Chapters The sky was filled with dark grey clouds. Rain would fall soon, but that didn't stop them from working. Every now and then, the crack of a whip sounded and echoed against the cliff, making it louder.
On the ground, wearing torn clothing, were Griffons. All of them had their wings chained, preventing them from flying away. They were clearly malnourished, and some barely even had the strength to do the work they were assigned.
Around the work camp, Unicorns wearing steel armour were guarding the Griffons, making sure none would escape.
One Griffon, a young male who had barely reached twenty, slowed down his pace to take a breath. His break was short-lived as a whip struck him between his wings, causing him to howl in pain.
The Griffon fell to his knees, his cargo's weight now too much for him to support. The closest Unicorns, apart from the one handling the whip, quickly rushed to the Griffon, horns glowing. The whip master grabbed the Griffon's right arm and forced him back up.
"Go back to work," he said to the Griffon.
The Griffon didn't move, his head bent towards the ground.
"I said go back to WORK!" The whip master drew his whip back, preparing to slash the disobeying Griffon once more.
The Griffon rose his head, a smug grin plastered on his face. The whip master stopped his motion, confused and slightly afraid. The Griffon took the opportunity and struck.
Dropping the burden he was carrying, he urned around and punched the whip master, scoring a direct hit on his nose. Blood dripped down from the exploded capillaries in the nose of the whip master.
The three Unicorns closest to him fired their spells, stunning the Griffon. However, despite having lost most of his sensations, the Griffon turned towards the Unicorns and lunged at them.
The Griffon's fist connected with the first Unicorn's jaw, sending him to the ground.
The Griffon then jumped and spinned around, kicking the second Unicorn's face hard enough to make him stumble backward, falling into a ditch filled with dirty, brown water.
The third Unicorn stepped back, another stunning spell forming. The Griffon ran towards him and grabbed the horn.
The Unicorn's face distorted in pure terror as the Griffon began to apply force onto the horn.
Every second, small sickening cracks were emitted by the Unicorn's horn. The Unicorn himself was contorted in sheer pain as the Griffon slowly broke the horn.
As the horn finally gave, blood rushing down the Unicorn's forehead, the Griffon let out a scream of victory, or at least tried to.
While the Griffon was busy breaking the horn, another Unicorn came behind the Griffon, a much more powerful stunning spell ready.
As the Griffon's body hit the dirty, muddy ground, the Unicorn grinned at the Griffon, standing over him like a predator over its prey.
"Nighty night," the Unicorn said before the Griffon lost what little remained of his consciousness.
***
The Griffon finally came back to consciousness in a cell. The walls were made of stone, as was the floor and the ceiling. In one corner of the cell was what the Griffon thought was a chamber pot, although the smell of the entire cell should have probably given the Griffon the indication the the pot probably had never been used.
Slowly, the Griffon got up. All his muscles were stiff, and he was sure the last stunning spell he received had something to do about that.
He stretched his arms and legs, the stiff joints cracking and popping. He then made his way to the steel bars preventing his escape.
As he grabbed two of the bars in his hands, a voice came from the cell left from his.
"Ya okay in there?"
"Could be better," the Griffon replied.
"What's your name?"
"Yours first," the Griffon rolled his eyes.
"Fine. The name's Stamp. I was a mailpony before I got accused of stealing mail."
"I am Rick Razorwing." Pride was dripping from the statement.
There was a moment of silence before Stamp spoke again. "Ya know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were royalty or something."
Rick stayed silent. Not that he was short of anything to say, but he would rather wait for his sentence, which would almost certainly be death, than talk with the pony next to his cell.
Rick let go of the bars and walked towards the back of his cell. Near the wall, he found a puddle of brown liquid. Its surface was still and reflected well enough.
Rick looked intently at his reflection. His skin, a light tan in colour, was now several shades darker from working outside in the sun. His white hair, turning reddish near the tips, was much longer than what he had before he was captured, and was also a real mess. Despite being underfed, he had kept his muscular shape, the knife-cut muscles still firm to the touch.
He then saw his eyes.
His blue eyes, usually bright, were now dull and cold.
