Mass Effect: Salvage

by N00813

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

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May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead. – Old human saying

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The mine’s ceiling brushed against the top of Sev's head. It was narrow, by his standards, but the griffons were only about 4 foot tall, tops. Why did they dig such a large opening?

The metal door in front of them answered that question perfectly.

It had been engraved, Riana saw. Once upon a time, the door had been decorated with a myriad of symbols, one leaking into another like a serpent’s colors. Over millennia, dirt had filled in the gaps, making the earth as much a part of the decoration of the door as the symbols themselves.

Worse, the door was open. And it didn’t appear to have been forced open.

Holding his now-useless rifle by the stock, Sev pushed it into the gap. Open doors meant that treasure hunters – or, in this case, miners – could have gone through, and set off any anti-intruder devices. Still, better safe than sorry.

He swept the door for traps, raising the weapon from ground level, to as high as it could go. He could detect no ceiling beyond the door. Maybe the gun was just too stubby. Nothing. No active motion sensors.

That didn’t rule out infra-red sensors, only triggered by detection of body heat. He gestured to the door. “Flamer.”

A quick pull of the trigger, and white fire spewed out of the flamer for a fraction of a second. The dirt vitrified into glass under the 1,600 Kelvin flame. Sev stood aside, seeing his armor blacken slightly under the intense heat passing by his chest. It was quite an experience.

He patted his chest, and saw dry, black flakes detach themselves from impact, drifting slowly onto the ground.

Still, he had a job to do.

The sides of the open doorway nearly touched the sides of the mineshaft, and because of that, he could slip into the ship, if only just.

The floor felt solid beneath his feet, a feel he’d been missing. The natural earth outside had been horrible to fight on – he’d sunk about an inch into the ground, thanks to his massive weight, and it always felt like the ground wanted to trap him.

Sev looked up. The ceiling was significantly higher than the door – almost another 8 feet away. The side walls stood thirty feet apart, with the door right in the middle, and a corridor lined with support beams of a golden color shot off into the distance, like a sniper’s bullet.

The whole area seemed endless. His flashlight could only penetrate about 20 meters in front, and even with the help of night-vision modules in his suit, he could only see to about 50 meters before everything dissolved into a grey fog.

Riana stepped in beside him, gripping the body of her flamethrower tightly. He could see even see the crinkles in the tough material of her gloves.

Looking around, he could see piles of what looked like rectangular boxes scattered on the floor. No, not scattered. It was as if the entire floor was those boxes. Some were thin, others were stout, but they all looked like they had the same shape. They lay on the ground without any sort of order; some were by themselves, others had slammed together into a pile taller than he was.

The closest box lay at his feet, with only a series of glyphs on the center of the top face as its only feature. He kicked at it, lightly. Surprisingly for something so old, it didn’t crumble at the slightest touch.

The clanking sound reverberated throughout the humongous artificial cavern, and Sev suddenly remembered that they weren’t the only ones in here.

So much for stealth. He could hear his asari companion’s breathing over the coms – it was that loud.

Sighing, he raised the shotgun to shoulder level, and waited for the first enemies to arrive. He didn’t have to wait long. Due north, a cluster of dots popped up on his HUD. The red blob was so dense with enemies that it looked they’d merged together into another Reaper nightmare.

He tapped Riana on the shoulder, and the woman literally jumped into the air as if she had a spring under her. “Ah!” she screamed, lashing out to her side and hitting Sev in the process. The krogan didn’t mind. He barely felt the blow.

“Ten plus hostiles,” he said calmly, pumping the shotgun. He didn’t have to do it, he knew; but it was a good way to gather his concentration for what was going to happen.

Riana reined her breathing in, coiling her gasps into hisses, and re-checked the fuel gauge. Approximately 60 seconds of continuous fire. More than necessary.

Sev nodded and grunted, climbing on top of the pile in front of him. The griffons were closing, approximately 20 meters out now. He had seconds. More than enough.

Just as his foot hit the top box, his spotlight found a vaguely bird-like face up ahead. The thing was still recognizably griffon – but just. Metal replaced what looked to be flesh, such that pipes had burst out of its skin, like worms out of a piece of fruit. The spinal tube split into four, each leading down into a leg, sinking into the ankle, and coming out underneath the sole of each ‘foot’. The head still looked mostly natural, but the rear of the head had tubes leading out to interface with the metal spine.

In short, it wasn’t a griffon anymore. It was a Reaper unit.

Sev noticed the thing’s back legs bunching up, and its wings, surprisingly unchanged, flicked out. Just as the thing launched upwards, it caught a faceful of buckshot, and fell back to earth unceremoniously.

“Aim for the head!” Sev shouted into the coms, adrenaline pumping through his veins. Fighting in the dark, against Reaper units, outnumbered 15 to 1; nothing in the galaxy could match the sheer excitement.

His Claymore had 3 shots; factory ones only had one round, but Sev’s one had been rebuilt from the ground up with high-grade frictionless materials and a top-of-the-line heatsink, amongst other upgrades such as capacitor-boosted kinetic coils, an extended barrel, and a smart choke, giving it ridiculous amounts of stopping power for its size. The thing had been used in the field to punch through the poly-crystalline composite shields that Cerberus Guardian units used, and turn the man behind the shield into red mush. Against the flesh and thin metal plating of the griffon, it was horrifyingly effective.

By his side, Sev thought he could hear the sharp hiss of the flamethrower as its pump engaged, before the growling roar of the fire pouring out of its barrel drowned it out. His own shotgun’s blasts punctuated the flamer’s low, steady roar, lighting up the nearby area with the muzzle flash for each pull of the trigger.

The gun hissed, all of a sudden, and Sev realized that he’d overloaded the thermal clip. As steam poured out of vents by the side of the gun, he popped the red-hot heatsink out, letting it roll to some inopportune place, before snapping another in –

Too late. Just as the clip clicked inside the gun’s holder, a griffon jumped Sev, and both of them went tumbling off the pile. Riana threw a glance over to him for a moment, before the sight of three griffons in her peripheral vision, lit up by the white tongue of flame bursting out of the flamer’s muzzle, drew her attention back to her fight.

Sev wasn’t really that worried. He could feel the gun’s comforting weight pressing against his torso, and as the griffon pulled back its left claw to deliver an armor-piercing strike, Sev reached around the griffon’s back with his own left hand, wrapping the meaty fingers around the tubes.

One pull sideways and the griffon flew off him, rolling once before springing back to its feet. Sev hadn’t been as fast, thanks to his bulk, but he’d gotten one hand on the grip of the Claymore, and that was enough to even the odds.

As the griffon jumped, Sev swung the shotgun around like a bat, catching the griffon with the bayonet on the end, and slicing through the griffon’s neck. The momentum flung the griffon off the blade and onto the ground, where it bounced once before coming to a stop.

Even decapitated, the thing wheezed, trying to put up a façade of breathing. Sev didn’t bother grading it; with a blast from his shotgun, the thing dissolved into a reddish grey mix of blood and metal.

The kick from the gun was enough to break a human arm; luckily, Sev wasn’t human. Still, he could feel the gun attempt to buck him back a foot, but as he looked over a Riana, he forgot all about that.

