My Little Griffon: The Red Paw

Wedding
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“Here comes the bride,
All fat and wide.
Where is the groom?
He’s in the bathroom.
Why is he there?
He lost his underwear...” ~Portion of a mildly inappropriate children’s rhyme
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(One week later)

“I still don’t see why we just sneak in and take that stupid bastard,” Clive commented, looking over the blueprints of the building Fulton had disappeared into a week ago.

“Fulton may not be able to adapt to survive, but he rarely needs to,” Huntley said, “From what I’ve read, he’s a master at planning things through and then seeing them through.”

“And,” Ales added, “He probably knows that we’re here. It’s not like we snuck into Canterlot; we just walked in and got a hotel room. If he knows that we’re here, then he’s taken measures to ensure that we can’t get into this building,” Ales tapped a talon on the blueprints, “or at least get in without making any noise.”

Huntley nodded solemnly, “Besides, he can’t have planned for the invasion, we might be able to use that to our advantage.”

“Fine,” Clive said poutily.

There was a knock at the door and Gilda moved over to it to see who was there. She looked through the eye-hole and opened it to let Kyne and Zephrine in.

“Well, the blueprints aren’t up to date,” Zephrine said, “All potential entry points on that,” she pointed to the blueprints on the table, “Are either blocked off entirely or covered in enough locks and countermeasures that they’re worthless. No real chance of us getting in there nice and easy.”

“No way to see in, either,” Kyne added.

“So we’re going to have to barge in blind?” Ales observed.

“Unless we can find a flaw, then yes,” Huntley said as Kyne and Zephrine joined the others around the table, “But we have the element of surprise on our paws with the invasion.”

“And how are we going to even use that?” Kyne asked with a hint of snottiness.

“When the invasion commences, all hell will break loose. It will be the mother-of-all distractions. When that occurs, we break open the door and give them hell,” Ales explained.

“No, we’re pretty sure that the door’s bugged or trapped, we aren’t sure what will happen if we blast it open,” Zephrine said.

“Same with the roof, if we’re bustin in, then it’s through one of the walls,” Kyne added, “Looks like it was a good idea to requisition some plastics.”

Huntley nodded, “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Are there any particular walls that you think would be the best to knock in?”

“Yes,” Kyne said, leaning closer to the blueprints, “The southern one, second floor level. It seemed to be the sturdiest, so they wouldn’t expect us to blow that one in.”

Huntley nodded again, “Very well. So the two of you will give sniper support, we’ll take front line, Gilda and Clive will be behind us. Backup will be waiting in the club across the street.”

“Why are we giving them SHTF duty? They’ve been Red Paw for longer than the rest of you,” Kyne said.

“Because Huntley’s a veteran and Gilda’s been in the Red Paw longer than both you and them,” Ales defended.

“Even though she got kicked out,” Kyne muttered.

“Clive and I are back, aren’t we?” Gilda shot back.

“If we continue on this line of rant, I’m going to report the lot of you for incompetence and send you back to boot camp. No more of this petty bullshit, got it?” Huntley grumbled, an edge of menace and anger chilling his voice.

In this case, the silence that followed meant, “Yes.”

After glaring coldly at the others a while longer, Huntley finally spoke again, “We’ve all got things to do, so lets do them, okay? We’ve got a wedding to plan for.”
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(Day of the wedding)

“...So everygriffon knows the plan?” Huntley asked, looking around the room at the seven other griffons, all of whom gave an affirmative in one way or another, “Good, may the wind guide us at our backs,” Huntley folded the map and the group headed out.
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“Would ya look at that,” Ales commented, looking towards the sky. The others spared the direction a quick look, seeing all the small black specks that lay just outside the shield.

“Hopefully not much longer until that shield falls,” Huntley said, “how are those holes going,” he shot over his shoulder.

Gilda and Clive were at the wall, Clive frantically using a manual drill to make holes in the walls while Gilda stood ready with a few small grey cylinders.

“Going as fast as we can, give us two more minutes to get the holes and another two to ready the plastics,” Gilda said.

Two minutes passed and Clive was finally done with the drill. He and Gilda began sliding the putty-like grey cylinders into the holes in the wall. By the time they were done, the wall had taken on a series of greyish acne. The two griffons then began applying small red dots to each of the ends of the grey cylinders, making sure they weren’t too rough with the primers. Once the primers were set, they were ready.

“Okay, set to go,” Clive said.

“Ten seconds after the shield falls,” Ales stated.

“Got it, how are the streets looking?” Gilda asked.

“A lonely walker every now and then, but none are looking into the alleyway, they’ve got their eyes to the sky and an ‘I’m about to shit myself’ look on their faces.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Clive commented, he looked up to the skies and noticed cracks in the force field, “Hey...are those cracks?”

As if on cue, the shield shattered into a thousand pieces.

“Ten seconds!” Huntley and the others counted in their heads as Changelings swarmed down to attack ponies. A few of them looked as if to swoop down upon the griffons, but quickly saw that they weren’t ponies and moved on.

“Go!”