He quickly shook his head and proceeded to examine the rest of his body. His wings, still looked heathy, his feathers, the same colour as his hair, still bright. His tail had seen better days, but it was still working.
At last, Rick sighed. He was still healthy while his peers were dying of overwork. But all those thoughts, Rick knew it too well, no longer mattered.
A click got Rick's attention. He turned around to find the door to his cell unlocked and opened, a guard glaring at him. Rick let out a sigh.
"Let's get this over with," he said under his breath.
The guard slowly approached the Griffon. In his left hand was a pair of cuffs. Rick saw them and turned around, hands behind his back, ready to be cuffed.
The guard put the cuffs on Rick's wrists. Once they were secured in place, the guard tugged at them to get Rick moving. They left the cell and made their way through a daedalus of hallways.
***
Rick was chained to the ground, the chains binding him too short for him to move his arms, which were outstretched. The sun was blinding him, but he could clearly hear the cheering of the ponies.
Forcing his eyes open, Rick took in his immediate surroundings.
He was in the middle of an arena of sorts, with rows upon rows of seats filled to the brim with ponies cheering and demanding blood. In front of him was a VIP box covered with purple fabric. It was currently empty, save for two guards.
The arena had a distinctive Pegasus style, however, it also included several architectural designs borrowed from Unicorn architecture. The place where Rick was chained, the place where battles and executions could take place, was oval and the ground was covered in sand.
Suddenly, the cheering died, bringing Rick out of his train of thought. He looked up at the VIP box as a Unicorn entered it.
Said Unicorn was male. He had shoulder length silver grey hair. The horn sticking out of his forehead was midnight black, and it seemed longer than most Unicorn horns. He was wearing a deep red tunic with golden trimmings, dark blue linen pants and a red-and-purple cape. However, the feature that caught Rick's attention the most was his eyes.
They were a deep blue, like a calm sea during a hurricane. But they were also cold and merciless and could making anyone shudder, which is what Rick did.
"Rick Razorwing, you are accused of mutiny and murder," came the voice of the Unicorn from the VIP box. It sounded young but old, wise but inexperienced, angry but calm. "You are sentenced to fight to death."
As soon as the words left the Unicorn's mouth, the chains unlocked and opened, freeing Rick. He opened his wings to fly up and leave the arena through the openning of the stadium, but a laugh made him freeze.
"You cannot fly away from here. There is a shield preventing any flying criminals from escaping."
The Unicorn laughed again before sitting down. With a small gasture of hand, four doors located north, south, west and east opened.
Rick tensed, his hands closing into fists.
Coming from deep within the darkness of the door located under the VIP box, an unearthly roar echoed.
Rick waited for the beast that bellowed the roar, however, it never came. Instead, thousands of ponies, Dragons, and even a few Changelings and Griffons came rushing out of each of the four doors.
The next three hours were a mess for everyone, as well as a blur to Rick.
When the first of the bellowing criminals, an Earth pony, reached him with a makeshift weapon that looked like a sword, Rick didn't think as his fist impacted with the pony's head, a sickening crunch coming from the collapsing skull.
Rick quickly grabbed the makeshift weapon with his bloody hand from the corpse. More criminals reached him, some with makeshift weapons, others without, and none with armour.
Rick sliced and slashed wildly around, severing heads and limbs. Blood sprayed everywhere, giving a red tint to the sand. The spectators were cheering louder than before, but nothing of that registered for Rick as he battled to stay alive.
Eventually, and as the number of criminals thinned out, Rick finally looked around. Mutilated bodies littered the ground. He gave a quick glance at the Changelings and at his fellow Griffons.
They had stayed out of the fight, but now that they were the only criminals left, they had to fight. At least, that was what Rick thought.
One of the Changelings walked to Rick. As Rick readied himself for an attack, the Changeling spoke.
"Fear nothing, Razorwing. We are with you," the Changeling said before bowing, soon followed by the other Changelings and the Griffons.
"Touching," the Unicorn in the VIP box said while clapping his hands sarcastically. "NOW DIE ALREADY!"
As soon as the words were spoken, hundreds, if not thousands, of armoured ponies flooded in the arena from the doors. The Changelings and the Griffons had sprung to their feet and got ready to fight.