The asari had put up a valiant effort. For a complete novice to war, she hadn’t died yet, or needed a medi-gel shot; but he could tell that her fight wasn’t going well. She’d started to retreat, attempting to funnel the griffons through a ‘valley’ in the box-landscape. Apparently, she’d forgotten that they had wings.

Sev scrambled up a nearby pile of boxes, trying to get to a position near her. It was an uphill battle; literally. The griffons had all but ignored him, in favor of turning the asari into mincemeat. Why? He didn’t know. But he wasn’t about to let his employer die.

Another shotgun blast sent a griffon tumbling down from its high perch above the woman, and for a moment, the flamer’s roar stopped just as a gasp of surprise sounded through the coms. Sev swore, as did Levin. The turian was fighting every instinct to rush down into the warrens of the spaceship to rescue his friend, Sev knew. He’d make sure that there would be no need.

Levin swore again, and Sev could distinctly hear the slight crackle of assault rifle fire through the coms. So the griffons had gotten the message, and were doubling down on them. The ones from outside weren’t as heavily husked as these ones in front of him – no doubt, they’d spent less time around the ship and whatever artifact had started this off – but the prospect wasn’t looking good for Riana.

The sudden lack of warm, orange light elicited crackled chirps from all around the two. A moment later, a wave of orange sprang forwards in front of Sev, and he peered down to see Riana turning the griffons into carbon with the cone of fire pouring out of her flamer.

A shove in the back sent him stumbling, but this time, he caught his footing, and whirled around to find another griffon with its claws raised above his triangular head.

Ah, shit.

As the thing raked its augmented claws down his helmet, a quick bloom of fiery pain erupted from the right side of his snout, close to his eye. He instinctively fired on sight, quick enough to save his eye – but not quick enough to leave his hide unblemished.

The bird’s chest exploded in a spray of meat, and the griffon separated into two halves. The rear part did not move; but the front still crawled towards him, trailing biological entrails as well as metal tubes.

Sev gripped the thing’s head and flung it down into the torrent of white flame below.

Riana swore. “15 seconds!” she shouted, but Sev was already flinging himself off the pile of boxes he stood on and next to the asari.

She turned, ready to bake him in his own armor, before she recognized his silhouette.

“Back,” Sev growled, firing off another Claymore shot towards the crowd of griffons in front of the two. Riana complied, releasing a short blast of fire, before sprinting for the open doorway that they’d started from.

Sev didn’t run. He couldn’t go as fast as her, and if he turned around, the griffons would take advantage of that by pinning him to the ground with their razor sharp, augmented claws. Edging towards the daylight, he kept shooting, until his peripheral vision caught the muzzle of Riana’s flamer.

The asari had conserved her ammunition relatively well in that encounter; for a rookie, of course. She was breathing hard, he could hear, and the flamethrower shook jerkily in her hands. Sev couldn’t tell whether it was from the afterglow of the adrenaline high she’d just had, or the fear forming in her stomach as she remembered just what she was fighting.

He popped out the thermal clip, before clicking another one in, letting the first roll around on the stone floor of the mineshaft. Through the doorway, black clouds of burnt meat wafted out, towards the afternoon sun. The griffons had chased them all the way to the doorway, and now they were squeezing through the relatively tight mineshaft in hot pursuit, screeching for blood.

Evidently, they’d lost most of their intelligence during their conversion process. The ones out there had kept the ability to plan ambushes – the ones in the ship hold just rushed at them like unthinking husks. Which, come to think of it, they were.

The chokepoint had slowed the griffon rush, but the first few through picked up the pace. By the time Sev and Riana burst out of the mineshaft, turning to flatten themselves against the sides of the cliff, the leader was already in the air, rocketing towards the two with its feathery wings extended as far as the mineshaft would allow. The thing landed at the mouth of the mine’s entrance, nimble as a cat. Unfortunately, Levin’s sights were right over its head, and a burst from his Avenger dropped the griffon husk.

Sev took a quick look around, taking stock of the situation. The shuttle was surrounded by a veritable sea of corpses – all suffering from terminal cases of headshots. Very professional. The shuttle itself hovered in the air, both side doors open, exposing a turian carrying an assault rifle kneeling in the cargo bay.

Flicking his attention back to the mineshaft, the krogan pumped his shotgun once, and whirled around, facing the mineshaft. In his peripheral vision, he could see Riana doing the same, albeit a lot more clumsily.

None too soon. The husks came in droves, every griffin practically jumping on top of its comrade in front in order to get the first strike. Sev rewarded their efforts with a shotgun blast. At this close range, the buckshot punched through multiple griffons, tearing wings, limbs and even heads off. The river of fire gushing out of Riana’s flamer was equally effective, if not more so; in the confined space, the griffon husks had no space to move, and the sticky, 1,600 Kelvin spray burned through their skin in a matter of milliseconds. Feathers burst into flame, eyes exploded, skin fried beneath the torrent of heat and light. Adding to the crescendo of destruction, Levin’s chattering assault rifle spewed bolts of light into the tunnel, although it sounded pitiful next to the thundering booms of the Claymore and the constant roar of the flamethrower.

Riana was the first to run dry, as expected. As the ammo counter of the flamer ticked to zero, the torrent of fire seemed to flicker, before cutting off completely, as if someone had blocked the end of the barrel with a plug. The asari slung the weapon over her shoulder, the barrel still smoking, and sprinted towards the shuttle.

Sev wasn’t faring much better. He’d only got about 6 thermal clips left, giving him approximately 18 consecutive shots before he would be forced to wait for his gun to cool. The other clips he’d left in the ship’s cargo bay itself, lost amongst the boxes as he’d fought the horde. Money-wise, that wasn’t a problem; clips were cheap. But it wasn’t like there were any stores here that sold them.

Levin’s outdated Avenger ran on one of the older style radiators, giving it essentially limitless ammo, but he’d have to manage his rate of fire in order to keep from overloading the gun’s inbuilt cooling capabilities. As far as Sev was concerned, that kind of liability could be lethal. He could attach such a radiator on his own weapon, but the thing was so large that it resembled a magazine from one of the ancient slug-thrower weapons, and he’d still have to wait a few seconds in between shots.

The wave of husks had thinned considerably, but none of them lost their zealotry. For every fallen husk, its comrade behind clambered over the body, fearless and insane, only to lose its life under the fusillade of rounds.

As the last one fell, with its head shorn off, one could suddenly hear nothing but the hiss of the wind. The clinking of the thermal clip as Sev ejected it from his shotgun sounded like a falling door – final and powerful.

-&-

Gilda heard the thunderous booms of the aliens’ weaponry through the blood pounding in her head. Even as she methodically cleared every room on her side of the building, she couldn’t help but feel a pit of dread slowly open up in her stomach. Oddly, she recalled that it was somewhat like the feeling that she’d gotten just before Dash’s revelation; she knew what Dash was going to say, and yet she hoped that she was wrong. It was probably the first time in her life she’d ever hoped for that. Afterwards, she’d thought she would never recover, what with all that moping she went through.

Now, however… she’d prefer that over this, any day.

