Note: This chapter was updated on June 3, 2020, to coincide with changes being made in a future chapter. These changes begin at the line "Yeah, it’s a Frigate-class". Feel free to use Ctrl/Cmd+F to jump to that section in the chapter.
S I L V E R S P O O N
“BLOOD TRAITOR!” cried a Forlorn dreg, moments before his throat was slashed open by a furious Bladedancer.
“Where is the Kell of Autumn?!” she shouted. “Where is Drakkaris?!”
“She’s really into this, isn’t she,” I said in half-wonder, half-disbelief.
“It’s kinda cool,” Dovetail replied, watching in awe.
“You would think that, Dovetail,” I sighed, raising my rifle and sniping another dreg in the head before it could open fire upon us with its wire rifle.
“No, you idiots, I’m asking you!” she roared, bringing her Thunderlord to bear against an onslaught of charging foes and mowing them down in seconds.
“How the hay are we supposed to know?!” Dovetail snapped back at the gryphon. “He scampered off seconds after we ran in!”
“I knew we should have taken the stealthy approach,” I muttered.
“Too late for that now,” said Dovetail with a shrug, shield-bashing another dreg as it attempted to charge us. “What now, Miss Gryphon?!”
“Just keep moving!” snapped the gryphon, pushing forward. “And my name is Freya!”
It had been hours since we located the long-obscured Autumn’s Lair, a sprawling labyrinth weaving its way through a massive complex of seemingly-abandoned Gryphosi towers. Since then, we’d been tearing through the enemy forces with extreme prejudice, climbing up the towers and sky-roads and ascending higher through the city of Highcrowne, finally managing to fight our way into a massive hangar bay near the top of the highest tower.
As we stepped out the bay doors onto the drydock, we were greeted with a view over a huge swath of the city in all of its dilapidated glory. We had climbed high enough to pierce through most of the fog and ash that pervaded the city, leaving us with the sight of hundreds of towers piercing out from beneath the clouds, of crumbling concrete highways and roads crisscrossing between them. It was a scene that enraptured a certain attention-stunted filly as soon as she laid eyes upon it.
“Holy Horseapples,” she muttered in amazement.
“Not the time for sightseeing, ya damn horse!” snapped Freya as she swiftly executed the last Forlorn with a knife to the chest before throwing it off the edge, letting it plunge into the mists below.
“But nopony’s ever reached this level of Highcrowne before!” Dovetail cried in dismay, throwing her limbs out towards the scenic view. “Something causes our engines to short out and our ships rapidly lose altitude if we so much as even dare fly near it! We always have to enter on hoof!”
“Yeah, well maybe when we’re not getting shot at trying to chase down the megalomaniacal leader of a House full of Chaos-addled psychos, you can take a longer look! Hel, maybe I’ll show you the real thing someday!”
This caused Dovetail to whirl around, stars glimmering in her eyes. “Would you?! Really?”
“We’re at war,” I deadpanned.
“Ohhhh, riiiiiight, that thing.” The gryphon grinned, as if fully knowing the absurdity of her own words. “Tell ya what kid, let’s put a raincheck on that one.”
I groaned. “Girls, we have far more important things to concern ourselves over. Like that.”
They turned to follow my outstretched hoof. Before us, moored to the dock, was a massive airship, surely five times the size of our own personal dirigibles. It was heavily decorated with tattered but gracefully flowing flags and banners, all adorned with the colors and sigil of the House of Autumn.
“Wowsers,” said Dovetail. “Is that a ketch?”
“A what?” I asked her.
“Mid-sized intercontinental Forlorn airship,” came Freya's rapid-fire reply. She let out a low whistle. “And this one is decked out.”
“Heh, ‘decked’,” Dovetail giggled. “It’s funny because it’s a ship.”
“Shut up, pony.”
“The décor is rather tasteful,” I admitted, admiring the aura of regality emanating from the ship’s garlanded hull.
“No ship would be that over-decorated,” said Freya slowly, “unless it was meant for…”
“Does the sight of our great Highcrowne inspire awe in you, little pony?” sneered a cold, screechy voice, and we glanced towards the ramp leading into the ship’s innards.
Before the ramp towered a monster, a gryphon three times our size, whose wingspan stretched beyond all reasonable expectation. Its eyes were glowing with an otherworldly greenish tint, and its beak was curved into a malevolent grin.
“Yep,” finished Freya. “Definitely the Kell’s flagship.”
“Behold, the rusted jewel of our glorious civilization,” monologued the Kell, casting its talons across the expanse of the city, “brought to ruin by our own hubris, by our own misguided kin, blood traitors of the wing! Your ancestors chose against the ways, refused to embrace the…”
I heard not another word of the creature’s sprawling diatribe, during which it gesticulated dramatically with its talons and wings. My eyes instead drifted towards the weapon held effortlessly in its grasp.