As the wave of guards rushed towards Rick, the Changelings and the Griffons, a green bolt of magic coming from the spectators' seats hit a guard square in the head which exploded, sending bits of brain everywhere. The headless corpse fell to the ground.
The wave of guards stopped, and every guard looked up at the wave of Changelings, Griffons and ponies coming from above. They all wore a black, chitin-like armour that covered their body entirely save for the head. The all had homemade weapons that looked far sturdier than the makeshift sword Rick still held.
A Changeling landed near Rick as the others began attacking the guards. The Changeling gestured to the sky above, then to its horn. Rick smirked and nodded, wings spread wide. They took off, most of the Changelings firing at the barrier preventing their escape.
It quickly crumbled and vanished, and the wave that came to save Rick quickly left into the sky, those who couldn't fly carried by those who could.
Rick felt alive again. The adrenaline was still pumping through his vein with his blood. He followed his rescuers to their hideout in the mountains, leaving behind befuddled guards.
Author's Note
My second fic here, I hope you like it.
Chapter two: The Revolution
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Interlude I: In The Eagle's Eye
Darkness.
It surrounded her form as she jumped from branch to branch, channeling her weather magic to increase her speed.
She flapped her leathery wings every now and then, the cloth of her dark grey, tattered travelling cloak moving with each individual flap.
She smiled at the thoughts of victory that lay with her graps, her fangs glinting in the moonlight that managed to pierce the thick canopy.
Around her, bats chittered and screeched, flying just as fast as her.
She stopped in the very last tree of the forest, the branch serving as her perch barely bending under her weight.
Nearby, the glow of a campfire and the laughs of stallions made the her snarl. Retrieving three knifes from the depths of her cloak, she silently jumped to the ground.
Hidden by the shadows, she sneaked towards the glow of the fire. When she was a mere five meters away, the stallions' voices reached her ears.
"--then she said 'And I said 'Oatmeal, are you crazy?!''What she didn't realise was, the mare was right behind her back!" a unicorn stallion wearing the Royal Guard armour, without the helmet which lay by his side, said, howling with laughter.
His three companions, also unicorns from the Royal Guard, joined in on his laughter. After a while, one of the guards took a sip of his mug. Her delicate nose told her it was stong alcohol.
"Ya know, Teller," the guard said to the still chuckling storyteller, "ya shoulda been a writer, with all those stories o' yers."
The storytelled shook his head. "No can do. I might be good at storytelling and at inventing stories, but I know for a fact that I still suck. Heck, most of my stories are not loved, even though I pour my heart in them. I prefer being a soldier. Less risky."
As his words left his lips, her three knives flew at three of the four stallions'. Her aim was true, and each knife found the heart of a guard, leaving the storyteller staring at the three corpses in front of him in bewilderment.
"W-W-Who g-g-go-go-goes t-th-there?" the storyteller asked, shaking like a leaf as he grabbed his spear and pointed it at the mare.
She smirked, her fangs glinting in the darkness. She stepped forward into the light of the campfire. She stopped by each corpse, retrieving her knives one at a time. As she slowly pulled the last knife out of its victim, she spoke softly to the last guard, sending shivers of unfathomable fright down his spine.
"I am only your worst nightmare," she said, licking the blood off the knife with an impossibly long tongue, letting out a sensual moan as she did.
She pulled the hood of her cloak back, revealing long, flowing pale pink hair, butter-coloured ears with a tuft of fur at the tip and teal eyes that had a glint of mishief, lust and hunger in them.
The guard stallion gulped, arousal and fright fighting for supremacy of his emotions.
Before he could decide between being frightened by the mare or aroused by her, she moved, quicker than the blink of an eye, and slit his throat open with her knife. She sat down where the stallion had been moments before and licked the blade clean as the last gurgling breath of the rapidly bleeding stallion left his lungs.
She smiled as she put the knife back into the cloak where it belonged, parting it just enough for anyone nearby, were they still alive, to catch a glimpse of her appetizing body. She was slim, but still had just enough weight to make her belly slightly squishy. Her curvacous body consisted of a firm and small, but not too small, rear and double-d cup-sized breasts. Her leathery wings were the same colour as her ears.