She couldn’t tell why she felt such dread. It was just a feeling, a guess that took precedent in her mind. Still, she’d learned to trust her guesses. They’d helped her stay alive more than once.

Flickering, dark shapes cross her vision, and Gilda notices that several – no, dozens – of the insane griffons up the town have broken from the relative safety of the houses, towards the mine. Towards the aliens.

That was something of a relief. When the thundering had started, some of the insane had rushed out of cover and towards the scene. She’d been able to lead her team to clear out three more rows than yesterday, in the same period of time. Damn good progress, in her view.

But that spelled a problem. The insane were relatively far away from the soldiers, so the conflict was kept to a minimum. As Gilda and her platoon took back the town, row by row, the soldiers and the remaining insane would get closer and closer, until they would be breathing right down each other’s necks. And that was sure to spell conflict.

Would her soldiers hesitate before firing the shot? She knew she had, the very first time. Back then, after landing in the forest, they’d watched from the shadows as the insane fired upon, clawed at and tore at one another. That was the first time many of them had seen real combat – the first time they’d had to fight for their right to live. And many of them had hesitated. She could see it in their posture. They’d only fired once the crack of a gunshot registered in their minds, and they followed their orders as if they’d separated from their bodies…

Gilda waited for the shouts of “Clear!” before she regrouped with her squad in the middle of the second floor. Luna looked haggard; her eyes had creases around them, and it looked like she’d been sweating for profusely. Hans’s claws were bloody, but he looked as alert as ever, eyes scanning the corners of the room even as he stood tautly, like a stretched string. Anya just sat still and silent, looking at her.

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, but the rays of light still lit up half the sky in orange, smoothly transitioning into the purple of the other half. Time to rest.

Just as she bade them all to leave and get a good night’s rest, she spotted a cloud of black smoke rolling into the sky, just at the north of the town. Accompanying it was the smell of burning griffon flesh – something she’d thought she’d gotten used to.

Looked like she was wrong.

-&-

The platoon only consisted of 25 soldiers, including the wounded. Most of the griffon soldiers had moved on to the front lines, dragging their supply crates with them as they went. Twilight stayed behind in the medic camp, looking over the wounded soldier. Even with the help of the alien medicine, the rifle wound still looked nasty, and Twilight hovered nervously around the bearer of the wound.

Her brother had gone off to help the griffons in their fighting today, saying something about duty and honor. She’d understood; it would be selfish of them to not help, and as the wounded griffon in front of her showed, sometimes that selfishness could lead to horrible consequences.

Perhaps her brother’s magical shield would prevent any more injuries or deaths. He’d see a lot more violence and death, that was for certain – but it was worth it. At least, he’d thought it was worth it. If he didn’t he would have stayed with her, wouldn’t he?

The griffon mumbled something, and Twilight instantly scooted over to his side, taking care to keep her tail from flicking dust onto the bullet wound. She could see through the orange goo that passed for alien medicine, and inspected the wound for any changes.

The bone was healing slowly, shifting millimeter by millimeter as the goo somehow worked to place it back in its approximate location. Beyond that, she could see dark red blood surge through the gel, somehow linking broken blood vessels together.

She looked back at the wounded griffon, and with a yelp of surprise, noticed that said griffon was staring at her.

The griffon squawked and chirped in his native tongue, before a look of comprehension seemed to cross his face, and he frowned for a bit.

Twilight grinned bashfully. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.”

The griffon smacked his own face lightly with a claw, and dragged the yellow talons down his face. “Better now?” he asked, after a pause.

Twilight nodded, still blushing.

The griffon tried to prop himself up, placing his forearms on the ground and pushing upwards – but that only ripped a gasp from him as his weaker arm folded, and he tilted awkwardly onto his weaker side.

Twilight stifled a gasp of her own, and lit her horn to attempt to levitate him off the ground.

Nothing happened.

When the magical field encapsulated the griffon’s body, it just… dispersed, like ink in water. She couldn’t get a hold of him.

Thinking quickly, she scooted behind him and gripped the sides of his ribcage with her hooves, lifting him into a sitting position. Magic coursed through her veins, empowering her muscles. Without that, she doubted she’d be able to even drag him.

Panting, she let go as soon as his claws touched the ground. “That could have exacerbated you wounds.”

“No shit,” the griffon replied, hissing, before reaching for his armor. Twilight shunted the metal away to the other side of the tent with her magic. “Hey! What gives?”

“You can’t go out there and fight,” Twilight said, ignoring the cold, sinking feeling of dread as the griffon squinted at her. “You’re still injured.”

The griffon rolled his neck from side to side, before summoning a sarcastic grin. “I can feel that.”

He sighed as Twilight shuffled on her hooves, blush returning in full force. “So, I can’t do anything but sit in here all day, then?”

Twilight chuckled half-heartedly. “Yes. Sorry about that.”

The griffon blinked for a few seconds, before deflating slightly, and chirped out a sequence of sharp bird-calls. Twilight had a hunch that the meaning of those calls weren’t very nice.

Still, she plopped her rump back on the grassy ground, feeling the green blades tickle her skin. This grass weren’t the soft stems that were omnipresent in Equestria, but sharp and tough. The sensation was foreign, but not unwelcome.

The griffon let out a whistle that sounded surprisingly like a hawk’s screech as he continued to stare at the flapping canvas folds that were the door of the tent. Twilight did so too, curious.

The two sat in silence. Twilight started tapping her hindlegs, not sure of what to do. Now that the only patient in the medic tent was conscious, he could handle himself just fine. Indeed, he was stumbling off to the side of the tent, where they kept curious mugs-with-lids. Twilight lit her horn and levitated the mug over to the griffon, stopping it at his claws. At least then he wouldn’t risk an injury.

“Thanks, pony,” the griffon said, sitting back on his black haunches as he used his left claw to pick up and open the lid of the mug in one swift movement. Twilight rubbed the back of her head, happy yet irritated. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Rolk,” the griffon replied. Twilight presumed that was his name. It would be awkward to ask. Although there was the risk that what he said was an ‘OK’ in his native tongue…

“No last name?” she asked, before clamping both hooves over her mouth. Please let it not be a faux pas!

“Griffons don’t really have a last name,” Rolk replied, confirming Twilight’s guess that what he said earlier was his name. “We just have our birthplace as a ‘last name’. Mine is Clawdor.”

“But there could be multiple griffons of the same name from the same city!” Twilight exclaimed, placing her hooves between her hindlegs. She’d adopted this posture for her years of studying and tuition, and whenever she had something new to learn, she’d always sit like this. In some far-away, detached part of her mind, she noted that it was the same whether in a warzone or a library.

“We also have a family name, but we tend not to use it in public, or unless the situation demands it,” Rolk sighed. Explaining this felt redundant, but still, most ponies were quite xenophobic. Or so he heard. The fact that this one wanted to talk surprised him.

“Why?”

Rolk rolled his eyes. Really? “Say you become a famous personality. And you decide to have a chick. Sorry, a ‘foal’, is that it?”

Twilight nodded wordlessly, feeling a trickle of understanding run down her back. Not enough to turn into an actual theory, but close enough to start hypothesizing.