I couldn’t help but release a breath at what I saw.
A sleek, imposing piece with a dark hardwood frame and a steel barrel, the scopeless rifle was intimidating in its sheer size—easily twice my height and then some. Pockmarked by what seemed to be so many centuries of wear and tear, it looked ancient and weathered even by real life standards, and it was likely a miracle the weapon still functioned—or perhaps a testament to the love and care extended to it by its countless owners across the ages. There was a coarse, rustic sort of beauty to the rifle’s ageless design, one that spoke of steadfast tradition, of unwavering loyalty, of a million soldiers who waged a billion battles across all of known history and far beyond.
It also looked like it could blow huge holes in things.
I felt a delightful shudder run through my spine. Oooh, yes. That prospect made me positively salivate.
And so it was thus that—as the ‘Kell of Kells’ or suchlike waxed philosophical about the Great Mistake of the Blood Traitors or whatever brought the mighty Gryphosi Kingdom to ruin or some-such—I raised my rifle and promptly discharged a magnetically-accelerated chunk of screaming hot metal straight between its eyes.
PING.
The round bounced cleanly off its metal faceplate, with naught but a single dimple to mark the impact.
Its droning tangential tirade interrupted, the creature howled bloody murder, its cry piercing beyond the confines of the hangar, across the ruins of the city, reflecting off every tower with ominous intent.
“Dude…” growled Freya. “What the fuck.”
I shrugged. “Oops?”
“YOUR FIGHT ENDS HERE, CRUSADERS!” it roared, spittle flying from its mouth. “YOUR INSOLENCE SHALL BE YOUR UNDOING!”
Without warning, a deluge of Forlorn soldiers burst forth from everywhere—pouring out of the ship, crawling from the wetwork, emerging from behind crates and doors—and swarmed our position all at once.
“Hayseed!” swore Dovetail, throwing up her shield to block some of the incoming fire.
“Drakkaris is making a run for it!” shouted Freya. With a glance, I saw the Kell charging up the boarding ramp into the bowels of the Ketch, and our pursuit was blocked by the encroaching swarm.
“There’s too many of ‘em! The hay are we supposed to do now?!”
“Stand aside.”
I strode past my allies and began walking purposefully towards the onslaught, my hooves leaving swirling dark energies in their wake. Slowly, I began to build up speed and momentum, until finally I broke into a full run.
By now, the enemy blitz had focused onto me, their gunfire swiveling to halt my passage. But they could do nothing to resist their fate.
With a booming thrust from my hooves, I leapt into the air and swept my forearms before my would-be assailants. Tendrils of purple energy lanced out at those nearest to me, lashing the hapless dregs by the neck and sucking their chaotic life energies from every exposed orifice.
Like the conductor of a grand, deathly symphony, I weaved my hooves methodically in the air, tracing inscrutable patterns that directed the swirling energies into a massive, erratically pulsing ball that glowed blindingly bright with barely-contained ethereal power.
I lifted a single hoof and brought it down hard upon the churning orb. It burst apart into a dozen daggered fragments, and a final flourish of my hoof sent them screaming like a hailstorm towards the onslaught before me. Piercing through bodies and embedding themselves into whatever surfaces they touched, they violently detonated with deafening force that knocked my victims on their feet, and then promptly collapsed into pulsating singularities that began to slowly drag them inwards. The Forlorn warriors caught in the gravitational pull could do nothing but scream in terror as their bodies lost all atomic structure and collapsed in on themselves before being sucked into the gaping void of nothingness.
Within moments, the singularities had devoured all they could, and one by one they winked into non-existence, along with any trace of Forlorn within fifty meters.
Slowly, I lowered myself to the ground, my hooves landing on the deck with a soft clip-clop.
“That’s what we do,” I said simply, dusting off my hooves as I turned to my awestruck allies.
“Dude…” Freya stared at me blankly. “When’d you learn to do that?”
“Mmmm… an hour ago? I unlocked the necessary skills while we were climbing the towers. Figured I’d withhold it until necessary.”
“Wow,” said Dovetail in awe.
Were you surprised, little Sweetie Belle? Were you shocked that I could so quickly supersede your might, so mercilessly devour our foes that their presence was naught but a passing mote of atomized dust in the swirling mists of space and time?
Withhold your applause, please. We've work to do.
“And now we proceed.” With a hoof, I gestured towards the ship.
As if on cue, a burning roar tore through the hangar, causing us to swivel back towards the ketch. Its engines had suddenly ignited, and already the boarding ramp was beginning to separate from the deck.
“SHIT!” swore Freya.
