//------------------------------// // Part 18 - Percussive Therapy // Story: Griffon the Heave-ho // by CrowMagnon //------------------------------// Griffon the Heave-ho by CrowMagnon Fluttershy whimpered sadly when Grigori briefly paused. She had fluttered back to her husband while he was telling his story, and had her forelegs draped over Iron Will's shoulders as she clung to his back. "Gilda told Rainbow Dash to kill her? That's awful!" Suddenly, her eyes widened and she let out a high-pitched squeak. "Eep! Does... does that mean Gilda's a ghost?" When everyone turned to stare at her in disbelief, Fluttershy blushed. "What? It's a fair question. We've seen vamponies and a shadow demon!" "Good point, dear, but I'm pretty sure that Gilda isn't a ghost," Applejack replied. Gertrude looked thoughtfully toward Gilda and Rainbow Dash, who were still fighting with as much energy as when they began. "The young griffoness certainly isn't a spirit, but there are other kinds of death in the Empire, aren't there, Your Eminence?" Grigori blew on the lenses of his glasses, then wiped them against his chest feathers before putting them back on. "Indeed..." As silence descended over the group once more, but for the sounds of combat coming from the grounded pegasus and griffoness not far away, Iron Will awkwardly coughed into his fist and asked, "So... uh... Gertrude. Great to seeya and all now that you aren't crazy, but... erm, why did you even come out this way?" Gertrude reached up to touch the frozen spearhead hanging from the chain around her neck. Her eyes never left the two old friends as they battled. "Perhaps because this is something we needed to see." ----- Rainbow Dash ducked and weaved to the left. Gilda was coming at her hard, obviously wanting to finish things as quickly as possible. Dash, though, she wasn't about to quit any time soon. It helped that whatever training Gilda had gone through, wrestling with Rainbow Dash had made her technique regress back to when they were children, and the greater size difference between their adult bodies was a double-edged sword. On the one hoof, Dash was proportionally smaller compared to Gilda than she had been, but also stronger and more used to nimbly dodging larger creatures with very limited use of her wings. Still, Gilda was even stronger and no slouch in the speed department, so she had to stay on her game to avoid taking hits. A vicious backhanded blow swung toward her head, and Dash leaped back to avoid it. Dash pushed herself away from Gilda, recoiling in shock at what she thought she just heard. "What?!" Gilda growled as her strike whiffed through empty air, but she continued to press the attack. Dash jumped back to keep out of reach, so Gilda sprang forward to tackle her to the ground. "Kill me," Gilda repeated, her voice croaking with grief. She stepped toward Dash, backing the filly up against the wall. "It's my fault... You were gonna be a Wonderbolt, and... and..." Seeing Gilda bear down on her with a wild look in her eye, Dash rolled over onto her back. When the griffoness pounced on her, Dash planted all four hooves against her friend's chest and pushed upward with all her might, sending Gilda tumbling over her. "No! No, shut up!" Rainbow Dash shook her head and reared up, pressing her front hooves against her temples. "I don't want to think about it! I just want my best bud to--" Unable to right herself before she hit the ground, Gilda landed hard on her wing. But even as fresh pain stabbed through her body from the abused limb, her tail whipped out and wrapped itself around Dash's neck before the pegasus could get back up. The surprisingly nimble appendage took Dash by surprise before she could even try to stop it from grabbing her, and she found herself getting yanked toward Gilda. Before Dash knew it, Gilda's talons were on her, pinning her back against the wall by her throat and unbroken wing. "I am not your 'bud!' L-look at me, Dash!" Not that Rainbow Dash had much of a choice in the matter. The filly clenched her teeth and struggled against her friend's grip, but Gilda's talons wouldn't even budge. All she could do was look into Gilda's eyes, and what she saw there frightened her almost as much as the storm that had claimed her wing. There was rage in Gilda's eyes. Dash had seen Gilda angry from time to time. Mostly out of annoyance at the 'lameness' of the average pony. She had never seen Gilda look so much like she genuinely wanted to rip a living being apart with beak and claw, though. "Look at me... I... I got you h-hurt! I c-cost you your dreams," she stammered, choking on her words. "How can you call anyone who'd do that your 'bud'?!" Gilda loosened her hold on Dash and backed off a little, giving her room to move again, but also started shoving Dash from side to side with her talons to keep her off-balance without hurting her further. "Kill me... Kill me in your heart! Come on, hurt me back! I know you want to! Take it out on me, and then I'll go back to the Empire where you'll never have to see me again! The griffon who hurt you... she'll be dead forever... and you... you'll..." Rainbow Dash couldn't grab Gilda's tail very easily with her hooves, let alone pry it off as she wheezed for air. The tail wasn't constricting around her throat tightly enough to choke her, but the sudden yank had momentarily cut off her air, and now Gilda was moments away from pinning her down with her greater strength and mass. The tufted end of Gilda's tail was close enough to tickle Dash's nose, however, which also meant that it was close enough to bite. Dash clamped her teeth down hard, and was rewarded with a pained yelp as the tail reflexively loosened its