//------------------------------// // Here Kitty Kitty (22) // Story: Griffin the Griffin // by BlackWing //------------------------------// Here Kitty Kitty "Feathers finally starting to grow back. Wanna fly. Wanna fly. Wanna fly." "Sorry, you got three more days at least till they come in full." Gilda assured me. Only three more days till I could get some exercise. I had spent the greater part of the past week and a half reading up on The Feline Jungle, or as it's known in Equestria, the Great Southern Rain Forest, as well as the Volcanic wastes. The book I had on diamond dogs was useless, as it was out dated and I had two perfectly good sources of information. When Etch and Growl weren't digging up gems and 'magic rocks' as they'd call them, I spent some time teaching them to read. They figured out the English alphabet pretty quick, and could now write sentences that, while grammatically incorrect on every level, were at least understandable. They fared far better with reading. Once they knew the letters, they just needed to sound the words out. It helped that they could already talk. "I have to say Grif, the new feathers look pretty good. More colourful. How old did you say you were?" Gilda asked. "19, why?" "That explains it. Age of maturity. You've lost your kid feathers and have adult ones now." "Aha! So, I'm of age and the feathers are more colourful to try and attract a mate. Soooo, like what ya see? I know I was hot before, but now, I must be damn sexy." I teased while spinning my self around so I could get a better look as well. Gilda blushed, then quickly gave me a nuggie to cover it up. "Ah, shut up." She scowled. "I didn't hear a no........." Trixie on the other hand just laughed at our antics. "Just hurry up and grow your feathers in so we can get out of here. I think we should go further into the jungle, and farther from the Equestrian border." "You miss riding on my back, don't you?" "....... yes." "Well, don't worry about it. Soon as I'm good to go, we'll be doing a lot more of that." In the middle of the night, the day before we were to set out, I was awoken my a hard punching in my arm. I figured something must have happened, so Gilda was getting me up. How wrong I was. I awoke to find some kind of cat..... thing.... pinning me to the floor with an ivory dagger pressed against my throat. It was dark, so I couldn't really get a clear look. "Fuck." "Good, you're awake." The cat thing said. "I wanted you to see this coming. First things first, you're going to tell me where you took my father, then, I'm going to tie you up, parade you through town, pluck you, and cook you alive in boiling oil." "Eh?" I noticed something smash on her face, fumes coming from it. I quickly exhaled and held it, the cat-thing falling off me unconscious. After I got myself up, careful not to inhale any of the knockout gas that had fallen around me, Trixie used her magic to light the gem torches along the walls. "Nice save Trix. You're getting more useful by the day." "Why thank you. What do ya wanna do with it?" "Tie it up. We'll deal with it in the morning." Morning came, the rest of the camp having stayed awake through the night to watch for any more intruders. There were none. With the light, I finally got a better look at the cat thing that had attacked me. It looked like a cat person. Bipedal, tail, fur, the whole deal. A bonafide Khajiit, but with the wide eyes that ponies have, to make them look cute. She was basically a furry's dream come true. I say she, because I could now tell that she was clearly a female. I assembled the crew, instructing them to let me do the talking, and to whisper to me if they had something to add. The creature finally began to stir, and on noticing it was bound, tried to get it's dagger. I put my claw down on it and lifted it up in front of my face. "Hmm, nice knife. You should really have a second one hidden on you in case you get tied up." With that, suddenly, her ropes went slack, and she dove at me with an ebony dagger. The white one was a straight edge, while the black one was a kris. I rolled onto my back, my paws meeting her chest and flipping her into the tree. She dropped her blade, only to find it at her throat, being held by me. I noticed that it had a fluid on it, not so much that it was dripping, but quite a lot. 