“Move, move, move!” shouted Dovetail, and we all charged down the dock, leaping off the edge and firing the thrusters on our legs and wings. With mere inches to spare, we slammed onto the boarding ramp and promptly clamored our way onto the deck of the airship, just as it broke free of the docking bay.
“That was way too close,” grunted Freya.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” I said, standing up and dusting off my cloak.
She scoffed and readied her machine gun. “Dramatic close shaves are for Applewood pony stars, not Gryphosi legionnaires.”
I raised an eyebrow. “This is a video game. In all likelihood it is scripted to be cinematic.”
“Speaking of scripted,” snapped Dovetail urgently, waving her hand cannon towards the front, “am I the only one seeing that wave of bad guys crawling out of the cargo bay? You know, the one rushing us right now and we should probably shut up and start shooting?”
Ah. Right.
We promptly began advancing up the deck and into the loading bay of the ship. Swarms of Chaos-touched gryphons attempted to impede our progress, but despite the momentary break, it took us no time to settle back into the comfortable routine of battle, unleashing waves of Light and molten lead against the Kell’s forces, who proved no match for us and the combined might of our fireteam.
Trotting through the twisting corridors of the ship with momentum and purpose, we passed by engine rooms, armories, living quarters, bathing areas, and recreational facilities. Though the ship’s industrial framework resembled that of most angular gryphon architecture, the innards seemed overtly ornate, as though it were made for residence rather than purely transport or warfare.
“Swank digs,” quipped Freya with a passing whistle of admiration as we swept past a well-furnished lounging area that looked suspiciously lived-in. “The House of Kings has a few ketches here and there, but not even the High Talon own one this fancy.”
“The Kell would live in opulence while the rest of his people languish in squalor,” spat Dovetail.
“Huh.” Freya blinked, turning to me. “I thought you were the one who normally talked like that.”
“Only for important, non-fictional matters,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hoof.
The gryphon grimaced in confusion. “Why do you even play—? You know, never mind. I’m not even gonna try to figure you out. You ass-backwards weirdo.”
“The sentiment is shared, you unapologetic nerd. Isn’t your species supposed to be fearsome and warrior-like? What are you even doing here?”
“We like to have fun,” she said with a sneer. “‘Cause, you know, we don’t make a habit of shoving sticks up our own asses.”
How dare you—
“Eyes up, Crusaders,” interrupted Dovetail. “This is it.”
We turned to Dovetail, who was standing before a doorway at the top of a decorated stairwell.
“The bridge,” said Freya. “After you, milady.”
“Me first?” Dovetail scowled. “Why?”
“You’re the Titan. You punch things in the face.”
“Grrr…”
If Dovetail had any further protest, she kept it to herself. She strode towards the door, which slid open without further resistance.
“One would think that the Kell would lock the doors so as to prevent his impending demise,” I muttered.
“He probably thinks he can’t be beat,” suggested Freya.
“Or maybe he wants to show off how fancy his airship is,” said Dovetail, stepping into the bridge and gazing around at the lavish decorations.
I wouldn’t have blamed him. It was a multi-story room, with catwalks rising on the left and right and banners hanging from virtually every outcropping. A bookcase leaned against one wall, stocked full with ancient tomes. Another had a shelf brimming with trophies and weapons, no doubt gathered by the Kell over his war-mongering career. The center of the room featured a holographic navigational chart, shattered pieces of our broken world floating ethereally above the surface.
And past that, on a raised platform, was the central control helm, before which the Kell himself stood, gazing upon us in contempt. He spat at our approach.
“You trespass upon the Throne of Autumn,” he scowled. “You think yourselves clever for having found me. But your triumphs end here. Our fight is between the Houses of Gryphos, and you Crusaders of the Everfree would do well not to meddle in affairs beyond your ken.”
“You say that, Drakkaris, Kell of Autumn,” snapped Dovetail, “and yet you still saw fit to bombard the City at the Battle of the Eventide Chasm.”
What? Eventide Chasm? Whatever, more importantly, was she well and truly responding to him? “Dovetail, he’s just a console prog—”
“You are a young Crusader, almost a child,” the Kell responded, to my surprise, “and Eventide Chasm was no doubt before your time. What meaning does a faded memory have to you who did not live to experience it?”
…I had to admit, this dialogue sequence was rather impressive, if it could dynamically respond to conversational cues in this manner. And my two fireteam members proved to be quite the willing participants.
“You fought my people, and tens of thousands fell,” she replied, her tone curt and tense. “Our City burned, and the House of Autumn was to blame. To this day we still suffer the after-effects of your campaign.”
“As were the Demons and the Kings!” the Kell shouted, pointing a threatening talon at our gryphon companion. “They as well participated in the Battle, yet even now you stand beside a King!”
