before you came to Equestria Jason?" She asked, trying to keep him conscious.
"Can't we do this later?" He yawned, then moaned from the pain the yawn had caused. "I'm just so tired, and.."
"You need to tell me now! You need to stay awake!" She had almost made it to the entrance, just a few more strides, and, there! She flung open the door to see a sign that said: "Closed for maintenance. Sorry for the inconvenience." Dash was, at this point, fuming with rage, no longer listening to whatever Jason was saying about some thing called Happy Wheels. Jason seemed to notice.
"What's wrong Dash?"
"The maintenance thingy's closed for maintenance, ironically." She paused. "Don't stop talking." Jason rambled on, forgetting the previous topic and focusing on one about something called Ping Pong. Dash cut through the house they had cleared, also one of the only on the block not reduced to rubble, and remembered about the griffin upstairs. She ran into the upstrairs room and threw open the closet doors, immediately toppling boxes out and pulling out the griffin. She untied the 'ropes' holding his legs, but kept the gag on. She then re-used the ropes to attach Jason more securely to her back.
"We're going to escape, you're coming with me. If I see even a hint that you may not be on our side, I will not hesitate to kill you." The griffin hurriedly nodded, and they rushed out of the room, immediately heading out the door. Dash ran straight towards a patrolling griffin, not even bothering with stealth. She ran into him, knives held forward, toppling him over. She pulled out the knives and continued to run, followed by an awed griffin.
Wherever her near endless supply of adrenaline was coming from, it was beginning to run out. The pain in her hooves came back to her, and what cuts she did have on her body made themselves well known. She didn't give the injuries a second thought, and sped up, making a bee-line towards the maintenance door that she assumed they had taken here. She flung open the door and looked behind her, checking for the griffin. He shifted awkwardly on his paws when he was presented with the the sewer entrance, but started climbing down the ladder nonetheless. Once she heard him get to the bottom, Dash started down as well, quickly checking the status of the harness attaching Jason to her. He had started talking about how much he wanted a hamburger. She shuddered, and started her descent.
She lost her grip on one of the last rungs and fell the rest of the distance, twisting to land on her chest. She groaned in time with Jason as she slowly rose to her feet, looking around into the darkness.
"Jason, which way?" Jason lazily swung a hoof around.
"There's a light over there, go that way." Dash nodded, stumbling a few steps later.
"Are you...sure you're okay Dash?" He asked.
"Even if I'm not, I still have to carry you back." The became silent for a while. "Are we still going the right way?" Jason was silent for a few seconds. "Jason?" More silence. "Jason?!?!" She took off in a gallop, heading in the direction she hoped was the right way. The griffin managed to keep up with her, although neither of them knew where they were going. After minutes that seemed to slur into hours, a tiny light appeared in the distance, and Dash let out a sigh that she hadn't know she'd been holding in. She put on another burst of speed, sprinting the final feet until she emerged in front of the group of non combatants. They all looked over, and watched as Dash tried to get a hold of her breath, gesturing wildly.
"Injured...spear wound...needs medical attention." She said, continuing to pant. She opened her mouth to say something else, then a wave of fatigue washed over her, and she collapsed onto the ground, unconscious.