The Bounty Catching, Freedom Dreaming, Winged Wolf Phenomenon

by Cloud_Surfer

The Game is Afoot...er Apaw

The Bounty Catching, Freedom Dreaming, Winged Wolf Phenomenon

Chapter 17

~{WWP}~

The flight from the bar towards Canterlot was quite enjoyable. The only strange thing that happened had to have been on the road maybe five miles outside from the town.

There in the middle of the road was a massive crater, except it was blown apart in perfect cube blocks. It honestly looked like a creeper from Minecraft blew up there, but that’d be absolutely ridiculous. After a brief investigation with no answers, I just shrugged it off and continued my flight.

I landed outside the gates of the Goddesses’ City a little before midnight, so I had five hours to relax before the gates would be opened and I could meet “Twinkleshine” to figure out how I’m supposed to carry out this hair brained scheme of the changelings.

Laying down on a clump of clouds, my valiant attempt to slumber was constantly interrupted by my mind’s incessant nagging. There were a lot of questions that were unanswered at that job interview with that ‘Knightmare’ guy.

The most pressing matter was why he would want the Princesses aware of an attempted attack? Wouldn’t that be counterproductive? And why does he really not care whether they win the war or not? I understand he’s apparently from the future but I was always under the impression that timelines were ever branching, therefore no one path could be repeated.

“I should really just ask Firefly about that sometime,” I muttered to myself as I rolled the thoughts around in my head. “Who’d have thought I’d get wrapped up in this kind of shit?”

Busying myself with my thoughts, the next few hours didn’t take nearly as long as I was expecting it to. The sun had been up for maybe an hour when some guards opened the gates to the city. I flew off my little roost and landed about a mile off from the gate since I didn’t want to frighten the guards at all. Of course once I had walked that mile up to the gates, it happened all the same.

The gate was guarded by two unicorns, with the same coat and stoic glare plastered underneath their solid gold armor. Then I realized that I could probably melt down the armor and sell the blocks if I ever had to kill another guard. The glare of the guard hardened as I came into view of the two of them.

“State your name and business in Canterlot…sir,” the one on the right stated, spitting out the ‘sir’ part with a healthy dose of spite.

I just gave them a nice little glare with my retort “I’m a free laborer that got hired to help out a unicorn in the city. Any other questions?”

“Your name,” the one on the left asked with a little less confidence, slightly intimidated by my glare and scar.

“Zeta, now may I enter or am I going to have to wait around some more?” The two guards stepped out of the way and let me pass into the city of Canterlot for the first time.

Canterlot was about as far away from what you’d consider a normal city as you could possibly get. The streets were clean, the buildings without a speck of graffiti, trees grew nicely, hedges were well trimmed, and there wasn’t a broken window to be seen. It is still pretty hard for me to adequately place my feelings for Canterlot into words, but I shall try.

I absolutely despised it.

It could just be that fact that the city was empty at the time I was walking towards the meeting spot, but it was just too perfect in my mind. It looked as if they took out all of the “urban” out of the urban center that was the city of Canterlot. I took to the skies briefly just to see if it was because I was in the nice part of town, but after flying up to see most of the city, I noticed I wasn’t even in a nice section. Landing with a pout, I begrudgingly continued my trip deeper into the city to find the park I was to meet this queen at.

Getting to the park was pretty straightforward thanks to the gilded street signs posted around the city. Part of me was really tempted to steal a few of those to melt down as well, but I only thought of this plan once ponies were slowly starting their day. Most of the residents of the town avoided me, like walking on the other side of the street and such. The ones that really annoyed me were the ponies that stuck their nose up in the air as they walked by, spouting out terms like ‘mongrel’ and ‘mutt’ at me as I walked by.

There were also the gawkers at seeing a winged wolf walking by their homes and businesses. I’ve experienced this every place I have traveled to at this point. Being such an oddity always brings unwanted attention. In most cities I tend to stay to the rougher sides of neighborhoods, so I can openly scare off the gawkers without having to worry about public perception too. Here I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to get away with that kind of treatment without having half a dozen golden tin cans raining down on my head. Instead I simply quickened my pace in an attempt to get away from them all.