Freya did not quail under his gaze. “The last Kell was a substandard leader. Foolish and reckless, he sought to wage war against New Everfree to secure whatever technology they had in their possession to aid in his fight for Highcrowne. He died a miserable and pitiful death in the field, and his dishonored corpse was left for dead. Needless to say, the House of Kings has a new Kell, one less foolish—”
“And less ambitious,” Drakkaris interrupted with a warbling chuckle. “Have the Kings fallen so far that they now accept help from the pathetic pony Crusaders?" His claws outstretched, he turned to me, clearly addressing me directly. "You, silent pony. What foolishness brought you to my doorstep? Why align yourself with the aberrant Kings?”
“Your gun.”
Every person in the room turned to me, and almost unanimously uttered: “What?”
“Your. Gun,” I repeated, slowly, as if talking to children. “The rifle you wield. I want it.”
The creature clicked its beak in a staccato of irritation. “You fight for no cause besides your own? Pursue no ends beyond material greed—?!”
“Can we hurry it up?” I interrupted, growing weary of humoring a fictional construct. “This aimless tête-à-tête holds precious little interest to me.”
At that, Drakkaris roared in outrage. “Your disgraceful presence insults my honor! And the Kell of Kells does not suffer insults lightly!”
With a snap of his talon and a wave of his wing, several Forlorn warriors emerged from hiding. Two Captains in ornate armor took up defensive positions around the helm, several sniper vandals appeared on elevated platforms on the far side of the room, and a multitude of dregs emerged from doorways on the left and right to fill the remaining space.
Oh dear.
“Shit,” Freya swore.
“What, you didn’t see that coming?” remarked Dovetail.
“End them,” growled the Kell.
All at once, they opened fire.
Immediately, I dodged to the right and sprinted behind several crates of cargo. Wire rounds bit into the other side, slowly picking away at my cover.
“So, uh, some help would be really freaking nice right now!” shouted the filly from her entrenched spot in the middle of the bridge room—she had elected to maintain position, where a swath of enemy gunfire from beyond the navigation display had her pinned down behind her shield.
“Working on it!” I yelled back.
Though, admittedly, I wasn’t sure what to do. The Forlorn had caught us by surprise, and the gryphon and I had immediately scattered in opposite directions. Neither of us could provide adequate cover fire to assist our teammate, and a potential advance would probably be met with a rain of high-caliber rounds from the snipers in the far back of the room
“Um, guys?!” came Dovetail’s voice again, panic much more evident in her voice.
“Pah, we don’t have time for this,” the gryphon said. “Batpony! Head upstairs and try to get a better vantage point!”
“Excuse me, I’m an umbra!”
“Whatever, just go!”
“Fine!”
Loathe as I was to take orders from a gryphon of all things, any more time spent waiting would leave Dovetail a perforated corpse. Stealing off towards the side, I made my way up a staircase and emerged on a balcony with a clear view of the rest of the bridge room.
From here, I immediately took stock of the number of enemies—four dregs advancing from the ground, backed by two Captains guarding the Kell's throne, and three sniper vandals perched upon catwalks towards the back … one of which had its eyes on me, the glint of its sniper scope reflecting in the sunlight.
Immediately I ducked back behind the wall, just in time for its edge to be disintegrated by a high-caliber round.
“Gah! Snipers at eleven, one, and two o’clock!” I coughed through the plume of pulverized wood that had sprayed me in the face. “Could use suppressing fire, gryphon!”
“My name’s Freya, damn it!” I heard her yell back as the roar of the formidable Thunderlord tore into the air. Plumes of dust surged all around us as the gryphon unleashed a deathly stream of electrified lead in all directions.
“Nailed eleven, one is weak!” she yelled as her weapon spun down.
I poked my head out again and immediately brought my rifle to bear on the catwalk furthest on the left, where a spiked pauldron was only barely visible from over the edge of the railing. My chevrons drifted south, just below the edge, and…
POW!
The rifle bucked against my shoulders, hard, but my aim had been true—my shots tore straight through the weakened wood of the railing, dispatching the creature on the other side in an instant.
“Vandal One down!”
“Two is on you right now!”
My rifle snapped to the vandal on the right… who had already brought its rifle to bear.
P-POW!
Two shots rang out as we exchanged fire within nanoseconds of each other, and my vision suddenly flared white-and-red from searing pain as a round tore through my shoulder.
Gritting my teeth, I concentrated through the pain and frantically reacquired my target, only to find that my round had already torn the vandal’s head clean off. A sizzling stream of ether burst from the hole in the gryphon’s neck as it keeled over the railing and ragdolled into the open bridge area below, causing the nearby dregs to shriek in fear.