'Poison. That was too close for comfort.' "Clever girl. Full of surprises. Any more you want to tell me about?" She just scowled. "Etch, Growl, mind tying her back up?" "Alright, hmm, book doesn't say anything about cat people. Care to explain who you are and why you're trying to kill me?" "As if you don't know." She spat. She had spunk, this one. "Let's pretend I don't." "I am Nadene, of the Vren tribe. You kidnapped my father and enslaved my village! Keeping him hostage to ensure we did what you asked of us, taking all our belongings. You worthless pirate bastard! I'll kill you!" "Errrmmm, okay? Everyone, huddle. Growl, keep an eye on her, she's a sneaky one." The bulky dog stood in front of her with his arms crossed, the cat scowling and pouting. "What the hell? I didn't do anything like that. I didn't even know there were cat people here." "Beats me." Gilda replied. "Sounds to me like she's mistaken you for somepony else." Trixie suggested. "Okay, I'm gonna try and figure this out." "So, Nadene..." "Do NOT speak my name." She hissed like a cat does when it's backed into a corner. "Listen cat bitch, do you know who I am?" "You are Griffin the griffin, you and your band enslaved my village. Do you not remember? I watched as you killed my mother and drugged my father. You burnt down half the village!" She said with another hiss. "When did this happen?" "Twelve days ago." "Yeah, funny thing about that, I just finished moulting. I ripped all my feathers out and they finally grew back. I've been stuck in this damn tree house for the past fourteen days." "You LIE!" "Oh? I don't see your father around here, who ever he is. I've never heard of you or your people before. Oh, look, here's all my old feathers." At which point I dumped a bag of the plumes on her head. She sneezed and squiggled to try and get them off. "Looks like you've mistaken me for someone else lady." "You are not the captain of the Griffin Pirates?" She tilted her head to the side. "No, that's me." "Then you admit it!" She growled. "Admit what?" "Twelve days ago, a two griffins and a unicorn entered our village, burned half of it down, killed my mother, kidnapped my father, and enslaved the rest of us. They called themselves the Griffin Pirates, and said they would kill any who opposed them! We are not fighters, we could not stop you. It's why you picked our tribe instead of another." Nadene was crying. "Sorry for your loss, but here's where you're wrong, I did no such thing. I've been here the past two weeks, and in Wethoof before that. What's more, our group is about ending slavery. There is no way in hell we'd enslave anyone, much less an entire village. And we do not kidnap either." "I think I know what happened." Etch spoke up, something uncharacteristic of him. "Go ahead." "We have impostors." The dog with the scratchy voice suggested. "You're damn right we do. Here's what happened. A trio of pansy ass wanna be's looking to cause trouble and get rich quick stumbled on your little village, and since they couldn't take you on all at once, they pretended to be us because we're badasses, to scare you all in order to keep you in line. Cut her loose, and give her her blades back." Nadene was shocked to hear what I just said. Impostors, actually weaklings, hoping to capitalize on a village of peaceful natives. "So, you guys know what we're gonna do right? Given the circumstances, I don't think we need to vote on this." "Fuck yeah! Let's go kick the crap out of em!" Gilda dug her claws into the wood of the floor, raring to go and looking for blood. "Mmmmmhahahahahaha! I'm going to enjoy this!" Trixie cackled like a witch. "HU WA!" The dogs pounded their chests. I held my sunglasses in my claw. "Let's gear up, it's time to," I put the glasses over my eyes. "Take out the trash." I looked around, expecting to hear a 'yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh'. I was disappointed. We donned our weapons and armor, then were ready to set out. "Okay, so we're gonna walk there. If we fly, we're gonna get spotted. We waltz into the village like we own it, find out where 'WE' are, and make them beg for mercy. Since there's no way we can carry all of you anyway, and Nadene knows the way on foot, we follow her. Everyone, pack our stuff up. Let's go kill some impostors." "So Nadene, you said you're from the Vren tribe, is that species or what?" "No, we have no name for our kind as a whole. We are different tribes, each with different villages. Our kind is at peace with one another. Those with like minds come together and form a village, while those who do not agree form their own far away so that we may not encounter them. Our village, Valen, is one of the larger ones. We are close to the sacred grove, which holds many herbs which we use for potions, and so our people are well trained as apothecaries. We however, shunned the arts of war. I practiced in secret. Father was very disappointed when he discovered me." She explained. "So, you're a potion maker then?" "No, that is my father, Rakk, the village chief. I know much of the craft, but it is not something I wish to do with my life. I seek adventure. My father tells me that I should stay in the village, make potions, and be a shaman. That life is dull. I wish to travel, to see the world. Can he not see that he is stifling me?" I saw her with sad eyes, but a glimmer in them. Wanderlust. She wanted to get out and see the world, and she couldn't. 