“Society would expect that foal to become someone like you, Twilight Sparkle. If you were a brilliant musician, society would have your foal be one as well, regardless of whether your foal wants to or not. And that is why we hide our family names. No one should have their fate decided by their name.”

Twilight paused. On the one hand, that seemed like a just move; on the other, she couldn’t fathom how the griffons could handle all the logistical nightmares that came from this scheme. Then she reminded herself that she was looking at this from a pony’s perspective.

“So, Gilda sak Tallis means…” Twilight waved a hoof in the air airily at the end of that sentence, and Rolk watched her for a moment before he realized that she wanted him to finish her sentence. Why didn’t she just ask a normal question?

“Gilda of Tallis. Specifically, Gilda birthed from the ones of Tallis.” Rolk knocked back the mug, letting a river of lukewarm water flow down his beak. Some of it trickled down the side of his yellow beak, and dripped down his grey face like tears. He didn’t mind. He needed a wash, anyways. Come to think of it…

The griffon set down his mug, closing the lid, before leaving it next to his sleeping space – a pile of blankets. A corner of said blankets still had the muddy red stain of blood that they couldn’t get rid of.

He got up onto all fours, tentatively, before hissing and retracting his injured leg. Still, no amount of pain was going to stop him from seeing the outdoors once more. Or getting a wash, for that matter.

Twilight leapt to his side, but stopped short of actually propping him up with her side. Griffons were a proud people, ponies had said, and the short time that Gilda had spent with them had kind of proved that. Still, he really looked like he needed help…

Rolk ignored Twilight’s mental arguments as he pushed his head out of the tent, his eagle eyes taking in every last detail; every empty cartridge casing on the ground, every tuft of earth pulled out alongside tent-poles, every cold stone surrounding long-dead campfires. They’d gone.

The sound of gunfire hadn’t. The lines had moved forwards. He’d been left behind. A casualty, useless and unfit for battle.

Twilight popped her head out alongside him, wondering why he’d just stopped in the doorway.

Rolk growled like a lion, and Twilight jumped back, shaking involuntarily as adrenaline rushed through her. She didn’t really know what had happened – all she had done was come up to him. It must have been a bad time.

Without another sound, the griffon slunk out of the tent, limping mildly. Twilight waited for a few seconds before following. Rolk would appreciate the gesture. She was here to help, after all, and she was going to do that her way. Not the nasty killing out in the streets, but the healing of others who had been hurt.

Luna must have really changed. One thousand years on the moon… nopony recovers from that just with a hit from a powerful spell. Even if the form is changed, the mind is not.

Rolk waded into a relatively flat section of the river. He’d stayed close to the shorebank – getting washed away would be lethal – and closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of icy water crashing against the scales and fur of his legs. How he’d missed that.

He lay down, careful to keep his wound out of the water. The alien gel was working better than he’d thought, but he didn’t want to test its limits yet. Spreading out a wing, he could feel the flowing water gently caress the undersides, sending jolts of pleasure to his brain. It was almost like flying. He didn’t know how much he’d missed that.

Rolk noticed Twilight hovering awkwardly by the riverbank, most likely fearful of getting in the water. Her choice. The griffon ignored her, focusing on the now-foreign sensations that jetted up from his limbs. Oh, how long had he been injured?

Injured… he remembered a stabbing, fiery pain explode from his shoulder, right before he fell, and then Svetlana’s face appeared, blocking out the moonlight. In that instance, though, she was just as beautiful as the moon.

He couldn’t remember anything else after that. Waking up in the medical tent with the newcomers… well, at least he didn’t hurt as much as he should. Svet was missing, though… where was she then?

Where was she now?

Rolk shot upright in the blink of an eye, ignoring the flaring pain in his shoulder and the image of Twilight leaping backwards, and rocketed off towards the medic tent in a wing-assisted leap.

At the front lines. Rolk cursed himself for his own stupidity. If he hadn’t poked his head over the barricade at that exact moment –

No use now, he thought, roughly donning the armor and tightening the straps. His rifle lay on the ground, unloaded. He still had the army’s standard-issue bayonet in one of his armor’s pockets, along with about 20 cartridges. That would have to do.

He shoved roughly past Twilight as she entered the same time he exited, and ignored the unicorn’s cries of complaint. If she got overwhelmed, and he wasn’t out there, watching her back –

No. Don’t think about that. You don’t know yet.

He launched himself off the grassy ground, shooting for the nearby rooftop. His shoulder throbbed with fire for each wingbeat, but for once, he was happy for it. That showed what was at stake. Should she die, it would hurt a lot more.

Normally, he wouldn’t have chosen to travel via rooftop-hopping. It was much too exposed – a griffon lunatic from the far end of the town could see his silhouette and open fire, but he figured the risk was worth it. Time was of the essence, and furthermore, he’d be moving faster than the mad griffons could aim.

Twilight’s cries dissolved into murmurs in the wind as air rushed past what passed for his ears, and he ignored the requests and demands that she was probably sprouting. He had to do this.

The purple unicorn herself slowed down as Rolk vanished into the rooftops. He’d gone that way to deliberately lose her – what happened? Had she offended him? Did he think she was trying to poison him, harm him; or worse, court him?

Twilight shoved more energy into her muscles, attempting to ignore the surroundings and her own rogue thoughts, though that came down to a tug-of-war; when she tried to ignore one, she’d focus on the other. And she wasn’t looking forwards to seeing what carnage the griffon soldiers had inflicted upon their own people.

A small part of her examined her reaction as she cantered along, spotting flashes of grey and black in the blue sky. She’d never thought of herself as that kind of mare – Rarity would be the first pony that crossed her mind – but she couldn’t deny that there was something attractive about getting a lover. Maybe it was just her scientific side, begging for a new experiment. But a griffon!

Lost in her thoughts, Twilight stumbled as her hoof caught on a slight depression in the grassland. She skidded a short distance before stopping, sprawled out on the grass.

Above her, the sky was lit up in purple and orange – the source of her name. It would be night soon, and she remembered Gilda’s advice; sticking around others would keep you safe, but being alone was likely a death sentence. Twilight couldn’t detect any sarcasm in that. This new Gilda was completely serious.

Shivering, she lit her horn in order to better illuminate her surroundings. Griffon bodies lay piled against the housing like macabre decorations, and Twilight was sure that the grey walls behind them were splattered black with blood. She instantly galloped forwards, towards the cracks of gunfire up ahead, all the while trying to keep her insides in place.

Rolk, meanwhile, could hear the pops of gunfire ahead as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Good thing griffons built their houses with a flat roof. He skidded a bit on the flat metal, and then jumped diagonally towards one of the buildings on the left, going for the westernmost building of the front line.

With several quick squawks to identify himself, Rolk flew through a window at the back of the building in front of him, hitting the floor with a clatter of claw against metal. He could see that the room hadn’t been partitioned – it was just one large space that looked suspiciously like a bedroom before things went to Tartarus. A bed, pulled onto its side, was shoved up against a wall, blocking off a window; the other window had about 3 griffons all aiming through it. One of those griffons had broken off, and kept to cover as he looked back at Rolk.