Upon entering the park, I saw a pink maned and white coated Unicorn sitting on a park bench. At first I wasn’t sure if this was the contact until I got a strong stench of exoskeleton wafting over the breeze. As I crossed the park, her ears perked up and she turned her head to face me. That’s when I noticed the green flash cross her optical orbs.

“You’re late,” she said in a low tone. The glare she was giving me was that of a superior looking down on one beneath them.

“Sorry I was under a bit of suspicion, and I figured you wanted to keep this incognito,” was my quick reply. I was not exactly in the mood for all of this useless chatter, and truly just wanted to get the job done. It was risky enough to begin with, let alone with whatever plan this bug was concocting.

“Your answer is acceptable, but do not think I will be so tolerant again. Now let me explain the plan to you,” ‘Twinkleshine berated.

I was about to give her a piece of mind when she dove into her plan, and let’s just put it this way, it was by far the craziest plan I’ve heard recently. By the time she finished explaining, and I had clarified a few minor details on how everything would be working out, we were both set to kidnap Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.

It was just before noon when I was positioned on the roof of a house opposite of Shining Armor’s and Princess Cadance’s shared apartment. I had been sitting on the roof for over two hours waiting for the opportunity to present itself to initiate our plan.

I had already confirmed that Cadance and Shining Armor were in their home, enjoying a nice meal. Looking up the street, I saw my ‘target’ approaching the home. The plan was really a stretch and depended entirely on how long I could be interesting to the Captain of the Guard and how concerned the princess would be for her friend.

‘Twinkleshine’ approached the door and knocked. Before any of the residents could answer though, I made my move. I shot off of the roof and tackled the pony disguised changeling queen away from their stoop and into the middle of the street. All of the bystanding ponies screamed in horror and pushed as far away from me and my ‘prey’ as they could. All the hubbub certainly drew the attention of the people in the surrounding homes, including one sibling of the world’s nerdiest pony.

“What’s going on here?!” Shining Armor roared over the crowd. Parting his way through the sea of equines, he saw the scene before him, a hulking wolf creature attacking one of his fiancé’s oldest friends. He instantly charged up a spell and blasted it at the attacker.

I had just circled so that I’d be able to see the blast coming, and refrain myself from dodging it. Part of the plan was to allow Shining Armor a chance to chase me away from Twinkleshine so Cadance would be able to bring her ‘friend’ into the safety of her home.

I just gritted my teeth as Shining Armor’s spell blasted me away from the defenseless unicorn. The purple blast he shot had quite the wallop, and wasn’t even an offensive spell from what it looked like. Almost as if he threw a shield at me. Before I could recover enough to continue the plan, I noticed half a dozen chairs flying at me surrounded by blue magic.

I reactively dodged or sliced the chairs up before they could impact my body. The moment I did I looked for the source of the magic. There on the steps to her house was Princess Cadance, with righteous fury blazing in her eyes. Unfortunately my little reaction gave Shining Armor enough time to grab Twinkleshine and get her over towards the home.

“Cadance quick go inside, I’ll set up a barrier that will keep him out until the Royal Guard comes, and they should be on the way now,” Shining Armor commanded. The look that Chrysalis was giving me explained that was not acceptable to our contract, and I best figure a way to get him to stay out of the house.

Luckily I knew just what to say, “So you are Twilight Sparkle’s big brother huh? I can see the resemblance,” I jibed towards the guard, with a sharp smile on my muzzle.By then, most of the onlookers that were present had already fled. This left him clear line of sight and perfect clarity to hear me out.

“How do you know my baby sister?” Shining asked, instantly forgetting his past plan.

I paced back and forth, “Well you see, I was in Ponyville recently and happened across her. Now normally I don’t like unicorn’s, not much muscle and their horns taste awful, but when you happen across the Element of Magic wielder in the Everfree, I just couldn’t pass up the chance to have a nibble,” I explained, with the most wicked of grins I could muster. To get this to work, I had to make him forget his duty and fight for a different reason, making the job about 100% more risky, but it had to be done to complete it now.

