Xenophilia: Shotglass Oneshots

by TheQuietMan

24: Light and Darkness by StarSlinger

Light and Darkness by StarSlinger

************************

Blackbeak cursed as the wires slipped again from his talons. Of all the things for a proud griffon warrior such as himself to end up, playing assassin for a bunch of Canterlot ponies!

Holding himself aloft in the air by his wings, the griffon forced himself to move slower, his talons finally snagging the wire, allowing him to attach it to the blasting spell box which was now firmly embedded in the rock wall of the ravine. The griffin stole another nervous glace at the motion detector device on the other end of the wire, eight feet below, ready to be concealed with leaves and twigs.

Now, the only thing keeping the trap from being fully armed was the activation remote in his pouch, secured around his waist by a thick leather harness. Once he was finished concealing the motion detector, he would lay in wait above the ravine, activating the trap once his prey was in position.

Impulsively, Blackbeak reached down and removed the activation remote from his pouch. The box looked innocent enough, consisting two colored lights, one red and one green, and a toggle switch on the side. Currently, the green light was lit, indicated that the trap was still inactive. Flipping the switch would cause the device to arm after a five second delay. The griffin assassin put the remote back into his pouch and gave his handiwork one more look.

Satisfied that the wires were firmly in place, Blackbeak allowed himself to drift down to the ground and began concealing the motion detector device.

The trap was indeed cleaver, the griffin reluctantly admitted to himself. His clients had provided the magitek device, providing him with instructions on its setup and activation. For his part, he had stalked his prey for days, observing his habits, until the perfect place to ambush him became apparent.

Blackbeak wondered again why this monkey-thing… this ‘huuuuman’? Yes, he remembered, ‘human.’ Why this human was such a threat to his clients that they would go to such lengths and secrecy to get rid of. Oh, he was not stupid or simple, despite what their sneering, condescending tones suggested, he had heard the rumors and the gossip. About the impending public marriage between the human and the ponies he had made his mates. About how some of these ponies were influential with the Princesses. Blackbeard suspected that the ‘purity’ excuses yammered about was secondary to political ones. After all, this human’s mates were evidently very powerful and influential. Officially recognizing them as a herd would form a new, inherently powerful, pony House.

The human seemed to be the lynchpin to this new coalition of powerful ponies. Therefore, those who wanted the status quo to persist needed him eliminated.

The griffin smirked, in the end, these ponies were not as pure and noble a race as they tried to convince themselves, he thought.

Still, he thought grumpily, the method in which his clients wanted the deed done left much to be desired. In his Clan, before they were betrayed and scattered as ronin, all that would need to be done was for a death duel to be declared. Even if the human somehow won, the warrior’s second would then be justified in avenging his partner. In Blackbeak’s opinion, such public executions were both more efficient and reliable than all of this ‘make it look like an accident’ nonsense. However, the Canterlot ponies were paying for it to be done this way, so he had no room to complain.

The motion detector concealed, Blackbeak stood a moment admiring his handy work. Now he just needed to fly to the top and wait.

Faintly, the griffin heard a beeping noise from somewhere nearby. Glancing around for a moment, he released the sound was coming from his pouch. Eyes widening in panic at a sudden suspicion, Blackbeak frantically clawed at his pouch, ripping it open and taking out the activation remote. As he had feared, the beeping was coming from the remote, its red light blinking, indicating that his trap was about to arm. Hurriedly, the griffin tried to move the toggle switch back to the off position, only to realize that it had somehow been jammed. Now fully terrified, the griffin assassin hurriedly spread his wings to take off, just as the red light turned solid.

##############################

Lyra Heartstrings gracefully treaded through the wreckage of the rockslide. The informant had been correct. The unicorn was relieved that she had been in time to takes steps to protect her stallion from danger. Fortunately, the griffin assassin had briefly removed what she had correctly assumed to be the arming device from his pouch long enough for the unicorn to get a mental image. This allowed her to manipulate the device with her magic, even as it was once again concealed.

Scanning the rubble, Lyra spotted what she was looking for, sticking partially from underneath a rock was the griffin’s pouch, the only storage place that Lyra had observed on the creature. If her hunch was right, and they usually were, there would be further clues in the small bag that would shed some light on who the assassin was working for.

Using her magic to free the pouch from the debris, Lyra levitate the her prize in front of her. Opening it, she found what she suspected she would - sheet of parchment paper. On it were instructions on how to use the magitek weapon that had caused the rockslide.

Her examination of the document was interrupted by a wheezing sound coming from beside her. Glancing over she saw the griffin assassin, barely alive, reaching towards her. Only the creature’s head and left foreleg was visible, the rest buried under a ton of rocks.

