I'm not going to lie, I hated this story the moment I got out the first few chapters. Like... I REALLY hate it. I despise it. I wasted MONTHS on this friggin story when I could have continued working on the Behemoth sequel, or on my other stories I still haven't published for approval yet.
I trapped myself in a corner with the storyline. I made it WAY too predictable, and I hated writing every minute of it.
The only reason I kept on trying to write this story was because, apparently, some of my readers like this.
Something happened however. It was something both of a Celestia-given miracle and a Tartarus-ish curse.
Every chapter and developing chapter that I typed on Word Document but I didn't copy-pasta on here (don't look at me like that, I had to frequently change locations and laptops, so I couldn't use Google Drive unless I REALLY wanted a hassle), became corrupted and unusable when I went to make my final spell check of them.
But please don't make me keep on writing this. Please understand me. There are numerous tortures I'd rather go through than continue writing and/or re-typing this story, for example, burning for eternity in an underground realm, starving to death, watching Bonanza reruns in Finnish.
I'll even write down the basic outline of the rest of the storyline down below to truly complete this story if you wanted to read this through to its end.
Again, I'm so sorry. I was so tempted to just delete this story and rid myself of this, but you guys got me through for the first half of it.
친구, 당신을 감사합니다.
-Kishin
After Glimmer Rain somewhat trips balls and almost begins to pummel Grid in her fury, they make up.
Trixie was in the process of asking Glimmer Rain and Hops (and everypony else in the pub) to go to her show. She wants to prove to at least one pony or gryphon that she has talent, that she isn't a failure, and that she has reformed morally, so she earnestly wants to somepony see her perform.
When she asks Leif, Leif strangely seems to have forgotten who Trixie was, but with some reminding of Grid and Glimmer Rain, he beings to remember faint memories. (His refusal to kill his brain cells with alcohol and easy capability to discard memories hinted earlier in chapters will be explained later)
She gets Leif to go, through some sort of persuasion that I haven't figured out yet (Magic!), and as Leif arrives at the entrance at the performance's location (after being teased maliciously by Glimmer Rain), he gets jumped by Koi himself and his gang and Leif is pulled into the alley of the building that the performance is being held in.
Koi questions Leif roughly (How rough? A knife was involved) who caused the fire in the Fenris synagogue (which is basically the equivalent to bombing a mosque in the Helmand or Kandahar Provinces of Afghanistan and telling every person in every village of the provinces that you did it), and Leif reluctantly reveals that it was his plan, though it was Grid's, to burn down the synagogue and that he was alone in the act.
Their encounter reveals that Koi, a red feathered gryphon with gleaming predatory blood-orange eyes and blind in one eye from a stripped line of scar tissue, were once close comrades, partners, and blood brothers until Leif became disillusioned by the vague actions of Fenris that'll be mentioned in the third paragraph after this and attempted to kill Koi and all Fenris members.
Koi hands a single silver flintlock pistol over to Leif, mentioning that he wants to return both Leif's property and return the favor of what Leif did to one of Koi's eyes (hence the injury and blindness of said eye), but Koi leaves Leif battered, shanked, and left to die with infectious wounds, saying that he's a "Better comrade, and gryphon, than [Leif] ever will be", so Koi doesn't stab Leif's eye... he just stabs him nearly to death bodily. Leif keeps the flintlock hidden behind his wings. Trixie, midway in her performance, hear's someone's screaming that there's a gryphon body in the alley. Her mind automatically jumps to the most defining image of Leif: his cross tattoo from his Fenris days. Accidentally, Trixie casts the image of the cross during her performance, and since it's basically a symbol universally hated by gryphons and ponies alike, she gets fired and black-listed from performing throughout Trottingham.