“Now’s our chance!” Freya shouted from below, her voice barely audible over the ringing in my ears and the angry blaring of my armor’s low-health alarm.
“Up and over!” yelled Dovetail, tossing a grenade over her shield towards the center of the oncoming horde. It instantly flared with a bright explosion, blinding the Forlorn in the room. “Push forward!”
I quickly raised my rifle once more and loosed a single high-caliber round into the abdomen of a stunned dreg further in the back, then slung the spent weapon over my shoulder and drew my sidearm. With a galloping start, I leapt over the railing and ignited my levitation boosters, gliding over the room as I poured lead into the dazed retinue below. Several dregs fell, but not before they could fire off a few dying barks from their weapons, some of which lanced across my already-wounded body.
Just as I crested over the cover of the remaining Captain, I cut all power to my glide, plummeting forehooves-first upon the Forlorn with a meaty splack. I lashed out with a single hoof and forced the creature to the ground by its throat. It took only moments for my vampiric powers to take hold and begin to wrench the life energies out of the wretched creature. The Chaotic glow winked out from its eyes, and twisting energies swirled up my arm and around my form, resolving in a flickering layer of energy that cascaded over my body, closing my wounds shut in mere milliseconds and protecting me from further harm.
The energy shield materialized just in time for Drakkaris, still standing tall and imposing upon the center platform, to turn its magnificent weapon upon me.
Oh dear.
POW.
The report of the ancient sniper rifle reverberated painfully in the close quarters of the bridge, deafening me to my surroundings—a pain that was immediately followed by a splitting ache in my chest as a high-caliber round impacted against my energy shields, throwing me back several meters with incredible force. I managed to land on my hooves, skidding along the floor for several meters before coming to a stop. Somehow, my energy shielding still held, but only barely.
“Miss Freya, on me!” shouted Dovetail to my left, and I turned to witness the gryphon peppering the Forlorn captain with a non-stop onslaught of electrified lead as Dovetail barreled towards him at a dead sprint. He tried to turn his weapons back upon her, but he was too slow—the filly lunged forth with blinding speed, bashing him hard with her shield and causing him to stumble backwards.
She charged him again, but this time he was ready. With lightning speed he smacked the shield out of his way, grabbed her by the neck, and kneed her painfully in the underbelly—“AGGHH!”—before tossing her with all his might towards Freya, whose machine gun couldn't spin down fast enough to avoid landing several shots on the poor filly’s flailing body as it smashed into her, leaving the two in a disoriented heap.
…Oh dear.
I spun back towards Drakkaris, who had once again turned to me, his sights already lined up. I knew I would not survive another shot from that rifle. Unless…
In the span of less than a second, I threw my forearm in front of my face and channeled the remaining energy from my overshields into a concentrated spot in front of my hoof. The instant I heard the deafening shot and felt its impact reverberate against my hoof, I forced all of its collected energy outward, and immediately heard an agonized scream. Lowering my hoof, I grinned as I saw that my last-minute defensive measure had done its job in reflecting the round back at its attacker—his helmet and faceplate had cracked clean in half, its pieces clattering to the floor and leaving his head exposed.
I charged him with all of the might I could muster, drawing my sniper rifle, and jumping up to the center platform. Before he could recover, I bashed him in the face with the butt of my rifle, then slammed into him with all four hooves, forcing him to the ground. With a single hoof on his neck, I forced the barrel of the rifle into his face.
One eye opened to gaze upon his fate, and he let out a guttural, monstrous roar.
BOOM.
As the final gunshot rang throughout the room, the interior of the bridge fell silent. Nothing but the gentle hum of the airship’s engines filled the empty space between us and our victory.
“Is… is Drakkaris dead?” asked Dovetail, approaching slowly with a hint of hesitation in her voice.
I looked back at him. “Hm.”
POP.
“He is now,” I said, holstering my smoking sidearm and finally taking my hoof off the dead Kell’s neck.
“Finally,” said Dovetail with a relieved sigh, falling to the floor in an exhausted heap.
“It’s about time,” grunted Freya as she leaned on her light machine gun for support. “Been spending way too long trying to hunt down this asshole.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” agreed Dovetail, trotting over to Freya. “Are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine,” Freya replied, waving a talon, though she never stopped favoring her wing. “I should head over to King’s Watch and report to the High Talon. No doubt they’re gonna wanna know that Drakkaris is dead.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I think the Vanguard back at the Tower will want to know the same. Shadow, when do you wanna head… Shadow?”
I was barely paying attention to their exchange—my awareness was entirely fixed on the rifle that I now held in my grasp. It was warm to the touch, flowing with energy and power, humming with the life and legacy of a thousand tales. It spoke to me. Sung to me.
…Such a strange weapon.