'All I have to do is save the village, and I could convince her to join us. She's clearly a skilled fighter, a sneaky one at that, and despite not being what she wants to do, she's a potion maker. Obvious choice. Thank you Lady Luck, you know I love you. What's that? You want jewelry? Well, I don't see why not.' "Shh, we are here." The cat hissed softly. The dogs glared. I could tell they didn't like her. I mean, cats and dogs, duh. Looking at the village, there were several huts that were partly destroyed, blackened by flame. There, on a chair being carried by several tiger-ish looking cat people, a griffin, relaxing, flanked by another griffin and a dark blue unicorn. "The hell, they don't even look like us! are you serious? The unicorn's colours are all wrong, same with the feather colours on the griffins. The guy who's supposed to be me has green feathers. GREEN. How the hell did you mistake them for us?" "Well, my kind is colourblind." Nadene explained sheepishly. "And yet you take herbs and plants, many of which have similar shape and are only distinguishable by colour, and make potions from them." "We can tell by the feel and scent of the herbs. Father lost his eyes years ago, yet still makes the finest potions." I face clawed. "Okay, enough of this bullshit. Let's do the big reveal. Trix, send and illusion of me in first. Make it dive at that guy, then turn to smoke." Her horn began to glow, making an exact copy of me, minus her, and had it exit the bush. My clone let out a vicious shriek, dove at the griffin in the chair, then vanished as it connected with him. He became so frightened that he fell off. The then began looking around frantically for his non existent attacker. 'Well, that proves that theory. He's a scaredy cat.' "Okay, we now know that they're pansies. Only reason they could take over is because you're not fighters. Let's show them what REAL pirates can do." We marched out of the bush, looking mad as hell. The trio of fakers looked at us, quite frightened. They knew the jig was up. "So, someone thinks it's fun to play pirate do they?" The green one, also a male, gulped. The rest of the town that was watching were incredibly confused as to what two more griffins, a unicorn, two diamond dogs, and Nadene were doing. "Watch your mouth you peasant! Do you not know you're speaking with the great captain of the Griffin Pirates?" He tried to keep up his show. Wait.... that voice..... it seems familiar somehow.... no matter. I drew Hades, slamming it into the ground. "You know, that's funny, because last I checked, Griffin the griffin was me, not some pansy little fruit fly like you." "You want to fight about it?" He prepared a fighting stance. I laughed. He had NO FUCKING IDEA what he was doing. This was going to be hilarious. I casually tossed an exploding vial, which hit him square in the chest and knocked him on his back. The other two stood in front of him, the unicorn throwing a flame spell at me. Compared to dragon flames, it was pitifully weak. Of course, Hades saw to it that there was a slightly scorched unicorn about a second later as the magic bounced off. The second griffin flew away, not even bothering with trying to fight. Smart girl. She knew she couldn't win. The first griffin got back up, ready to fight again. "Nadene? Would you care to do the honours? This guy is pathetic. I've seen you fight. You could handle all three of them yourself." Nadene purred. God that was cute. She pulled out her ebony and ivory daggers, holding them in her paws reversed, so they were pointing backwards. "So, you three figured it would be fun to pick on a peaceful village, because they hate fighting and refused to defend themselves, getting those other two to follow you and wreck stuff? Guess what, it looks like one of them knows how to fight and is more than willing to." The unicorn was grabbed by Gilda and stuck in the ground by her horn, unable to move. It was hilarious. The green griffin stood up and prepared to fight. She instructed me that this was her fight