My Little Griffon: The Red Paw

Way
______________________________________________________________________________

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” ~Old English Proverb
______________________________________________________________________________

“Look into my magical ball!” Clive said spookily, waving his paws around in small circles, “And see...the FUTURE!”

“Clive, shut-up,” Gilda said flatly, “Put that red gem in and lets see if this thing actually works,” She set down the rather small users manual as Clive sighed and placed a small red gem into a slot atop the clear crystal ball.

The ball instantly lit up and images were plastered to the walls of the room, the two griffon’s shadows cutting out shapes in the picture.

“Woah!” Clive said, looking at his shadow and acting goofily as always, “This thing is awesome!”

“Clive!” Gilda growled, getting her partner’s attention back on track, “Which area of the castle is this?” She examined the walls, seeing the interior of a part of the Canterlot Castle as seen from one of the many bugs they had placed.

“Hallway one-oh-seven,” Clive said, marking it down and removing the small red gem. The picture was gone and the room filled with darkness again. Clive selected another red gem, identical to another gem bug in the castle, and placed it in the crystal ball. This continued on for a time before all the red gems were catalogued and it was time to do the blue ones.

To get the locations of each of the audio bugs, a blue and red gem were placed into separate slots in the crystal ball and the combination of audio and visual provided by the crystal ball was matched up to determine the location. The only time this didn’t work was with the few standalone blue gems, which were slightly more difficult to categorize as there were no visual bugs to use. Either way, the finished product was the ability to listen and even look in on most of the Canterlot Castle from their hotel room.

“Well that was really fucking tedious,” Clive said with an annoyed voice, “Hard? No, but tedious? Hell yeah!”

“Well we’re finished now, so quit bitching and let’s get to stalking the shield bearer.”

“Right,” Clive said, “Where did we see him last?”

Before Gilda could reply, there was a knock at the door. Gilda quickly put the blue and red gems away before taking anything that looked incriminating and hiding it as well. Meanwhile, Clive went to the door and looked through the eye-hole. He spotted a tan-hided pony mare with dark brown hair and a maid’s apron, there was a service cart next to her.

“Who is it?” Clive asked.

“Room service,” Came the muffled reply. Clive looked back to Gilda, who wing-shrugged and jerked a thumb to Ales and Huntley’s room as if to suggest they ordered something. Clive shrugged in return and undid the locks, “Thanks, I’ll just take that and be off your hooves...”

“Allow me,” the pony said kindly with a smile, placing her front hooves on the cart and starting into the room.

“Oh, no, that’s quite alright, I can take it from here,” Clive said combatting the smile with a fake, but not cheap, knock-off.

The pony frowned before sighing and rolling her blue eyes. She stared right at Clive and her eyes shifted to complete blue orbs for a moment, “I insist,” the changeling said, voice shifting for but a moment.

“Oh,” Clive said, stepping back and letting the changeling push the cart into the room. He closed door behind him and the changeling turned to him. He grabbed the creature by the throat and slammed it to the ground. The changeling winced and the black pony-beetle hybrid’s disguise fell.

“Clive?” Gilda asked curiously.

“How the hell is there a changeling in Canterlot with that shield up?” He explained to Gilda before turning to his captive, who was rubbing his head with a hoof, “Mind letting us in on that little secret before I make it a little hard for you to breathe?”

The changeling fixed Clive with a glare, “I was here before the shield went up, you cretin! You don’t think that we have a few of our own in every capital across the globe?”

“Likely story,” Clive said neutrally, not giving away whether he was being sarcastic or sincere, “Either way, what the hell do you think that you’re doing here? You can’t just waltz around waving around the fact that you’re a changeling like it’s some VIP pass.”

“Seeing that we’re on the same team and working on the same mission, it only seems logical that we keep each other in the loop,” the changeling explained.

After a moment’s pause, Clive released the changeling and took a step back. The changeling got to his hooves before brushing himself off. Clive snickered, getting a look from the changeling to which he replied, “Kinda hard to take you seriously with that girly maid’s dress,” he pointed at the white linen that clashed with the black hide of the changeling.

“Company uniform,” the changeling said with a hint of annoyance, “Our queen would like to know how you are doing. She’s ready whenever you are and would like a twenty-four hour advance notice.”

“Speaking of that, how do we contact your queen about that?” Gilda inquired.

The changeling looked over to her, “Just find me, all changelings share a link to our queen and can communicate with her if the need be. I, as you can tell, work here. Just call for room service and I’ll be here. Speaking of which, your friends ordered something for you, hence,” the changeling pointed to the cart which was giving off the mouth watering (to the griffons at least) smell of fish.

“As to the status of the mission, we got bugs up in the castle and are currently looking into a flaw or some way to get your queen into Canterlot. We can’t tell how long it will take, but if there’s a way then we’ll find it,” Gilda reported.

The changeling nodded, “Good,” he said before turning back into the pony with a flash of green light, “Enjoy your meal.”
______________________________________________________________________________

(six days later)

With the arrival of Kyne, Zephrine, and another pair that Gilda only knew by look from their mission to track down Fulton, more griffons were able to watch from more of the bugs. They had arrived a few days behind, as eight griffons arriving at the same time might appear quite odd, two groups of four on the other hand was more subtle.

After a quick rundown of the situation, the group of eight got to work on finding a flaw in the shield. They had about another week before it was too late and although it was plenty of time, it was getting their hopes down.
______________________________________________________________________________

Ales watched through the high power telescope that sat just inside the room. The shield was about to receive its bidaily recasting, she didn’t know what she was looking for, but they were running out of time and anything was better than nothing.

She glanced at a clipboard that was tacked to the wall, noting the time that the shield bearer recast the shield spell. It was quickly observed that the shield bearer followed a strict schedule, recasting the shield spell at a specific time every two days. They hadn’t been able to observe closely the first or second time, but today Ales was watching closely.

The pinkish shield disappeared for a quick moment before reappearing and expanding slightly. Ales quickly jotted down notes, she observed for a short time more before turning to Huntley.

“We might have a way in,” she said.