“Shadow?”
I looked up. Dovetail was standing before me, head tilted to the side in curiosity. “Is that Drakkaris’ rifle?”
I stared back at the weapon, and wondered how many talons had grasped it over the eons.
“No,” I said simply. “And I don’t think it’s mine, either.”
There was a quote in a flowing script inscribed into the side of its wooden frame, but so much of it had been scratched away over the years that most of it was unintelligible… save for three words.
“…no land beyond…?”
“‘For us, there is no land beyond the Divide’,” said Freya suddenly. She stood at a distance, her head lowered and her tone cold. “It’s a famous Gryphosi saying.”
“From the game?” asked Dovetail.
“No, for real,” she said, walking slowly towards us. “You know what the Divide is, right?”
I mentally brought up a map of Equestria. “The mountains and canyons to the northwest of Equestria, yes?”
“Yeah. And it separates Gryphos from both you and the zebras.” She stopped just a few feet from us. “You remember the Zebrican War?”
“Umm… how long ago was that?” asked Dovetail.
Honestly, Sweetie Belle. The Zebrican War was discussed in class not two months ago.
“It was about fifty or sixty years ago,” I told her, “so you wouldn’t have been born yet.”
“Were you?”
I stayed silent.
“I wasn’t either,” said Freya. “But every Gryphosi kid since then gets that saying hammered into their heads from the moment they first step into school.”
She held out her talon towards me expectantly. What did she want with the rifle…?
I quickly glanced at Dovetail, who readied her hand cannon and quickly nodded her assent. Knowing I was covered, I slowly, reluctantly, handed the weapon to Freya.
“Astrid Hawkeye,” she continued as she took hold of it and turned it over in her talons, “the most celebrated sniper of the Zebrican Wars. The zebras managed to gain a lot of ground during their invasion, fighting us all the way up to the Divide. But that was where Hawkeye and her platoon dug their talons into the soil, held their ground, and didn’t let a single zebra or pony through.”
Dovetail quirked an eyebrow. “Pony?”
“We were allies with the zebras at that time, and our numbers bolstered their armies,” I said gruffly.
She blinked. “Oh.”
“And we lost a lot of land to the zebras because of your alliance,” continued Freya. “But we refused to let you or anyone else past the canyons and through to the mainland. We would either stop the invasion at the Divide, or we would die trying. Because for us, there could be no further retreat. ‘For us, there was no land beyond the Divide’.”
She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes.
“This is a Gryphosi rifle. It was made by gryphons, and wielded by gryphons. A legendary gryphon hero used this weapon to defend her country to the last. To hold the line against equid aggression. To rack up a headcount in the hundreds, counting many of your kind among them.”
I stood silent, unsure of how to respond. Was she laying claim to the rifle because of its legacy among her species? Would she take No Land Beyond from my hooves? The only reason why I had joined Dovetail on this expedition, why I had helped her take down the House of Autumn, was because of her assurances that this rifle would be my prize at the end. If I were to relinquish it to Freya, then all my efforts would be for naught—
“Take care of it,” Freya said finally, and she held the weapon out to me.
I blinked. “Beg pardon?”
“It’s yours. Take it.”
“But… if you didn’t want it, what was the purpose behind all of that posturing?”
“I just thought it was a cool story about gryphon history that you probably didn’t know,” she said with a good-natured grin. “And I wanted you to realize how important that rifle is to us, and what it stands for when you wield it in battle—steadfast loyalty in the name of one’s homeland.”
Gingerly, I took the rifle from her. “Are you certain I can take this?”
“I am,” she assured me. “By defeating the Kell of House Autumn, the House of Kings can maintain its place in Highcrowne. You were the one who dealt the final blow to Drakkaris. You fought to protect the homeland of a species that isn’t even yours. So even if your people were once our enemy… by all means, you’ve proven yourself worthy of wielding it.”
I stared down at the ancient weapon. It felt heavier in my hooves than before, as if it were burdened with a weight that went beyond mere wood and steel: the weight of its perennial legacy.
…And then I reminded myself that this was a Sun-forsaken video game. None of this was real, and this gryphon was taking it far too seriously for it to be healthy.
But, well, I really wanted this rifle. And I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, lest I risk her changing her mind.
“…Thank you, Freya,” I finally said, looking up at the gryphon. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t sweat it,” she said, waving a talon. “Besides, I totally cannot stand sniper rifles.”
“Yeah, and No Land Beyond is a Mythical weapon, which means it’s soulbound,” quipped Dovetail with a grin.
I turned to her, quirking an eyebrow. “Soulbound?”
“‘The magical essence of the weapon has inextricably tied itself to your spirit,’” recited Dovetail in a mystical tone. “‘It speaks only to you and is bound to your soul until death claims it for eternity.’”