An eagle flew down to her and landed on her arm just as she extended it. She looked at it with a loving smile.
"What are the news, Mr. Eagle?" she asked in a low, soft voice that was merely above a whisper.
The eagle shrieked his answer, and the mare seemed to lighten up.
"Oh. They're that close?"
The eagle nodded.
The mare smiled gently. "Thank you, Mr. Eagle."
The eagle shrieked his answer before taking off and flying away towards his nest. "I'm coming, my dear Rick. Your dear Fluttershy is coming."
Author's Note
*confetti fall from... somewhere* Hey everyone!!
I know I had canceled this story, but I decided to pull a phoenix on you
Yeah...
Anyways, sorry for the dark-ish mood. *sheepish chuckle*here .
On another note, I realised that this story is over a year old! *blows party favour (not the pony)* So have a chapter as a late 1-year-old birthday present!
Also, and I know I said as such in the blogpost, but I am looking for a better covert art for this story, and maybe covert art for my other stories as well. Fell free to make one and put a link either in a comment or in a PM. If I think the art is good enough, I'll consider it for the cover, and I'll give thanks where thanks are due. I would also like to have a pre-reader (which is different from an editor in my opinion) to read the chapters I write and give me their opinions before I publish them so I can alter them to please my audience more.
Hope you enjoyed this notably short chapter, and expect a much, much longer one in the next weeks. As always, leave a comment about the story, and I'll see you next chapter! Bye!
Also, before I leave, Teller is actually me... And long author's note is long. Bye!
Chapter first: A New Member
Author's Note
Yay! Another chapter done!
And no, I am not dead. School was just being the same: awful. But with the finals' week almost over (and one exam remaining for me
Also, consider this an early Christmas present. And, for Christmas, the best gift you, my readers, can give me is some feedback, either positive or negative. I will reply to every comments when I have the chance, but I will still reply.
Anyways, the introductory arc is almost done, maybe one or two chapters to go. As I am not someone who loves schedules (Twilight would kill me if she was real
In hopes you like this chapter, I will see you next chapter. BYE!
Oh! And one more thing. If any one of you feels like drawing art for the story, feel free to do so. Just send me a PM with a link to the art, and I might use said art as the cover, with the appropriate thanks to the artist.
Chapter first: A New Member
Night Crystal sat on her bed, a newspaper floating in front of her encased in a pale pink aura. The headline was what made her grab her father's newspaper, despite her being uninterested in the news.
Night Crystal was a young female Unicorn. Her hair, long enough to reach her thighs and a soft navy blue in colour, was done into a braid that had its source on her right temple, circling around above her forehead, just under her dark red horn, descending when it was above her left ear, then going down her back when it reached the middle of her neck.
Her eyes, a startling red, darted across the lines of the article advertised by the headline.
Soon, and despite herself, she began to read outloud what she was reading for the twenty-fifth time.
“'After the daring escape of prisoner Rick Razorwing, sentenced to death for murder, the Royal Council has issued a curfew. Anypony caught outside after the curfew will automatically be arrested and detained for a period of twenty-four hours during which --'”
Holding in a grunt of frustration, Crystal threw the newspaper as hard as she could against the wall. It it the wall with a muted 'thud', then fell on her pillow, between two of her plushies.
Taking a deep breath, she got up and went to look at herself in her mirror. Her red eyes stared at her reflection, going up and down.
Despite being nineteen years old, she small compared to the average Unicorn mare her age. She was barely five feet four inches tall, and her breasts could have been bigger than their current B cup size, if her mother was anything to go by.
With a sigh, she stopped focusing on her small breasts. Her skin was pale, almost white, but not sickly so. Her pale skin, according to her father, was adding to her beauty, although she doubted that.
She wore, almost everyday in fact, a dress the same shade of red as her horn that fell short of her knees. Embroidered on the left and right shoulders of the dress was a silver sword circled by two ribbons, one bright red, the other golden. She also had a silver necklace which she wore all the time with a silver pendant identical to the embroidery of her dress.
Crystal let out a sigh as her fingers closed around the familiar shape of the silver pendant around her neck.