“Idiot,” he chirped happily, pointing a talon at Rolk’s wounded shoulder. “Where’s the nurse?”

Several Equestrian yelps from below answered that for Rolk, and the other griffon jerked a talon back at the window. “Hold the line for me, eh?”

Rolk nodded, embarrassed, and hobbled over to the window, resting the end of the rifle on the wooden sill. He could hear the other griffon launch off the floor with a clack.

Twilight stopped at the wall, looking upwards at the window where Rolk’s black cat’s tail had disappeared into. She’d lost him. She’d failed a task as simple as this.

A griffon popped out of the window, and Twilight’s heart soared; but when she realized that it wasn’t Rolk, but some griffon she hadn’t met, she plummeted once again into the depths of despair. No doubt this griffon was here to tell her off. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The griffon’s clacking beak right next to her drew her out of her self-scolding. “You Rolk’s nurse?” he asked, pulling on the strap holding his gun to his back. Then, he held out his arms, as if for a hug. Twilight nodded, and then slowly embraced the griffon, obviously unsure of what to do.

She yelped as the griffon clamped his arms around her. The ground plummeted away from her, and she could distinctly feel her stomach shoved down into her hips, as her hindlegs met no resistance from the earth. Scared, she clamped her hooves around the griffon’s neck, mashing her face into his feathery chest.

The world went upside down for a moment, and Twilight saw her surroundings rotate all around her, before stopping suddenly. While she waited for her eyes to readjust, she felt a hard surface meet the back of her legs and rump, and then noticed the lack of any furry arms wrapped around her.

And then she found out that she still had her own forelegs wrapped around the feathery neck of the griffon in front of her, who was now looking both amused and annoyed at the same time.

Giggling nervously, she released her captive, who quickly backed away, withdrew his rifle, and got back to work.

Rolk stumbled over, smiling. “Apologies. My friend is in another building.” He nodded to the east.

Twilight growled. “What were you thinking? You’re injured! You can’t go out there!”

Rolk stopped her with a raised claw. “But I did. And I would. I won’t leave my friends hanging.” Hobbling over to the eastern windows, he flexed his wings experimentally. Now that the adrenaline had worn off somewhat, the lances of pain shooting down his arm and up his spine intensified, and he swore.

He would do this. He had to.

He turned towards the pony, who was gaping at him, and for a few milliseconds he thought that there was an enemy behind him – but he pushed that out of his mind, once he remembered that they’d cleared the row. Still, it would be safer to check.

He whirled his head around, and found nothing, as he’d expected. The grey metal wall of the house opposite stared back at him emotionlessly. Looking back inside the house, he found Twilight, with narrowed eyes, glaring at him.

Rolk sighed. “Do you want a lift getting over there” he asked, pointing to the next building.

Twilight shook her head, and with a flash of light, she disappeared. Rolk’s ears could pick up the pop of magic, and the rush of air into the vacuum once occupied by the unicorn.

She’d teleported away. Gritting his beak, he flexed his flight muscles once, getting a gauge for the level of pain he’d undergo. It wasn’t crippling, by any means, but it wouldn’t be nice either. Still, he wasn’t going to give up.

With a grunt, he launched himself out of one window and into the other, wincing as he landed.

Twilight was already standing next to him, having teleported through the other window, and she sighed as the griffon wobbled a bit on landing. “I know your friends are important to you. But they wouldn’t want to see you hurt yourself for them.”

Rolk shrugged. “Perhaps. But if they’re dead, they can’t feel sorrow. I’d rather we all make it out alive, unhappy or not.”

Twilight grumbled under her breath, but she didn’t stop the griffon from hobbling over to the windows facing north. A certain white female griffon turned to face him as she took cover.

Twilight herself attempted to ignore the conversation between them – a few words suggested things of an intimate nature – and focused on her maelstrom of thoughts, attempting to pick one out of the metaphorical hurricane in her head.

Rolk was right. A friend’s disappointment would mean nothing if that same friend ended up dead, with a bullet through the brain. At the same time, though, that act implied a lack of trust in one another; not a good sign of a healthy relationship. But did that really matter? He’d made his own choice to come out here, in order to help another friend out. Just like herself, when Applejack denied any help during harvest season; she’d gone anyways, multiple times, annoying her friend even though she’d been told by that same friend to just go away. And it had turned out alright in the end.

Bonds of trust get stronger when they are tested, she’d concluded. So why did she stop him? The wound wasn’t lethal, she thought, grimacing as she recalled the bloody image in her mind. It would just hurt a ridiculous amount.

Friends should care for one another. In this case, if that axiom was correct, then Rolk should have stayed in the medic tent. His friend didn’t want to see him hurt. But that also meant that Rolk should have gone over to help out, even if that meant suffering pain. These were life-or-death decisions, and for those, there were no hard-or-fast rules. Twilight would have known.

Shaking her head free of the conundrums that she’d presented herself with, she focused on casting a shield spell to blanket the griffons in the building.

-&-

Levin had once again elected to wait outside, cradling his Avenger as he knelt in the middle of the shuttle’s cargo bay. The said shuttle sat on its undercarriage, on top of a landscape of corpses; not exactly a stable area. After a moment of deliberation, Riana had chosen to accompany her turian friend outside. A smart choice, given that she was effectively useless in a combat scenario without her flamer.

Sev had cleared the tunnel of corpses now, dragging each burnt carcass out into the light of the day. Some of the bodies had been reduced to ash and limbs – those, he simply left in place. He could wade through that with little problem.

His task was to go through the maze of rubble inside the dead spaceship, clearing it of any survivors, before one of the two would come by to scavenge through the wreckage. Simple enough.

Stepping into the darkness once again, he activated the night-vision software suite, as well as his suit’s floodlights, letting the harsh white light pour into the cavernous hold.

The path ahead, flanked on both sides by tall, spire-like support columns, seemed like the best way to go. Deliberately stomping on the metal ground as he went, he walked forwards, ignoring the slight specks of matter floating downwards from the ceiling.

Wait…

He looked up. There wasn’t anything of note – just a clump of what appeared to be fungal matter in a state of advanced decomposition. It covered the entire ceiling without order or reason. Nature never did anything to reason.

Sev considered letting loose a blast at it from his shotgun, but then shook that desire off. It wouldn’t do anything more than weaken the ship, at best. At worst, the plant could be some sort of alien that would end up taking control of his mind. Eh, he’d seen weirder things. Rachni working on the Crucible project, for example.

Sev’s errant thoughts got shoved to the back of his head as he neared a tumbled mess of boxes blocking the path in front of him. It looked like it had once been stacked in a nice column; now, the whole thing looked like a line of fallen dominoes.

He pushed down on the closest box, feeling it shift beneath his palms. That was no good. That meant the whole thing would start moving with him on top, and then he’d be boxed in under a mountain of, well, boxes.

Not one of the nicest ways to die. Nor the most fun.

Sev looked to the sides, where the boxes that made up the landscape seemed more settled. There, sitting nonchalantly on the floor of boxes, was a small black object.

Sev would recognize that anywhere. On many of his missions with the Alliance’s N7 Ops, his team would often be called to ‘deactivate’ these things. They took a different shape all the time, but they all shared a common trait – the black coloring, and the dread that they instilled in any onlooker.