Shining for his part was fuming, and began to stomp his hooves into the ground. “What. Did. You. Do. To. My. Sister!” he screamed at me. His horn was glowing with about five layers of magic, all aimed at me.

I had to play the next part off with as much tact as I could muster. “Well you see, I eat things and get paid to kill others. When I found her alone, and realized how much I could get paid for killing an Element of Harmony, I sorta got carried away. I wonder if that pretty little pony behind will taste nearly as sweet?” I had to duck as Shining armor gave his response by sending a shockwave where my face was just at. The spell obliterated the house I was standing in front of. “Damn…”

My sentence was cut short as the shoulder of a very angry unicorn guard member slammed into me. I went flying about ten feet down the street, and bounced another five before skidding to a halt. “Cadance, get Twinkleshine into the house and stay there. I’m going to make sure this mongrel rots out the rest of his flea bitten life in the dungeons, if he survives that long.” Cadance quickly followed her soon-to-be husband’s orders.

That initiated my queue. I instantly turned tail and ran, with a very pissed off stallion chasing me. Glancing over my shoulders to ensure I was being followed I saw the door close to the house, and the windows flash green extremely briefly. Returning my attention to where I was heading, I mumbled to myself, “Everything according to plan.”

~{WWP}~

Author's Note:

So I have realized that while I have time to write, it will take me about 2 months to be able to get a chapter to where I want it to go. Hopefully I'll be able to cut that down now since spring break is coming up, I hope to get another 2 chapters out by the end of March. Don't hold me to that though.

As for spelling/grammar, point it out where it needs to be. Thanks to Thardoc for the initial proof reading.

Enjoy!

Comments

[Fon Shaolin]

What if we take all the otherkin....

...and throw them into the sun? Huh? Huuuh? Downvoted.

[All is Dust]

As always love the work. makes it worth the wait too

[Nightingalehound]

thumbs up worth two

[Corona Blaze]

2184348 Otherkin?

Wha?

Have you READ the story at all?

[Thardoc]

2184447
just ignore him, he dislikes HiE's and crossover's regardless of the quality.
his biography explains it pretty well.

[dawn_rising]

Well that escalated quickly.

[Corona Blaze]

2184484 point taken.

[Jane]

Well since getting sucker punched into Equestria but a goddess those days are over.

Perchance did you mean 'by'? It's in the story description.

[Sonic Luna]

I love it when a plan comes together. Hopefully the escape goes to plan as well.

[ArTic]

Well can't see anything wrong with this plan...

[Cloud_Surfer]

2186957
Just keep reading. Zeta neither endorses nor condones slavery. He just does what he wants.

[Cloud_Surfer]

2187028
I would suggest you continuing since it comes full circle. I do finish off Tavi's enslavement with another story that continues it in future chapters. But I also understand your unwillingness to continue. Regardless what you choose I hope you enjoy your future readings.

[Bubbabob]

Zeta is thoroughly screwed.

[Paw Print]

its amazing, but too short...

[lolz anonymous]

ha! gullible ponies...

[FuriousDarkness]

Wait, why is this on hiatus? I want more please.

[xbox432]

Seriously, it seems like the majority of the pony's in the chessverse are all racists. Did you writers colab to make this personality trait universal or something?

Excellent chapter by the way, Zeta really new the right buttons to push to make Shinning go all "Hulk Smash". I can't wait to see how you play out the rest of the plan.

[Cloud_Surfer]

2339980

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

[Thethhron]

2339989
I expected as much of an answer. I'm not really worried about it other than it taking more swag away from Rainbow Dash. Can't have that. But it doesn't matter a whole lot to the story. Just like power levels in Dragonball Z. I also enjoy the fact that you're one of the few authors almost caught up with Griffin's part of the story.

[Sirnicklaser111]

another good chapter cant wait to read the next one in a bit
Your Eye in the Sky Star Shooter

[Oro_tharr]

...
Isn't this guy supposed to be a Brony? Sure, you didn't exactly saw WHEN he stopped watching / what episode he were on, but if he knew that Candy clouds = Discord I'dd guess somewhere between S2 and S3 :&

[insania exitium]

wonderful

[Black--Soul]

Chrysalis better deleted Shinings memorys by the time she get to Canterlot