“Fire in the hole, mother fuckers!” Clive yelled with a smile. He and Gilda threw punches at the wall and the small red primers started to go off, popping like a series of firecrackers and starting a chain reaction in the ‘plastic’ cylinders. While the griffons didn’t possess explosives on the level of composition four or trinitrotoluene, they did have what was commonly known as simply ‘plastic.’ When set off, the substance began to expand with extreme force. Force enough to easily tear a creature in half or, in this case, utterly destroy a wall.

As ‘front line’, Ales and Huntley had donned heavy armor. Once it had done its job, Huntley kicked in the grey blob that had taken place of the wall and chased after it with Ales on his tail. The grey blob fell inwards, letting the four griffons past with ease. Gilda and Clive took to the air, while the other two stuck to the ground.

Almost every creature was staring at the doorway on the opposite side of the building, weapons pointed towards it. The only two who weren’t had been patrolling down this side of the building. A pegasus hovered dumbly, staring at Huntley as he brought his short barreled Arcumsire to bear and put a bolt into the equine’s chest.

To Huntley’s left, Ales dealt similarly with a griffon who was fumbling with his own Arcumsire.

Gilda and Clive hovered over the edge of the balcony, searching for Fulton below. The second floor, which was more of a balcony that ran around the building, only held a few guards while the first floor was completely bare, aside from a table and some guards.

Luckily for the invaders, Ales and Huntley were able to get all the guards on the second floor, the pounding that came from the front door seemed to keep all eyes peeled towards it.

“I don’t see Fulton,” Clive commented with annoyance, scanning the bottom floor.

“Fine then, we eliminate every bastard in this building and search it top to bottom, there’s no way he escaped while we were en route,” Huntley said, “Use the tranquilizers you have loaded and then switch to lethal, we can see if there’s any information to be gathered from the guards.”

With that, the griffons engaged the mass of guards by the door. This group held a closer proximity and quickly realized that they were being attacked. Only two of the guards remained alive after receiving fire, being the two to receive tranquilizer darts from Gilda and Clive.

The mass of multiple equines and griffons turned and spotted the four griffons taking cover behind pillars on the opposite side of the room.

When the guards began to return fire in the form of griffon’s Arcumsires, unicorn magic, and some slings and blowguns that a few zebras held, Gilda and Clive ducked behind cover. Ales and Huntley, on the other hand, were protected by their armor and stayed to continue returning fire.

“If any of those bastards try to get up close and personal, take them out,” Ales said to Gilda and Clive, “We’ll focus on killing the ones at long range.”

The two unarmored griffons nodded.

It was at that moment that the unguarded door blasted open and a small swarm of Changelings burst in. The majority of the group simply continued onwards, tackling the equines while a few others looked over the scene before diving in.

“Push forward! Go for the rest of the griffons!” Huntley called out over the buzzing of wings and cries of ponies. Gilda and Clive shot from cover while the armored griffons hopped over the balcony and used their wings to slow their fall before rushing forwards.

Gilda and Clive quickly put down the rest of the griffon guards and a changeling stepped from the others, who were busy securing their equinian prey.

“Nice to see familiar faces,” the changeling said with a fanged smile.

“Room service?” Clive asked.

“What? You can’t tell us apart?” The changeling asked.

“No, mind if we borrow some of your prisoners for a bit?” Clive asked as Ales and Huntley finally caught up.

The changeling raised an eyebrow, “Why?”

“Gilda, Clive, Ales, look for Fulton, I’ll deal with our friend here,” Huntley said to his fellows before turning to the changeling in question, “We’re looking for a traitor. We know he’s in this building, but we don’t know where. If we could just rough up a few of your prisoners then that might get us the information we need,” he explained while the other griffons combed the room.

The changeling thought for a moment, “Hmm, fine, but no killing, we can’t drain love if there’s none to drain,” he turned to some of his fellows, who were giving him and the griffon questioning looks, “Bring one of the ponies forward,” he ordered.

“Huntley!” Ales called from a corner of the room, “Found a tunnel!”

“Nevermind, I suppose,” Huntley said to the changeling, “Hunt well, and often!” he turned and headed towards Ales and the others, who were now gathered around a tunnel entrance in the floor.

The changeling smiled again, “We sha...” a massive pinkish blast cut him off, sending him and the other changelings smashing into the wall.

Huntley stopped, looking back as some of the changelings got to their hooves, disorientated, “What the fuck was...” he was cut off again as a series of royal guardsponies ran into the building, wielding spears and magic, “Shit!” Huntley yelled, bolting towards the others.

“You! Stop!” A pony yelled out.

“Prepare some plastics! Get in there now!” Huntley yelled out, a blast of magic hit him in the side, but his armor held.

“Stop!”

Huntley dove in after Ales, “Make a door!” he yelled out. Something flew over his shoulder as he charged into the dark tunnel, his feet splashing through something, he looked over his shoulder to see a grey wad quickly fill up the tunnel behind him, effectively making a barrier between him and anyone who entered.

“What the fuck just happened!” Clive yelled, “What was that?”

“I’m not sure,” Huntley said, catching his breath, “But I’ll bet it had something to do with that damn wedding.”