It looked oddly peaceful, just sitting there. Any other person could have passed it off as a part of the ship’s construction, or a data core. The griffons that opened the door to this ship probably had.

Sev raised the gun, and fired a shot straight at the thing, briefly illuminating the surrounding area in warm orange-white light. As the smoke cleared, he came closer to take stock of the damage.

Considering that his Claymore rounds could pierce Atlas armor, the fact that the device wasn’t a crumpled mess was astonishing. True, it had a few dents in it – obviously from where the buckshot had connected with the casing – but aside from that, it looked the same as before. Sev sighed, and jammed the Reaper object between the shotgun muzzle and the metallic side of a nearby box, before pulling the trigger. Twice.

Venting the thermal clip and slotting in a new one, he listened for the click-clack of griffon claw-on-metal. There was none. If they had heard him, they weren’t responding.

Whatever Shepard had done, he’d destroyed or deactivated all Reaper objects in the known galaxy, and so this device couldn’t call for help from its thralls, no matter the damage it took. Fine by Sev.

Now he was getting somewhere. The side facing the shotgun barrel had disintegrated into shards of Reaper metal, and Sev didn’t bother looking at what was inside. Any look, and he could go mad. It wasn’t a risk worth taking.

Three more shotgun blasts punctuated the silence of the ancient ship’s cargo hold.

-&-

Riana looked up as the clanking steps of her krogan employee got louder and louder. Levin hadn’t been as good of a conversation partner as she’d hoped – it was like his personality had dissipated into the smoky air, leaving only his combat instincts.

“Destroyed the artifact,” Sev said nonchalantly, leaning back against the cliff face once he’d gone out of the cramped mineshaft. “Nothing else I could see.”

The other two nodded briefly, before slipping into the mine. As soon as they were gone, Sev sighed, and slid down the side of the cliff until he was essentially sitting on his tail. A nearby griffon corpse caught his eye, and he kicked it away, letting it spill its innards onto the blood-blackened grass.

He couldn’t pilot the shuttle now; Levin had retracted his control privileges, so the turian himself was the only one that the shuttle allowed to fly. He felt useless, sitting out here. Hungry, too.

But nope. Someone had to watch the entrance. Fighting through a crowd to get to the extraction point was never a good idea. And he lacked enough ammo for another bout of shooting.

A sparkle from a griffon corpse nearby drew his eye, and the krogan hefted himself up, and then walked over to the corpse, before kneeling back down. It was just the sun’s reflection on the artificial brain-spine connection, but suddenly, he knew what to do.

The Reaper construct was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Pulling the spine of the dead griffon away from the flesh, Sev could see how the metal looped around the spine in intricate patterns, sometimes following the path down the vertebrae, sometimes branching off into two different paths that tugged at the dead muscle.

This was primitive husk material. The flesh wasn’t cybernetic at the cellular level, but it was roughly stabbed at by the Reaper wiring, looking like primitive electrodes. The wires had missed the nerves completely, according to a close scan of his omni-tool, choosing to thread deep into each muscle fiber. It was like a secondary brain, connected to the first through the most rudimentary of neurological connections. No wonder the symptoms of madness took days to emerge.

Still, it was a brain. A mechanical, dead one, but still a brain. Sev wrenched the wire as hard as he could, and the metal finally detached from the muscles with a cringe-worthy ripping sound. This cybernetic brain dwarfed even the smallest, most advanced Prothean AI supercomputers, and there was no doubt in his mind that someone would pay highly for it. He only hoped that he’d survive the deal.

Shaking his misgivings away, he stuffed the machine brain inside a compartment in his suit, and stood guard.

-&-

Town Hall stood proudly at the center of the town, and Gilda stifled a whistle as she gazed upon the tall spire-like construction.

Pony influences were clear in the flatter, more rectangular base of the hall. Likely, that had been for the administrative staff. Everyone had to have access – including the crippled, the young, and the elderly – and so, it was designed as a place where no one with legs would have a problem getting to.

The building narrowed into a spire, with the top being a small wooden platform, hemmed in from all sides by wooden planks. Below, small perches allowed the guards of any important visitor to stand guard, or allowed other speakers to sit before being called up to the platform when it was their turn.

It was the peak that was most interesting. Anyone there would have an overview of the entire area. It had been impossible to hold that position earlier, since the path up was horrendously exposed; but now, the soldiers controlled the south side of the town, and anyone flying up from that side would be safe. Gilda hoped.

She motioned to Anya, who did a quick salute, before affixing the extended barrel to the threaded muzzle of her rifle. After a moment, the griffon unfolded her grey wings and took off.

Hans was watching her go, Gilda saw out of the corner of her eye. But the lieutenant herself ignored that tidbit of info. She’d seen that the Town Hall had two floors; one for the public, one for the government. It would be the second floor that would prove problematic, she knew. Whereas the first was essentially a flat gathering area for the townsfolk, the second would be split into many different rooms, and each corner could be hiding something nasty.

Luna’s magic could shield them from gunfire, but the griffon race’s magically resistant bodies meant that she couldn’t stop their melee attacks. That same pony, however, could use her magic to pick up any random object and fling it at enemies to stop their advance. Gilda doubted how effective that would be, but in her situation, she couldn’t afford to be choosy.

Three of the houses were behind the Town Hall, and the massive building had blocked sightlines from those houses, cutting down the effectiveness of the soldiers inside. Still, she needed at least one set of soldiers to cover the multitude of windows that lined the south-side of the Town Hall. The other two, however, could help her breach…

In the space of ten seconds, Gilda had thought up a quick plan, and nodded to Hans, instructing her subordinate to fetch the soldiers in the east house. She went for the west house herself.

As Gilda burst through the window, identifying herself, she saw two things. One: the wounded griffon back at base had somehow managed to get himself here, and had his rifle propped up against the windowsill, looking outwards. Two: Twilight Sparkle, that griffon’s caretaker.

She ignored the pony for the first part. Rolk was her subordinate, her responsibility. “Tartarus, Rolk! Do you have a death wish?”

Ignoring the hitched breaths of the unicorn behind her, Gilda rounded on the grey-black griffon, who seemed to wilt in her gaze. Idiot deserved it. Nevertheless, he spoke. “Lieutenant, I wish to contribute to the war effort. I couldn’t do that, stuck back at base.”

Left eye twitching angrily, Gilda resisted the urge to roar in frustration, and turned that same anger into a cold, calculating mindset. Rolk was here now, and by ordering him back, she’d strain the wound even more. If he really wanted to ‘contribute’ as it were, he could do so as a sniper.

Gilda sighed, and pointed her talon at the center house. “Go there and snipe.”

She turned towards the other two griffons holding the house. One of them, a solidly white griffon, seemed anxious to see Rolk go, and Rolk wasn’t moving as quickly as he could’ve been. It was a serious injury, but he’d braved the way here from base, and this was just a small jump…

Gilda felt oddly conflicted now. On the one claw, she felt a small, vindictive glee at watching his reaction when she plucked his girlfriend for her team. On the other claw, he would fight better if he had a reminder of what he was fighting for, right by his side. Besides, Svetlana wasn’t really the best CQC combatant in the platoon.