and to stay out of it. Nadene and 'green' dove at each other, her daggers and his claws clashing, blocking each other. He was heavier than she was, so he began to overwhelm her. He started pecking at her, trying to pierce her throat. She moved her head from side to side, before finally having enough and biting into his shoulder. He jumped backwards in pain. As the cat readied her fighting stance again, the griffin began to laugh. "Bwahaha! Remember, I'm the only one who knows where your father is! If you kill me, you'll never find him, and he'll die. You'll lose your village chief! You can't kill me!" Nadene broke out of her fighting stance, letting her daggers fall to the ground. The griffin pounced, punching her over and over as she made no attempts to defend herself. Finally, when he was satisfied, be began to laugh again. "Not so tough now, are you?" My eyes opened wide in realization. Now I know where I heard that voice before. I immediately dove at him, knocking him off balance. He tried to stab me with his claws, but I corkscrewed my arm around his, put the other one on the inside of his shoulder, and pulled it out of it's socket. "Not again!" He screamed in pain. "Carl! You fucking bastard!" He was overcome by shock as I said his name. "How do you know my name?!" He screamed in pain. "Because, this is the second time I've dislocated your arm." "G...G....G... Griffin?" He stuttered, suddenly realizing the irony that he had taken on my name. "Damn right bitch. Enjoy walking home barefoot?" I smirked. "You son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing here?" He raged. "I could ask you the same thing." "I got all pissed off, so I went out and got high. Then some weirdo with a glass of wine and a fruit bowl asked me what was wrong. I told him what happened, and he said I needed a vacation, and he could send me somewhere with fantastic drugs. I decided to take him up on his offer. Then he snapped his fingers and sent me to this hell hole. Sure, they got lots of plants for smoking, but nearly getting eaten by a fucking tiger ain't worth it." He would have been red in the face from rage, but he was in too much pain. "Serves you right. I give you a damn kidney, and you did nothing but make my life miserable." "Wait, that was you?" He looked in shock. I had never told him it was me. "Yeah, I knew who I was giving it to, but I demanded that they never tell anyone, didn't want it coming back to me. Then, not a month later, you begin picking on me, all so your drug addict friends would think you were cool. Six years I regretted saving your life. Now I'm gonna fix my mistake. New body, no rules." Carl shivered in terror. The very same green haired punk who picked on me, who pulled a knife on me above the freeway. He had been sent here by a mystery man. Funny, he didn't look so tough anymore, hands over his head in a puddle of his own waste. I was REALLY going to enjoy this. I sliced off his non-dislocated arm with Hades, then lifted him into the air. I plucked all his feathers from him. He wasn't molting, meaning that they weren't ready to come out, and were a bajillion times more painful to remove. Once he was naked, I punched him to a bloody pulp. Nadene had gotten back up and watched as I furiously pummeled the one who had caused her village so much pain. "Stop, please!" Carl begged. "Tell me where the village chief is!" "He, he's in the temple, to the south east! He's tied to the table in the second room on the left!" "All the villager's valuables?" "Same place, the third room on the right." "Good. Nighty night." I smashed a knockout vial in his face, causing him to pass out." Then I turned to the unicorn. "Oh sweet Celestia please no." She cowered, Gilda pushing her to the ground next to her unconscious leader. "What to do with you? Nadene, you okay?" She nodded. The villagers looked very VERY angry. At me for some reason. "What?" "We despise violence. You have stained the ground with blood. You are not welcome here. Leave immediately!" One of them looked at me angrily. "What are you gonna do about it?" I glared back at him, causing him to shrink visibly. "That's what I thought. Problems from home followed me here, and now I'm gonna take care of them." Several of the villagers returned, the chief, looking like a man tiger with no eyes, entering the town with a cart behind him filled with food and herbs and such, being supported by many of the others. "Father!" Nadene cried, running to the arms of her blind dad. "I am so glad you are all right father!" "I am not your father." He deadpanned. "What?" She was taken