“That’s a dramatic, lore-friendly way of saying that Mythical weapons are pretty much locked to your character as soon as they drop,” added Freya. “You can’t trade it away to me or anyone else, even if you wanted to.”
…
“So these were all theatrics, I was never at risk of losing this weapon to you, and you two nerds were being needlessly dramatic,” I concluded.
“Pretty much!” said Freya with a huge grin.
I facehoofed. “I am surrounded by idiots.”
“Idiots who totally just whooped Drakkaris’ flank all the way back to the Age of Discord!” whooped Freya, striking a victorious pose.
“And hey, that’s not the only thing we got!” exclaimed Dovetail, running up to the bridge controls. “I think this airship is ours for the taking too!”
“You’re joking,” said Freya in disbelief. “Is it really?”
“One moment…” She began rapidly tapping away at the onboard computer. “…Yep! It’s available for us to claim. Once I take it back to a capital city and get it registered with the Dockmaster, it’ll officially be licensed under my name.”
“Dude, this thing is huge, though,” remarked Freya, glancing around the roomy interior. “I could see a dozen people living on this thing.”
“Yeah, it’s a Frigate-class,” explained Dovetail, “so apparently it can fit dozens, maybe hundreds of players.”
“Pah, who needs hundreds of players,” said Freya with a scoff, flopping onto one of the chairs on the bridge and spinning around in it. “Why not just keep it to us three? We’d have the run of the place!”
"Why just us three?" asked Dovetail. "Maybe we could invite our friends to hang out on the ship with us! Do you have anyone else you play with?”
Freya stopped spinning and looked up meaningfully.
“Well, I’ve got a couple friends from my platoon that I play this game with on the reg, but that’s about it.” She glanced at us. “How about you two? Do you like to play together often?”
“No,” I said definitively.
Dovetail visibly winced at that, her ears folding backward. Both of us noticed.
“Ouch,” said Freya with a smirk. “Talk about rejected.”
I felt an eyelid twitch. This pony was just too damn sensitive.
“We only met a few weeks ago,” I clarified. “So we haven’t really had a chance to ‘play often’ yet.”
“You don’t make it sound like it’s something you’re interested in doing though,” said Freya.
Stop putting words in my mouth. “I never said that.”
“Then…” said Dovetail, quietly.
We turned back to her. She seemed hesitant, but eventually she locked eyes with me and approached.
“Shadow,” she said, approaching me kindly. “I know we have our differences, but… I’d really love to keep playing with you.”
…Really.
For this girl to have categorized me as someone she wanted to actually spend more time with, was… admittedly, unexpected. I couldn’t help but be a little shocked at that notion. Had I already won into her good graces that quickly?
“I mean, for starters, you’re a great player, better than you think,” she continued. “Look what we accomplished together.”
I… suppose that was true. The rifle now slung over my chest wouldn’t be mine had I not worked with Dovetail to topple the House of Autumn.
“Plus,” she continued, “you’re one of the few ponies I’ve met in this game that isn’t afraid to… well, talk to me like a normal pony.”
“Talk to you?” asked Freya. “That seems like a low bar.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Dovetail. “I don’t know if you have to deal with this often, Miss Freya, but… a lot of other players get really mean to me when they first hear my voice.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” said Freya, her eyes lighting up with understanding. “Yeah, okay, I definitely know what you’re talking about.”
There was clearly something being communicated between the two that I was completely in the dark about. “Anyone mind explaining?”
“It’s… a girl thing,” said Dovetail, hesitantly. “There’s not a lot of other girls who play this game. So when other players find out I’m a filly, it almost always completely changes how they treat me. They get really mean and aggressive. Telling me I don’t belong, or that our team is guaranteed to lose just because I’m there. Because fillies are bad at games, or whatever.”
What? You couldn’t be serious. From men? That was completely backward.
“Sometimes, they’ll even deliberately gang up on me and teamkill me over and over again, just to make me miserable. Saying ‘we’ll be better off without you holding us back’, and stuff. And if I try to defend myself, they’ll just talk over me, saying I shouldn’t be so sensitive, that I’m just being a whiny little girl.”
She turned to me, a little nervously. “I’m gonna be honest, Shadow. When you started gunning for me as hard as you did the first few times in the Crucible, I thought you were like them.”
“Really,” I said, in genuine befuddlement. “You do know that’s not the real reason why, right? I might have despised you at the time, but I never once questioned your skill.”
“I know,” said Dovetail, with a small smile. “I think that’s what made me realize that you weren’t like them. I mean, sure, you weren't exactly nice to me, but… you also never coddled me, or talked down to me, or questioned my skill. You treat me like an equal. There aren’t a lot of boys out there like that.”