hold. Off in the distance somewhere, Rainbow Dash heard somepony screaming. Calling out for help. The funny thing was, it sounded a lot like her own voice. Shapes appeared. Ponies, mostly, but there was a male griffon, too. Gilda's dad. He was pulling Gilda away. More screaming. Mostly from Gilda now, but it sounded so dull and far away. Gilda was fighting back. Reaching for Dash. All the while, the strangest thing was happening. Gilda was crying. A chilly mist came out of her mouth when she screamed, and the tears falling from her beak crystallized into tiny little teardrop-shaped hailstones that bounced off of the linoleum when they hit the floor tiles. Rainbow Dash rolled up onto all fours and spun around to face Gilda as the grifoness did the same. Gilda inhaled deeply and unleashed a terrible leonine roar. Despite the distance from Ponyville, Lily, Daisy and Roseluck simultaneously felt their ears prick up, quickly followed by an inexplicable urge to hide under their bed. The fact that they were already there thanks to Lt. Sparkle's magically amplified browbeating a few minutes earlier simply encouraged them to huddle closer together and wait for either dawn or the end of the world, whichever came first. Despite it not being likely to have global ramifications, though, the trio of florists would certainly have fainted if they had been present to see the battle between Gilda and Rainbow Dash intensify in that moment. The two locked their eyes on one another in a fierce staring contest. Gilda's body tensed, preparing to pounce again while Rainbow Dash dug at the ground with her hoof. There was a long moment that seemed to stretch out for entire minutes as the onlookers stared, waiting for one or the other to make the first move. In the end, it was Dash who bolted from her spot a mere fraction of a second before Gilda did the same. The young mare let out a war cry at the top of her lungs to match Gilda's own as the two combatants charged each other. "Stupid... stupid, stupid Gilda..." Rainbow Dash's tiny body trembled as she dug at the cloud beneath her hooves. After the craziness was over, and Gilda had been dragged away, there had been a lot of shouting outside her room. Mostly her parents yelling at Gilda's dad, from what she could make out. As for Dash herself... she'd been numb. In shock from what she had seen. Her best friend in all of Equestria... in all of Harmonia, begging to be punished. No, more than that... for the death of their friendship. For Dash to pretend that none of it had ever meant anything. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't. How could Gilda even ask for something like that? Right when Dash needed her friend the most? The twisted part was that there was a part of her that wanted to punish Gilda for talking her into flying into that storm... but not forever! Not... not in a way that'd make it like all the awesome stuff they'd done together never happened. Less than a week ago, Rainbow Dash had been the coolest filly alive (no matter what three moronic colts had to say about it). The filly who wasn't afraid to face down bullies or practice stunts that most adult pegasi struggled with. She'd even found the courage to face the terrors of the Everfree Forest. And she had paid the price for it. And now her best friend wanted her to throw away the one amazing thing she had left... It was too much, and it had pushed Dash to cross a line that she had never thought she would ever have to cross. She was running away without a fight. She hoped that her parents wouldn't flip out and start blaming each other when they saw the letter she left behind, even though they totally would. She hoped the authorities wouldn't waste a lot of time and ponypower looking for her. Most of all, though, she hoped Gilda and everypony would understand. She hoped that her friend would be able to let it go, and that some day they'd meet again, both of them older and awesomer, and Gilda wouldn't even think about asking for something so stupid ever again... ... Assuming Gilda could ever forgive her for being such a lame, weak little coward in the first place. Dash clenched her eyes shut, which proved to be a bad idea as the small patch of cloud that she was resting on finally detached from the larger cloudmass. Her front hooves passed through into open sky, and her body pitched forward. Only by rapidly flapping her one good wing did she manage to right herself instead of tumbling down toward the ground below. She did get herself settled, though, and with her heart pounding frantically in her chest, she reached out a hoof to push herself away from Cloudsdale. With only one wing and a less-than-aerodynamic cloud perch to stand on, it would be slow going. Much slower than she was used to flying, sure, but it would be hours before anypony even realized she was gone. Plenty of time to make her way downward to the trail leading into the Everfree. Plenty of time along the way for regrets. But the time for regrets was over. Rainbow Dash wasn't a scared little filly anymore with her entire world crumbling around her. The time for running away was long past. She and Gilda were charging toward one another, and this time, she would face her old friend head-on. Gilda's talons stretched out in front of her when they got close. The griffoness intended to grab Dash using her superior reach. Instead of letting her, Dash leaped into the air, flapping her good wing to get just a little bit of extra lift, then redirect herself in mid-jump so that she passed over Gilda's grasping talons and shoot straight for the griffoness herself. In this way, Rainbow Dash succeeded in facing her old friend head-on very, very literally.