Ever since her mother died, Crystal had been tense, mostly because of the reason why she had died.
A tear escaped Crystal's eye as she closed them, a memory she thought forgotten coming back to her, the pain of the memory washing over her.
***
The Guards in the living room had dark frowns upon their usually stoic faces. Night Crystal, twelve at the time, was peeking around a corner from the second story of the house, spying on her father and the Guards in the living room on the first story.
“Why exactly are Royal Guards here, in my house?” Night Crystal's father asked quietly, believing his daughter to be asleep.
The two Guards shifted around uncomfortably before looking at each other. Finally, after a long silence, one of them spoke.
“Well... Your wife was yet again out in the plaza, giving flyers to the passerby...”
Before he could continue, however, Night Crystal's father let out a rather loud sigh.
“I should have known...” he wispered.
“She was killed, sir,” the second Guard announced bluntly. He gulped before continuing. “While she was distributing her flyers, five stallions went to her. According to the numerous witnesses, she was stabbed repeatedly in the chest before her throat was slit open. According to the witnesses, one of the stallions said something about stopping her non-sensical speech about the Griffons.”
As soon as the Guard finished, his colleague gave him a hard slap on the back of the head, sending the helmet to the ground.
Night Crystal's father stared blankly at the two Guards before slowly shaking his head, muttring to himself about that being impossible.
As the news of her mother's death washed over her, young Crystal slowly began to cry. Softly and almost inaudibly at first, but soon, her sobs were loud enough to attract the attention of the two Guards and her father, whose eyes went wide in shock as he realised his daughter had heard everything.
Ignoring everything, young Crystal turned around and bolted to her room, locking herself in it and crying herself to sleep.
***
Crystal wiped the tears as she reopened her eyes. Ever since that day, she had vowed on her mother's grave that she would continue the fight for the rights of the Griffons.
So far, she had made no progress whatsoever.
Crystal let out a sigh as she slumped on her bed, her bare feet going up in the air as she did so. What didn't help was that her father was one of those who actually benefited from the almost-slavery of the Griffons, and that she was always linked to her father.
‘Maybe,’ she thought, ‘just maybe, I could convince Father of the wrongness of the ponies' acts towards the Griffons.’
She chuckled darkly at her thoughts.
“Like HE would even listen to me,” Crystal muttered darkly.
With a sigh, Crystal got up and made her way to her desk where a pair of white socks lay waiting to be put on. With a practiced gesture, she grabbed them and put them on, before opening her bedroom door and leaving.
***
After a half hour of walking from home to the plaza, and another half hour of speech on a soap box turned upside down, Crystal was beginning to feel tired. Not physically tired, but mentally.
Her speech was well rehearsed, and she knew it by heart. Her brain had almost little to do with actually saying it.
No. What was making Crystal tired was the ponies' reaction, one she was overly used to now.
With a sigh, she fell to her rump on the upturned soap box, making sure not to show anything private while doing so.
“What's the use?” she asked to herself. “No pony will ever listen to what I have to say.”
With yet another sigh, she got to her feet. As she turned around to gather the soap box, somepony cleared their throat.
Crystal's head shot up.
She gulped, knowing exactly what was going on.
She turned around, slowly.
As she finished turning around, her eyes fell on two Unicorn Guards wearing an iron armour.
‘Father's Guards' armour,’ she thought.
Crystal sighed. ‘I've been sighing a lot recently,’ she thought with a small chuckle.
Then, coming from behind the two Guards, Crystal's father's voice sounded. It was clearly pissed.
“What are you doing here, young lady?”
“Packing up.” Crystal couldn't help but sound snarky.
With a sigh, Crystal's father continued, ignoring his daughter's remark. “Nighty, listen. I--”
“Don't call me 'Nighty',” Crystal replied venomously.
“Fine. Crystal, I don't want to lose you like I lost your mother,” he said, holding a hand up to prevent his daughter from saying anything. “I know this is something you hold dear, but please have some common sense! Ponies don't like to be called 'wrong', and you know that. You more that anypony should know.”