aback, with tears in her eyes. "You, your thirst for adventure, you trained yourself to fight in our village, you made poisons. The gods punished us by sending this griffin scourge, and since you brought these ones, who have spilled even more blood on this sacred ground, we shall be punished further. Leave this village, and never return. Only then may we be spared the spirit's wrath." He turned away, Nadene weeping bitterly. With a gentle tug on her arm, I pulled her away from the scene, Etch and Growl dragging Carl behind them. We told the unicorn to get the hell back to Equestria and rethink her life. She ran away as fast as she could. We set up camp about a mile outside the village. Nadene was lethargic. Being turned out by her own father was the worst. I know. It happened to me too. "Cheer up kiddo. Your father still loves you, he was doing you a favour." "What?" She blinked to look at me, the sun now setting behind. "He knows you want to go on an adventure, this was his way of telling you to go out there and do it. In his heart, he knows that if they had been ready to fight, this whole thing could have been avoided. It was his way of severing the ties and setting you free, while still saving face with the village.He wants you to be happy, to come with us." "What use could I be to you? You are so strong. I was too weak to even try and defend myself." "There is more than one way to be strong. You couldn't kill him because of your love for your father, so you stood there and took it. I know what it's like to be trapped like that, which is why I have my crew here to bail me out. Together, we are strong. Besides, we need a potion maker." I dropped the herbology book in front of her. "I can't figure this crap out. So, what do ya say? Wanna join the Griffin Pirates?" As she sat on the wooden floor of the tree house, which she very easily climbed into, she looked at me with tears in her eyes. My expression was one of warmth and caring. She nodded. "Good, there's just ONE little thing we have to take care of. Carl here needs to be put out of his misery. I seem to remember you saying something about boiling me in oil? Since we don't have any of that, how about a dagger dipped in manticore venom? We don't know what it does, and this worthless piece of shit volunteered to be a test subject when he pissed me off. Let's wait for him to wake up though." As Carl awoke, he groaned in pain, then realized he was pinned by a VERY angry Nadene. "Oh shit." "Well well Carl, looks like you made a very bad choice trying to keep your old habits when you came here. This little kitty cat is a skilled potion maker, and lucky you, since you killed her mother, you won the lottery and get to test some of them out." Nadene took her white dagger, thoroughly coated in the green ooze of manticore venom, and stabbed it into his right arm. He didn't scream at all, simply staring as the thick ichor mixed with his blood. "Neruotoxin. Kills the nerves. Painless. Also lethal. Damn it, I was hoping it would be like acid or something so you'd suffer a bit more." "Come on, you have a cure for this right? Hey man, come on! I'm sorry about picking on you okay! You wouldn't leave a fellow griffin hanging would you?" He begged. "Little known fact, most griffins are slaves. Every one of them has a family member in captivity, and as such, would NEVER force that on someone else. You did, ergo, you are not a griffin. You also killed the innocent. You're guilty of crimes deserving of death, and in this lawless place, I am your judge, jury, and executioner. You may be from the same place as me, but you aren't the same. Echo is a diamond dog, and he's more like me than you are. My only regret in this is that I saved your life in the first place. I could have saved myself a world of pain if I had just let you die. Good news, when I became a griffin, it's a completely new body. I have all my organs. It's time to erase the past. Now die." I stabbed him in the throat with my sword, going all the way through, taking off his head. I casually dumped the body off the tree, where a slythin, a type of snake, similar to an anaconda, began trying to eat it. Poor thing would die when the venom in the body got into it's bloodstream. I tossed the cat woman a necklace with a dragon's tooth on it, which she then put on. "Nadene, welcome to the crew." Dear Princess Celestia Want to know how to make your horn 30% larger today? Sincerely, Griffin. I don't actually hate Carl. I had a friend named Carl. I haven't seen him since I finished high school, 3 years ago. He went off on some military thing.