Gilda sighed, and nodded quickly to the white griffon. “You go with him as well.”

Turning back to the last one, who’d stood by ignored the whole time, she spoke. “Stav, you’re with me. Go to the Princess down on the streets.”

Of course, she’d have to pluck out two soldiers from the central house, as well. It wouldn’t do good to come unprepared.

A short while later, Gilda returned, with two soldiers in tow. None of them looked happy, but Hans supposed that was the reality of the job. Making tough decisions.

Hans stood by the Princess, who had covered each new arrival in a coating of purplish magic. Since the magic wasn’t used on them, but on the air around them, they could all feel its presence. It was like wearing a full set of wooly clothes.

The white-grey griffon checked his knife absentmindedly, seeing every imperfection on its scratched blade. He’d have to get a new one soon. This one had a bloody enough history, and besides, those new alloyed steel blades looked a lot nicer…

With a hard whump, the Lieutenant landed, and gave out her orders. Standard clearing policy, he thought. The upper floor was simply a long corridor that was flanked by many, many doors. In terms of design, it was simple; but in a soldier’s eye, it was a nightmare. Opening one door would leave the breaching team vulnerable to any other hostile that popped out of the other doors at that specific moment. Not to mention that the rooms could have doors to one another as well.

Two good shots would remain at the junction between the corridor and the staircase. The closest two doors would be breached at the same time, with the main idea being to split the enemy forces in half, as well as to force them out of the rooms furthest away from the two allocated snipers. That way, the snipers wouldn’t be overwhelmed, and neither would they miss under the pressure of close quarters combat.

Time to put it to the test, Gilda thought, as she reached the busted staircase. Hans would be leading teams to breach the northern rooms, whilst she’d be doing to southern ones. Hopefully, the center house snipers would have taken out some of the enemies.

The top floor looked even more unkempt than she’d thought. Some doors had been turned into splinters, their pieces littering the floor of the corridor. There was no source of light at all, since no one had the mental capacity to refuel the lanterns set at the sides of the corridor. Still, her cat-eagle eyes could pick up any sort of movement, and so far, the only thing she’d seen moving was a small piece of paper fluttering in the wind.

Stepping out into the corridor with her rifle pressed against her shoulder, she regarded the situation. Dimly, she heard the muffled slump of two griffon bodies lying down – the snipers were getting into position – as well as Hans’ mutterings, and the scrape of metal against metal. Luna was to stay by the snipers, providing them all with magical barriers. The Princess had a tough job, she knew, and she didn't want her barriers to waver by having the Princess lose concentration halfway through a breach.

Time to go.

Gilda tested the door – griffon doors tended to swing outwards, as to maximize space inside – which kicked up a cloud of dust, and found herself facing the corner of what appeared to be an office. Swinging around, she swept the right side of the room, and the pitter-patter of paws told her that her team was doing the same to the right and center.

Nothing.

“Clear!” she yelled, before rummaging through the area for ammo. They’d passed the corpse of an official on the floor below, his brains blown out by a bullet. The more important thing was that he was holding a gun, which implied ammo. Gilda had heard rumors that all government officials were given weapons of their own – shortened versions of their rifles, firing the same bullets – and that body had proved it. She found what she was looking for in the bottom drawer of the desk; a standard box of 50 rounds.

Hans’s side had yelled “Clear!” as well, but she’d brushed it to the back of her mind, focusing on what she had to do. There hadn’t been any shots yet, which meant that the snipers couldn’t find targets. That could change as the griffon sweep teams got further down the corridor.

Speak of the devil. A distinct explosion sounded from somewhere high above; Anya’s sniper perch. One less enemy.

They met again, opening the doors at the same time, and with a quick nod, they moved along the walls towards the next pair of doors.

Pressing her ears to the wood, she could hear sounds of claw against wood. It was mild, sure – but it was there. And that was the important bit.

Flicking open the door with the end of her rifle, she turned around the corner of the doorway, and came face-to-face with the bloody beak of an insane griffon.

She fired on instinct. At this range, the shot shattered the skull, and Gilda swore she could see white-red chunks of bone and flesh explode around the bullet hole as the enemy’s head snapped backwards. Blinking, she realized that she’d also gotten a faceful of gore, and her eyes were starting to tear up; but she wouldn’t neglect her duty. She’d signed up for this, and she was going to succeed in her mission.

Rushing down the left side of the room, once again, she found nothing but another desk, with the body of a griffon draped on the top. This one was half-eaten.

Gilda had seen something like this before, so she managed to hold her juices inside her stomach, but it appeared that the other snipers hadn’t. She heard the retching of her teammates just as the vile taste of bile wafted up her insides.

Hans’s yell of “Clear!” registered in the back of her head, and once again, she blinked away the specks of gore that had gotten in her eyes. It was easier to bear, now, but she’d need to wash it out sooner or later.

Evidently, that would be sooner. One of her teammates, Stav, tossed her a metal canteen that she just caught. She fumbled with the cap, before wrenching it off and pouring the innards over her eyes.

As she let the water run off with the blood that had been in her eyes, she gave Stav a smile, which he returned, and handed him back his canteen. She must have looked like a mess – streaked red with blood, beak dripping with small strings of someone else’s gore. Still, it wouldn’t hinder her ability to do her job, and that was the important part.

Gilda nodded, more to herself than to anyone else, and locked in another round, just as a crack of gunfire sounded from the south. The center house snipers were doing their jobs, at last.

The next room she checked was empty, but the sound of a nearby shot and Hans’s screech told her that its northern counterpart wasn’t. They’d planned for this – everyone was to check their own room first, and deal with their own problems and enemies before helping out. Running back out, Gilda reloaded on the fly, before taking aim into the room.

One body lay on the floor, skull blown apart by a speeding rifle bullet, but that wasn’t important. The second enemy griffon spat blood from its beak, drooling all the while, and Gilda could see the clean incision in its neck spurting blood all over the second team leader.

Hans was holding out quite well, for someone fighting what seemed like a possessed corpse. He was blocking the thing’s blows with the side of his rifle, which he held like a staff. But he was running out of time. Another downwards slash, and Gilda could see flakes of wood shower downwards from the rifle’s failing body.

His teammates fired, filling the room with white smoke. Gilda squinted, making out the two shapes still struggling, and aimed her own rifle.

And then Hans’s rifle snapped in half, sending both griffons tumbling to the floor.

Gilda swore under her breath. She couldn’t fire, not without the fear of hitting her friend. Wedging her rifle between two cupboards, she unfurled her wings, ignoring the jets of pain when their tips hit the walls. With a grunt, she pushed the smoke out of the broken northern window.

Hans scrabbled backwards, from beneath the slumped form of a bloodied griffon, his claws bloody and grasping a long knife. Groaning, he pushed himself upright into a sitting position, and kicked away the body with his cat’s legs.

Gilda scanned the room for a moment longer, but after determining that nothing else was out of place, she rushed to her friend’s side. Even with her basic battlefield medical knowledge, she could tell that the diagnosis wasn’t good.