Tears were forming in Crystal's eyes, slowly rolling down her cheeks. “Don't bring Mom into this! If you would have simply listened to her, nothing of... that ... would have ever happened!” Crystal's words were heavy with barely concealed sobs.
Crystal's father snapped. “SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO GO AND TRY TO REEL PONIES IN HER STUPID PLOT TO FREE THE GRIFFONS!”
It was Crystal's turn to snap.“DON'T CALL MOTHER STUPID! YOU'RE THE STUPID ONE FOR NOT PROTECTING HER WHEN SHE NEEDED IT THE MOST! YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN BY HER SIDE AT ALL TIMES!” By then, Crystal's tears were flowing freely, falling from her cheeks and nose down to the pavement beneath.
Crystal, in blurry moment of pure anger towards her father, turned away from him and his Guards, and she dashed down the roads as fast as she could.
Coming from behind her, she could hear the pants and grunts of the two Guards trying their best to follow her.
She quickened her pace to try and outrun the Guards.
Barely seeing anything through her tear-filled eyes, she turned left and right every once and a while, all in an attempt to outrun the Guards.
She may not have been an athlete, but Crystal was, thanks to her nimble body, quite fast when it came to running.
Barely out of breath, she turned into an alleyway, but she had to stop, the alleyway being a dead end.
She let out a frustrated and angry scream, her tears still falling to the ground.
She put her back to one of the buildings around her, and she let herself slide to the ground, her sobbing starting all over again.
She had been there, a crying and sobbing mess, for what she thought were hours, the sun's light barely reaching her and giving the sky a golden hue.
A sound, similar to the sound of wings, caught her attention.
She kept her head low, gaze directed towards the cobblestone pavement beneath her, convinced she had been found by one of her father's Guards, and she was about to be brought home.
She was lifted from the ground, a small squeak leaving Crystal's lips as she was swung unceremoniously over somepony's shoulder.
The stranger opened their wings, and with a powerful flap, left the ground behind. Crystal, in an instictual response, closed her eyes, clung tightly to whoever had taken her, and let out a overly girly squeak.
***
They had flown for hours. The sun had set, and the sky was now filled with stars.
Crystal felt a sudden jolt as her foalnapper, she decided, landed. She was then half-thrown, half-dropped to the "ground", her rump making the landing all the more painful.
“There. I think we are far enough from them,” a mysterious voice, a little rough and clearly male, said.
Crystal stayed silent, tears still falling from her eyes as she thought about the fight with her father.
A strong hand then met her shoulder, causing her to shiver slightly.
“Why,” she asked, “why did you foalnap me?” She was still sobbing slightly.
As she spoke, Crystal turned her tear-filled eyes towards her foalnapper.
Her skipped a beat as she saw who exactly had foalnapped her.
‘Rick Razorwing!’ She thought, her heart hammering against her chest.
In the moonlight, the bare torso, bare feet body of Rick seemed almost surreal to Crystal. She didn't want to admit it, but she had been fantasizing about him for quite a while now.
As she stared at the muscular, god-like body of Rick, Crystal felt her cheeks heat up. She quickly turned her head away from him, but he already had seen her blush.
“Like what you're seein'?” he asked with a chuckle.
Crystal quickly nodded, her blush deepening.
“Anyway,” Rick continued, “joking aside, I took you to make you an offer.”
Crystal looked back at Rick, a small, goofy smile across her features.
“I am aware of your... activities... regarding Griffons,” Rick continued. “So, I am here to ask you if you'd like to be part of a Revolution to give Griffons their rights back.”
Without waiting to be prompted by Rick, Crystal answered.
“YES!”
“Thank you, Night Crystal, in the name of all Griffons,” Rick said with a little bow.
Crystal was on her little cloud of happiness and she failed to notice Rick's uncertain glance.
“However, you will have to leave everything behind, including your father,” Rick said. Then, with a chuckle, he added, “Nighty.”
That got Crystal to her feet, her anger back with reinforcements.
“I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT JERK! AND STOP CALLING ME NIGHTY!”
Rick's chuckle turned into full-blown laughter with Crystal's outburst. Crystal pounded on Rick's chest, trying to make him stop laughing, all the while the stars peacefully shone above, oblivious to everything happening below.