Lyra regarded the griffin coldly. “I see you have survived the rockslide… and for that, I am sorry.” With an off-hoof flicker of her mind, the assassin’s head was suddenly twisted ninety-degrees, silencing its wheezing.

Turning her attention back to the magitek document, Lyra eyes widened. She recognized some of these watermarks! Her eyes narrowed, this information would have to be hand delivered to the Princess. She could not risk a courier and trying to use Spike would cause too many questions.

The mint-green unicorn sighed. She hated having to travel alone to Canterlot again, especially since the wedding was just around the corner. However, this was simply too important a matter to delay. She would need a good cover story as well, least her herd suspect something.

A moment later she had an idea. Her mother had been making noise about wanting to help her pick out a veil for the wedding ceremony! Lyra had until then not even decided if she wanted one, however, allowing her mother to drag her around Canterlot for veil shopping would be a perfect excuse for a sudden trip to the Equestrian capital. Also, as the associate Guard member to Ponyville, it would be her duty to report to the Griffin embassy, informing them about the tragic death of one of their citizens in a random rockslide just outside of town. The body soon to be discovered by a Ponyville weather squad which were due to fly by this location in about… 15 minutes.

Lyra started to make her way back out of the ravine. Humming a tune, she walked along the grass-lined road that led towards the Everfree Forest. She needed to hurry back to Fluttershy’s place, where Lero had been delayed during his trip home – stopping to help catch some animals that had mysteriously gotten free from their cages.

“Many a pony dreams of being one with the Balance, to use this knowledge to banish darkness from a world of light. But light and darkness are equals and where one exist, so to must the other. When one finally realizes this, they can start down the path to true Balance.”

-- Crackhorn, Grandmaster of the Still Way

Cue credit music:

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Nice. Badass secret agent Lyra is always a good Lyra.

[Arlan753]

Wow. Lero is really luck to have such a sneaky mate.
Damn rockslides, they're so unpredictable.

[Obsidian]

You'd think the assassin would prove corroborating information. Why simply execute him?

Apparently, Celestia has a very active black ops/wetworks division.

[Rikmach]

2685465

In one of the continuation stories, Lero proved to be highly resistant to transformation magic- it changes him slower, takes more power to do, and last much less long. In another side story, he managed to survive a fall that'd kill most people. There was then some discussion on these points, at it was suggested that The Lady may have used her alien magic to "reinforce" him, so to make it so he'd survive her attentions. Others suggested that his non-magical, human nature just made it harder to affect him. Either way, the concept that spells that try to alter him (like transformation or injuring spells) would be less effective, whereas spells that either try to restore him (like healing magic) or don't affect his nature (like cloud walking) are unaffected. Since then, people have taken the idea and run with it.

[Royal Brisk]

2685739
Well that's providing that the assassin would actually turn on his employer. Besides if he was brought in for treatment or whatever it would be likely that the Griffin Embassy might get involved and have this labeled as an international incident. The red tape involved in that alone would be easy enough to tamper with to truly shroud the employer as well as find a way to get the assassin freed in time.

Hell as it is the guy didn't do anything technically wrong and wouldn't have done anything wrong UNLESS somepony or someone actually got hurt/killed and proof of the device was found. I doubt that random rockslide outside of town would normally cause much need for investigation.

[Liqwidice]

Wow. Lyra can be hard and cold.

[Blackbelt]

I wanna see whahappens when the jerks who paid this Griffon are confronted. Seriously, I would pay money to see that.

[Aru]

I'm not surprised that some of the so called "nobles" have taken actions like this. Some unpredictable human, in herd with no less predictable mares, two elements of harmony, one of them from already influential family and a personal student of Princess no less, it's quite the power. Not to mention that what really hurt those bitches was probably a fact that Lero is not a pony. After all I don't think that Twi gettin married with...I dunno, even RD wouldn't screw status quo nobles want to have, with or without Lero. Knowing nobles they can be dumb enough to try to kill being able protect theyre land from most powerful threats... yeah. If not Celestia and Luna who really want good for ponies, Equestria would look alot like our earth, full of fucktards who care only about having "power" and money no matter the cost.

[StarSlinger]

2685739

Well, you could argue that Lyra was just putting him out of his misery, he had been crushed under a ton of rocks after all.

Also, this was the guy who was planning on killing her stallion in cold blood...

Plus, she did not have a lot of time to chat before the body was scheduled to be discovered. :)

[Raistlin]

What if Lyra is a secret agent of the Crown sent to protect the Bearers and their families from less-obvious threats in Ponyville?

[Genesis1212]

damn nobles they have there noses so far up each others asses all i hear from them is shit xD

[werewolf435]

2686216 See: ending quote.