The Merchant of War

Equus

A simple accident. That's all it took for the The Griffon Kingdom and Equestria to go to war with eachother. A harmless mistake was all, a misfire of a lightning cloud that hit a wandering Griffon who was at the border of both kingdoms. The Griffons wanted the pony to pay for his crimes, but the sister's thought a banishment would of sufficed. Needless to say that did not work in their favor. That all happened a month ago.

Today, the war rages on. Equestria calling for allies to help in this war as the Griffons found a couple themselves. Like minded citizens of Equus who lived with spite against the Equestrians for personal reasons. Two of the allies were the Minotaurs and the Diamond Dogs who live near The Griffin Kingdom in small embassies for them. Equestria though had the help of Zebras and the members of Saddle Arabia as the remaining kingdoms all stayed neutral or supported one side from afar.

Within The Griffon Kingdom, three tribes of Griffonia existed to keep the place in balance, spite it being shaky, was a balance nonetheless. The northern half of Kingdom, full of mountains and mostly of small towns, was ruled by the Stormquill tribe. The advantage the Stormquill's had over the other Griffon's was that they were tacticians due to their mountainous homes and high altitude making it a hard home to take by force. Stormquill tribe was the largest tribe in the North, but in all of Griffonia it was the fifth smallest. The second tribe to exist is a rather different one from the other two. This tribe was called Grimclaw, a all female clan that was mainly used for breeding, but that made up only two percent of the Grimclaw tribe. The remaining ninety-eight percent was of scouts and assassins along with archers since they prefer stealth to assault. Grimclaw's were a more average size tribe, neither too large or too small.

The final tribe were known as Ebonwing, the largest tribe in all of Griffonia. The Ebonwings have been in control of the Griffon Kingdom, long before Luna was banished. They were also the most skilled in combat, aerial or ground, up-close or far away. No pony was more powerful in combat then Ebonwings, well except for the Minotaurs and Alicorns as they are naturally stronger then many others. The Ebonwing, being the largest tribe, also had itself in control of the throne. The current leader was King Aren Ebonwing with his advisor/brothers Palim Ebonwing, his advisor of war, and Harus Ebonwing, his advisor of resources. Aren had no queen, for the only females other then Grimclaws were the rare female births within other tribes and to keep the balance no queen was acquired so that no tribe was given any sort of political power. The only real griffon with power nearly equal to the king was the late King Stormtail, the last of his tribe who died a week after the incident.

The Griffon Kingdom's castle rested in a floating city high in the sky called Gryphus as below it was a regular town named Beaksburg with a station for flight into the city above. Now only neutral residents and allies could use it to freely travel to and fro the castle within the village using this station. The real problem was any pony or species allied with Equestria were... met with some problems, many of which were killed on sight or arrested for 'immigration questioning'. Yet, that was all to defend the kingdom and it's king from enemies who try to end this war by killing him.

In Equestria though, five young unicorns have a plan to end this war, but also keep blood off their hands from the war. The plan was simple on paper and research was scattered at best through numerous books and scrolls as they had planned to bring a new power to this world, a otherworldly power to upset the balance and have Equestria win with less amount of bloodshed from either side. The problem was that the spell required a lot of magic to do and even then there was only a slim margin of it working the way they wanted. The five had decided to do it underground, deep beneath the land between Canterlot and Ponyville, in order to keep it a secret and to help convince this power to work for Equestria. The five unicorns moved around the room, inscribing it with safety runes, silencing spells so no pony would hear them and of course the magic circle for the spell. It took a whole month to set the spell up, prepared for just about anything to come through.

Each unicorn stood at a point of the circle and started to use their magic as they shifted it to a key frequency to get the spell to work. As the magic came together, the runes and circle started to glow brighter and brighter as they all felt the surge. Something within their magic sparked as the magic collided, like beams crossing as things went haywire from there. The runes glowed brighter and brighter and before long a large explosion occurred and sent the unicorns flying to the walls of the room. One of the unicorns barely wakes up as he looks around him and sees the damage. The runes and magic circle looked scared into the wall and floor. The other unicorns were mere dust now as he himself was starting to dissolve, but the biggest problem was there was no portal. Or so he thought.

Within the Griffon kingdom, under the dark sky of Luna's night, a bright flash comes in the barren streets as a weird ethereal like object appears in the middle of the kingdom.