“Shit,” Hans spluttered, grimacing, as he tried to wipe away the blood from his feathers with his bloodied claws. “Too fast, too strong. So fast…”

Gilda placed a claw on one of his forearms, and he stopped, yet his arms kept twitching. She sighed as she went for her own water canteen, strapped to her thigh. As the sanguine water rolled off of his body, Gilda could see the full extent of the damage that he’d gone through. His plate armor had been torn into ribbons, with deep furrows that stretched from the middle of his neck to the chest area of the steel plate. By the looks of it, the enemy’s claws hadn’t been impeded at all by Hans’s armor. The steel had just parted like butter, and Gilda bet that it had about the same protective qualities as the soft yellow substance to these hardened claws.

She growled a bit, trying to vent her frustration. One down. One of her best, out of action.

The aliens and their magical healing gel weren’t right by her side. She’d need bandages at the very least, and they were all in the lines behind. Open wounds spelled infection, and that killed more griffons than the actual wounds.

But the more prevalent danger, currently, was the remaining enemy in the Town Hall. With one breaching team suffering a casualty, as well as, devoid of a leader, Gilda knew she had a problem. She looked back at the snipers lying down at the end of the corridor, both of whom seemed to be in their own little worlds. Behind them, Luna stood, her horn glowing and her face creased in concentration.

“Princess!” Gilda screeched, letting a bit of her own tongue into the Equestrian. “You’re in a clearing team!”

The pony’s eyes widened in surprise, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Gilda rolled her eyes and sighed menacingly. “Princess, you’re going under Sig. Sig, you’re team leader now.”

Sig smiled nervously and saluted. Gilda turned away from him and waited for Luna to arrive; when she didn’t, Gilda snarled. “Luna, get in here!”

The aforementioned Princess complied, albeit slowly and reluctantly, but gasped audibly when she came across the bleeding form of Hans lying supine on the dusty wooden floor. She stared at him, only glancing at Gilda when the latter spoke.

“Listen to Sig, he’ll brief you,” the griffon lieutenant said gruffly, looking around the room for any spare pieces of cloth. A dusty curtain hung from a slanted rail above the window, and Gilda leapt for it, barging through the surprised members of the other breaching team. She’d apologize later. Cutting the curtain off the rail with a slash of her talons, she bounded back to her wounded comrade, slamming the curtain against the wall as she stopped. Ignoring the dust kicked up by her blow, she set about unbuckling his armor, undoing the straps with practiced efficiency, and removing the cloth undershirt to the best of her ability. There were some torn strips caught within the wound – those she ignored, fearful of doing more harm than good in attempting to remove them. Sig’s stilted, awkward words floated to the back of her head as she occupied the fore of her mind with her battlefield medical training.

Hans’s muted yelp went unheard by Gilda, but everyone else winced, and the shifting shadows almost broke the lieutenant’s concentration. Almost. Even as the bloody water trickled out of the lacerations, Gilda folded the undershirt into what she hoped would be an airtight wad, and the curtain into a long piece of dressing.

“Exhale, Hans!” she screeched, reverting to their native tongue. Hans wasn’t that good at language, she knew; she’d spent a long time getting to know her platoon. He’d better not die on her.

Weakly, Hans followed her order, and Gilda listened to his sputtering coughs as he attempted to expel all the air from his chest cavity. He wasn’t going to last much longer.

Dimly, she was aware of the double percussion of gunshots from somewhere nearby. The snipers must have found a target. She smiled grimly.

When she thought he’d done as much as he could – she’d never seen an adult’s griffon’s chest that compact before – she shoved the remains of his undershirt on the wound. Folded the way it was, the thing should be airtight; good enough for field medicine. No, it wasn’t good enough. It was barely passable. But it was all she could get, right now. Or was it?

“Luna, airtight cloth!” she barked, and the Princess instantly conjured up a piece of sparkling fabric that was large enough to make a dress with. Right now, she didn’t care. Snatching the cloth out of the air with nary a word, she pressed it against the seeping wounds on Hans’s chest. To his credit, the male griffon clasped the seal to his chest, but Gilda could see that the grip wasn’t as strong as normal.

The curtain had been cut into three strips, and Gilda set about using one of them to tie the seal down to his chest. As she looped the tough fabric around his body, she could hear him hiss, attempting to clamp down on a yell and hide how much pain he was in. It wasn’t working.

She grunted as she turned her friend onto his side. He was heavy for a griffon, even without his armor. Must have been mostly muscle.

After tying a quick nonslip knot, Gilda absently wiped her bloody claws on her chest feathers. A glance downwards confirmed that her neck area was still stained red with what used to be some griffon’s brain. She was running out of space to wipe her hands.

Continuing to bind the seal to her friend’s form with the other two strips of curtain cloth, she could dimly hear Sig stop talking. The sudden silence struck her like a blast of cold water, and she stole a glance towards them.

They looked back, obviously nervous and confused. Well, except for Luna. She still wore that expression of disgust. Gilda turned her attention back to her work, and pressed her ear-hole to Hans’s chest. It looked like he was still having trouble breathing normally, but that would have to do. Shit, he’d need to be carried home to Asgard. Or at least have frequent breaks in between bouts of flight.

Throwing a glance around the doorway, Gilda came across an empty corridor, with the body of a griffon slumped at the far end. The head simply appeared to have disintegrated. She felt an odd glee at that sight. It was quickly replaced by shame and horror.

“I’ll be back after we finish,” she said to Hans, who was now mercifully asleep. Gilda propped him against the wall, making sure that he was sleeping on his side, and let loose a tiny smile.

The pooling blood from the dead griffon in her own room had grown to reach the opposite wall, and Gilda grimaced as she felt the blood stick to her hind-paws, as if it wanted to glue her to the floor. As she and her team lined up against another door – the penultimate one on this side – she felt the long-dormant rage in her explode into the fore, and growled.

For Hans.

She flung open the door so hard that the hinges creaked. The muzzle of her rifle swept the room, its wielder aiming down the sights all the while. Nothing. The absence of an enemy seemed to mock her – just when she got into the mood for killing, there’d be nothing to kill. Nothing to vent her rage on.

Snarling, she kicked at the desk in the center of the room, sending the thing sliding back a few feet with a nasty scraping sound; but more importantly, revealing the griffon hiding underneath.

With a wide grin, Gilda wrenched her rifle until the barrel roughly faced the griffon’s head, before pulling the trigger.

Comments

[Rokas]

" All actions have reactions, and all choices have consequences."

We've all heard THAT one before. All it got us was blue, green, or red tints on our canned ending.

Ahhh, hahaha, hee... Seriously, though, I'll take a look at this. Read a few paragraphs of the first chapter and it looks decent so far. And anything that ignores that crappy ending can't be all bad.

[Kishin]

Excellent addition to the story!

[G S tol Kriaal]

Rolk through a window

I think there's a word missing here

attempting to remove.

I think there should be a "them" at the end there

I'm not entirely sure that last griffon Gilda killed was insane...

[N00813]

1395163

Cheers!

I don't know. I wrote that last one as a Reaper unit in my mind, but it doesn't really matter to Gilda.