That… certainly answered a lot of questions.
“Yikes,” said Freya. “Okay, that I didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t happen to you?” asked Dovetail.
“Not really,” Freya replied with a wave of her claw. “It might be something to do with gryphon culture, but I never have my skill questioned by other gryphons. I sure as Hel get a lot of creepers, though."
"Creepers?" asked Dovetail.
"Yeah, like, guys who get a little too friendly," she explained. "I get a lot of boys like that. Asking for friend requests and photos of my talons and other weird shit.”
“Oh gosh, I get that too!” said Dovetail, apparently excited to have another person to commiserate. “Even when they’re being nice to me, boys will say all sorts of really creepy stuff all the time, and I don’t get it! Like, I’m just here to play a game, not look for a date—”
“Waiwaiwait, hit the brakes,” Freya interrupted out of nowhere. “Ponies creep on you? Even though you’re, like, twelve or something?”
“Er, sometimes, yeah,” she said in embarrassment. “Or they say really… um…” Her ears folded downwards as a red blush quickly swept over her face. “Some of them can be really… crude.”
Freya’s jaw gaped. “I… can’t decide whether I want to laugh hysterically or cry out in terror.”
“I’d say a little from column A, a little from column B,” I offered. "Besides, you're not exactly free from guilt either, what with that sailor mouth of yours."
"Oh, like anyone gives a flying f—”
“Anyways!” Dovetail interrupted in a clear attempt to move on from that subject. “My point is, because of that, I don't really have a lot of ponies I play this game with. Right now the only people are one of my classmates from school, and a stallion from Saddle Arabia. So… I’d really like to see you more often, Shadow Song.” She turned to the gryphon. “And you too, Miss Freya.”
“Me?” She quirked an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I mean, I’m… you know…”
“What, a gryphon? It doesn't matter to me,” she said. “Or us. Right, Shadow?”
Wrong.
“Right.”
"And with you two, that would make five!" Dovetail said excitedly. “Throw in one more, and that’ll be a big enough fireteam to start doing the really big raids and stuff!”
“Raids? Like the Infinite Citadel? That… does sound enticing,” Freya said with a hint of hesitation in her voice. “…I mean, you seem pretty chill, so… I guess I might as well?”
“Shadow Song?” asked Dovetail, her eyes glimmering with undisguised want.
I was… honestly, I was completely taken aback by this girl’s offer. Within a short span of time, I had gone from loathsome bully to trusted friend and confidante. She had trained me in Crucible combat, helped me acquire one of the most legendary weapons in the game, and even aired her insecurities to me without a second thought.
Was that a testament to my charisma, or merely Sweetie Belle’s naïve faith in anypony who so much as spared her a second glance?
…In any case, it would be foolish of me to turn down the offer.
"I... suppose there wouldn't be any harm to it either."
“Yay!” With a bright smile, she waved a hoof to pull up her HUD and proceeded to tap in a few commands. “Friend request sent!”
“Woo,” droned Freya. “Shadow gets a mythical rifle, you get a Sun-damned Frigate-class airship, and I get friend requests from a bunch of dorkhorses—”
“Why not take Drakkaris’ cloak?” Dovetail ventured. “Yours looks a bit tattered, if I’m being honest.”
“Gee, thanks,” she snarked, walking over to the dead Kell, unclasping the cloak's choker and bringing it up to her neck. “Hooray, I get a fucking cape— oh hey, this actually has some pretty sick stats on it.”
“And it looks really pretty too!” said Dovetail.
“Oooh, yes, I love pretty frou-frou things!” said Freya in a mock-squeaky voice.
“Hey, I don’t sound like that!” grumped Dovetail. “And fine, rephrase: it looks epic on you. Super-duper regal and heroic and stuff. The sigil of Autumn stitched into the back makes it look like a trophy you earned for defeating Drakkaris, which is way cool. Like, superhero cool.”
“Now that I can dig.” The gryphon did an about-face, causing her billowing cloak to flutter majestically in the air. “Maybe I can stand in for the Kell of Autumn? Make them all follow my command instead? That’d be pretty wicked.” She glanced at me. “What do you think, Shadow?”
“Meh,” I meh’d.
“Wow. Somepony obviously doesn’t give a shit.”
“I’m now the proud owner of a fabled, centuries-old, Gryphosi-engineered anti-materiel rifle, so no, I couldn’t care less about your over-designed cape if I tried.”
“Bet you couldn’t use more two-word adjectives if you tried, either,” retorted Freya with a roll of her eyes.
“Try me.”
“Freya, just tell Shadow your cloak is ‘frabjous’,” offered Dovetail. “He respects adjectives he doesn’t understand.”
…What in Sun’s name had I gotten myself into.