Earth

June 3rd, 2017

Sakha Republic, Russia. City of Oyamyakon

Another cold day. That's all it was up in this small village in the middle of almost nowhere, but for me it was perfect for my job. It got so cold at times that no one would come out or ask questions about my job. Right now, I was just trudging through the snow in a simple ensemble of a old Soviet Russia Commissar hat with a black shirt, white tie, light grey jacket all covering the top half of my body, luckily I've gotten use to this cold. My lower half is of black slacks and black loafers, but the most noticeable thing about my body was the pale white Messy Haircut style and goatee. Those two things along with the pale skin and icy blue eyes all made me looked like I just woken up from a frozen nap in the cold... after a few hundred years. Of course I am only twenty-five. All of this thanks to me getting used to the cold air of my home country.

As I walked around town, I could see the town in all of its so called glory. Cars frozen over with frost, windows and buildings under layer after layer of snow, lamp posts all looking like skinny snowman. All of that shown under the bright morning sun. Yep, it was just another day for my stroll around town.... well stroll to work anyway. The work I do is one I do with a smile on my face and pockets full of green. Granted a few people have lost their lives to my wares, but then again that world is no place of peace as everyone believes. It's a place of war, chaos, confusion, and of course anger and all of it leads to one thing for me: profit.

As I stop before a large metal wall made from parts of old plane parts that my men and I found at a old airbase near the town, and I found this open place for my business. The place from before was a park, a regular park for picnics, forest, even parties.... that was until WWII. Now it was just a frozen piece of land, like much of the place. The odd thing was it still had people here, about five hundred of them, living in this town. Of course after finding some large pieces of metal, a few empty barrels, and of course a very large tarp, the place was turned into a operation center for me.

Now at this time, most of the men had arrived. Fellow Russians who live to make some cash and act as my protection during business hours. Now at this point in my life I have acquired quite a number of titles over the years. A couple I am most proud of is 'Merhcant Smerti' or translated into the more English version is Merchant of Death. Granted not a pleasing title to hear, but hey it's my job and I do it well. Anytime a war starts, I am closeby selling out weapons and arms to both sides to make a profit. Anytime someone needs to take out a target from afar, I got the tools to ensure it happens. War, violence, chaos, it's all that this world boils down to. The whole talk of peace is just.... bad for business and a complete lie.

Either way, war is my job, war is my place of work. Anyone trying to stop war is trying to steal my job. Now I think it was time to check on my wares. Opening one of the military grade crates, I could see the weapons for sell as these same weapons brought a grin to my face. 9mm's, Kalishnakovs, even a few P90's and Mossbergs all ready to be sold. Granted a few were not 'high class' like a Desert Eagle or Barrett, but some prefer the classic weaponry. I heard the metal move and saw ten people enter as we greeted one another. These ten were my most trusted people, friends and friends of friends who stuck by me through thick and thin without so much as asking for anything in return... well besides the usual benefits and paycheck of course.

It didn't take long for the other forty members of my little 'group' to arrive for work. The work was simple really, anyone needed weapons they contact me via a private chat or if, they got the balls, they could come out here and do business in person, but that was rarely the case. Of course, that means very little means of tracing it back to me, which makes me the safest merchant to deal with, but also the hardest to find because of the snowstorms that pass through here on occasion.

Today was not one of those days. See with snowstorms it's hard to get a signal so we got a lot of slow days and today was such a day. All the unpacking, the inspecting and for nothing as usual. Luckily for us, the tarp and metal walls help provide cover from the snow. The barrels we simply filled with fire and kept warm from them when we felt like just resting at the camp. As the men laid around, relaxing, I just did what I normally did. I popped opened a bottle of vodka and started to drink away the boredom as I kept my eyes on them. Ten of them I trusted, but the other forty are more for the money and not loyal to anyone except the one with the biggest pocketbook.

It was a problem to find loyal people, but still nice for extra protection. As I drank away the morning, since June in Oymyakon had days lasting at least twenty-one hours, I could swear I saw a bright light out of the corner of my eye. When I turned around I saw a glowing portal like object as I carefully walked over to it. It was very hypnotizing in a way as all it took was one step and before I knew it I was dragged away from it as my oldest friend, Artyom, snapped me out of it by the rough pull. As I looked back, I got serious and spoke in Russian to them "***Bezopasnyy etu veshch'! Nikto ne vkhodit v yego ili idet ryadom s ney , poka my ne znat' bol'she ob etom! Yesli chto-to prokhodit cherez , ostanovit' ikh , no ne atakuyut !" and they did so as they put up makeshift barriers and kept rifles aimed at it. Tomorrow, they would shut down and see what it was, but it looked like a portal, and if it was then more profit would soon come because of it.