Glimmer Rain, Hops, and Trixie (Though from a mixture of fear of being next and guilt, Grid didn't arrive) are visibly relieved to see Leif still alive in his hospital bed. He manages to temporarily break out of unconsciously to slap the flintlock he hid behind his wings into the hooves of a very, very surprised Glimmer Rain, and tells her to give it to Grid to hide and take an assignment out of Trottingham. Leif then tells Hops to escape of Trottingham also, but when Hops stubbornly refuses, Leif tells Hops where he hid his loot from his Fenris crime sprees and tells him to use the money to move Hops's business towards the safe(well, safer than the poor, crime-infested districts on the outskirts of the city) core of the city. Leif reluctantly is forced to swear that he's leaving with them, and won't remain in the city to fight Koi himself (HINT, HINT, COUGH, COUGH). Lastly he apologizes to Trixie for missing her performance. He tells Glimmer to tell Grid to call in a favor to somepony vaguely nicknamed "the Commodore", and that Trixie would find a respectful, credible third chance for a performing career. Leif proceeds to fall into unconsciousness again.
Trixie, confused by the sudden information/cultural overload of the past day, asks Glimmer Rain what kind of events in Leif's, and Trottingham's, past would result in all this trouble and an even newer career oppurtunity. Glimmer, with a few drinks in her back at the pub, explains how before ponies had colonized and taken over Trottingham after the Solar War (Equestria's rough founding of its boundaries), mainly Earth ponies, gryphons and dragons had lived at peace on Trottingham. With the dragons siding with Equestria during the war, and the defeat of the Gryphon Empire, Trottingham was ceded to Equestria. Thousands of years later, several years before present day, an organization forms on Trottingham based on the Gryphon religion of the Heavenly-guiding Wind (A belief that goes with a period during Gryphon history of sort of a Zen, "go with the tide" movement post-war that made sure that any opposing force against the Gryphons would "wash over them, like waves smoothing a rock") and also of a particularly violent wolf God of Vengeance, Fenris. Thus the Fenris organization formed, its members mainly Gryphons disgruntled that their land was taken from them and used as living space and industrial construction by ponies and also hopeful in revenge of their fallen comrades and dignity of their Empire. Violence and guerilla warfare wrecked the streets of Trottingham, and after Leif's original parents died in the conflict and is adopted and raised by Glimmer Rain's parents and Hops, he becomes more bitter by the day of the death of his parents. He eventually joins Fenris, and Glimmer Rain, horrified of Leif's eventual transformation into a murderer, enlists in the Royal Guard, hoping to one day find and take Leif back home. At this point, Glimmer Rain mentions how in Fenris, new recruits were passed through a violent initiation ceremony where they were drugged and beaten to the point that they forgot who they were in order to erase any sense of doubt and make them loyal servants who would serve the cause of Fenris until they died. Glimmer Rain, during a street battle where she catches a glimpse of a initiated Leif, is captured by Fenris forces. She is almost raped and tortured violently by Leif himself (He is ordered to by Koi), until Leif sees her tear-stained face (I repeat, nothing bad happened to Glimmer). Leif's brain-washing malfunctions and shoots a glancing shot with his silver flintlock at Koi's head before he's forced to harm Glimmer in any way, shape, or form (Koi lives, but he is blind in the eye a ball bearing scarred).
He escapes with Glimmer Rain, makes sure she's safe, and forms a rogue faction of Fenris with individuals that also become disillusioned at the lives they once carelessly ended. This rogue faction worked together with the Royal Guard of Trottingham for 3 years and won the war with Fenris (During this 3 year period, Grid met Glimmer Rain), but Leif was forced to step down as leader of the faction and was arrested for his crimes during his time with Fenris. Leif wanted to resist, as he thought his actions and sacrifices during the 3 year period would make up for his past crimes, but Glimmer Rain persuaded him to "End the fighting. Trottingham's seen enough blood patter down on its roofs and drains" and give himself up in hopes that he can get out early, get an easier sentence, and be imprisoned in humane living conditions for cooperating with officals (which doesn't happen. Leif is imprisoned in the worst dungeon in all of Equestria known for its vast collection of the worst criminals still alive).
Glimmer Rain tells that the reason Leif doesn't drink alcohol or manages to forget who Trixie even was back at the pub is because the Fenris initiation damaged Leif's short term memory. He can still remember things if he attempts it with enough effort, and some memories can easily be reminded with a few conversations with that pony, but some details are lost to him, a permanent reminder of what Fenris did or any other organization of force is willing to do to others.
Leif, though his story is somewhat more morbid than Trixie's, is relatable to Trixie because he'll forever live with the guilt (like Trixie has) of the damage done to others, and that he'll live the rest of his life attempting to atone for his crimes.
Grid nervously walks over, and after receiving the flintlock and request to call in a favor, she mentions of what Leif and Grid did to cause Koi's anger. Days later, Leif arrogantly ignores medical advice and returns back home. He arranges airships trips for Hops, Glimmer Rain, Trixie, and even Grid (The rogue faction of Fenris is no longer willing to participate in defeating Koi because the Royal Guard had betrayed them at the end of the 3 year alliance, so when Leif learns that he won't be getting back-up, he tells Grid to leave with Glimmer Rain, and use his contacts to get jobs for Trixie and herself), and travels by tram with Trixie to travel to "The Commodore". The Commodore is revealed to be owner of the the famous Cirque de la Lune (The Equestrian equivalent to our Cirque du Soleil), and through an old favor from Leif (he protected the circus once during a performance from Fenris), and he gives Trixie the position of one of the main acts.
Though Leif admits that it was his fault and his past mistakes that caused Trixie to get black-listed by every hiring agent in Trottingham, Trixie thanks him, and kisses him on the cheek during her zeal. Leif is the only one in her life to have given her a new chance in life, and a shot at a job that every performer would kill for.
Comes the day that everypony and gryphon in the gang has to leave on the airship fields, when Koi arrives with his gang. Before Koi is sighted in the field, Trixie, the last passenger aboard, makes Leif promise to write, because she wants to make sure Leif is never alone in his pursuits of atonement, much to Leif's hidden anxiety at Trixie's irony (Leif now wishes to end the conflict between Koi and himself, even if it comes to the deaths of both of them). Leif distracts Koi long enough for the airship to lift off (which is forces to leave without him in order for the airship to make a quick getaway), and in his anger, Koi proceeds to try finishing the job he started by taking back the silver flintlock (which was discarded during the fight, as Leif reveals he promised Glimmer Rain when he rescued her that he would never use a flintlock ever again) and uses his own flintlock to shoot Leif in his wings, so he'll never escape from Koi's sights ever again. Koi proceeds to trot over to a wounded Leif with a knife, but Leif grabs the silver flintlock from Koi's belt and aims it Koi's head. Koi amusingly asks what happened to Leif's promise to never use a firearm, believing Leif too weak (both physically and mentally) to pull the trigger, but Leif remarks that, nowadays, he's finding it difficult to keep promises. The reason why he didn't shoot at Koi at first site on the airfield was because Glimmer Rain, Grid, Hops, and Trixie would have seen him kill, which would place a contradiction of the moral image they have of his last moments in the minds of his friends.
Then this plays as rain starts to fall on the airfield:
Leif smirks perhaps his last smirk, mouths out silently "Bang", and fires away the flintlock at Koi's head.
The strangely clear rain, which is rare with the level of pollution in the clouds and air in Trottingham, pours over the heads of the Fenris mob and Leif. It symbolizes that, as multiple gunshots are heard above the shower of both the usual, and unusual occurence of rain, that Trottingham is purified of its evils, and that not even the blood that spilt on the field that day, whether it be from Fenris, Koi, or Leif, can ever fester the new Trottingham ever again.
And yeah... I managed to leave that cliffhanger there. Did Leif die, since I vaguely mentioned that there were MANY gunshots AFTER Koi died? What happened to Glimmer Rain, Hops, and Grid? Will Trixie ever hear from Leif again?
Well read the ending, and find out :)