My Little Griffon: The Red Paw

Train
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“Choo! Choo!” ~A train noise
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The others listened quietly while Gilda explained. Only when she was done did Huntley speak.

“That might just work. Better, even, than you could imagine,” the elder griffon began, “We make it look like a ponynapping and implement the changelings. The Equestrians will drop everything and go after the changelings, trying to get their Elements back. The Equestrians turn their backs on the Kingdoms, allowing us to slip in and stab them right in the back without them ever noticing. If we can find a way to break the Elements back in the Kingdoms, we might even be able to use them as a weapon.”

“Okay, first question,” Kyne said, “How in hell are we supposed to capture them with Canterlot on high alert?” He crossed his paws, obviously not on board with the plan at all.

“We get them while they’re on the train. Somewhere between Canterlot and Ponyville, we stop the train, ponynap the ponies, and get out of there.”

“Somepony on the train will see that we aren’t changelings and...”

“We kill everything on the train,” Huntley cut in, “Everything besides the six ponies of course.”

“And of course we have a way to render the magic of the two unicorns useless, right? A way to prevent the two pegasi from flying away?” Zephrine asked, not to point out flaws, but to make certain.

“Anti-magic yokes, we steal four from the Royal Guard. We should have enough plastics to stop the train in its tracks. In layman’s terms, here’s the plan: four of us get aboard, start moving up, killing anything that gets in our way, find our six elemental bearers, stop the train, execute all other witnesses, and high tail it out of there.”

“And we’re just going to leave the other Red Paw pair here, with the ponies?” Kyne asked.

“Sadly, yes. There’s nothing we can do for them.”

“And how are we going to blame the changelings for this little ponynapping?” Zephrine asked, “I was thinking that a little visit to the prisons might be a good idea.”

“What?”

“Kyne and I didn’t immediately ditch our roost, we saw some of those ponies who came in come out with some changeling prisoners. It appears that whatever that big blast was, it didn’t eject the changelings who happened to be inside buildings. I have an idea...”
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“So...” the changeling threw another glance towards the sleeping guard, “...You want me to send a message to our queen. She gives unreasonable demands for the freedom of the six bearers of harmony, who you have captured.”

“Unreasonable demands, or anything to keep the equestrians focused on her being the one who pulled this off but at the same time not be willing to trade. With the equestrians preoccupied, the griffons can find a way to take Equestria. Same deal as before concerning land,” an invisible Zephrine said, “Can you get the message out with that yoke on?”

The changeling touched the large metal yoke around his neck, “No, but the guard has a key. Get this stupid thing off and I’ll get that message out.”

Zephrine nodded, then remembered that she was invisible, “Right.”

She moved over to the guard, got the key, and went right back to the cell to unlock the yoke on the changeling’s neck.

“Tell her to do it in one week, we'll have the ponies by then.”

The changeling nodded and sent the message.

“No questions from her, just have her do it, okay?” Zephrine asked.

“Okay,” the changeling’s eyes refocused on where he assumed Zephrine was, “I guess I have to put this damn thing on again.”

Zephrine nodded, facepawed, and replied, “Yes.”

The changeling, annoyedly, complied, slipping the enchanted yoke back over his neck and locking it before hoofing the key back to Zephrine, who quickly made her escape.
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“Good news,” Huntley said as Zephrine and Kyne slipped out of their darksuits, four more yokes added to their collection of supplies, “The elementals are taking a train tomorrow, we still don’t know why they stayed longer than the rest of their ponyvillian friends, but they’re finally leaving. Tomorrow at fifteen hundred hours.”

“That doesn’t give us a lot of time to prepare,” Kyne pointed out.

“I know, we leave now,” Huntley looked up from his map, “The night is still young, we need to find a spot midway between Canterlot and Ponyville and set up. Get some darksuit mark ones on, we leave now.”
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“I would like to thank you all again for staying a while longer to help with cleaning up the damage,” Celestia said, seeing her six little Elemental Bearers off.

“It was our pleasure, Princess,” Twilight replied, her friends confirming this with nods, “I just hope that we’ve seen the last of Chrysalis.”

“Indeed,” Celestia said with a smile, her thoughts wondering if the Griffon King had seen fit to reply to her letter yet. If the Griffons had been in on this, helped with it even, then Celestia was afraid that dark times were ahead.

“I suppose we’ll be off then,” Twilight said.

After parting a few more farewells, the six ponies and one dragon entered the train car to take them home. Yet whether or not home would be their actual destination was only known by the gods...and the author.

In fact, in all reality, the author IS the god since he can do whatever he wants. He has all the power at the tips of his fingers! But enough of this blasphemous fourth wall crap, on with the story!
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Zephrine looked away from the scope on her Arcumsire, “They’re on their way.”

“Okay, griffons,” Huntley said, “Get ready, train’ll be here in a matter of hours! We have no time to waste!”
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(That night)

The griffons landed with bumps atop the train, Gilda winced at the noise, praying that it went unnoticed in the dead of night. She strained against the rushing wind, slowly sliding back and eventually hopping down into the small ‘porch’ at the tail end of the caboose. Clive, Huntley, and Ales closely followed.

Gilda peeked in, seeing that the caboose served as a sort of bathroom car. It was unoccupied and the four griffons slipped in.

Due to the fact that they were trying to imitate changelings, using knives and Arcumsires was out of the question. They still brought Arcumsires along, but would only use those if all else failed. Each was armed with brass shoes, heavy metallic horseshoe overlays that made punching and bucking a lot more deadly. They had been forced to make a few adjustments to the darksuit, removing the culernus blades being part, but it had worked.

Gilda gently opened the door between the first two cars and slipped inside with Clive, the other two holding back.

This car had a central hallway and a series of double bunks along the sides. Moonlight would have spilled in through the windows, but they were closed off with curtains to let the sleepers sleep.

Gilda waved back at the glass set in the door between the two cars, Ales and Huntley followed through.

The griffons knew that the six elemental bearers were in one of the cars further up, so Gilda and Clive moved on to let the other two deal with the sleepers.

They were running on a time limit here. When the train got to a certain point, Kyne and Zephrine would set off the plastics and stop the train in its tracks. The griffons had roughly judged that this would occur once they were in the car with the Elements of Harmony if everything went according to plan, giving or taking a minute or two for good measure.

The next car was another sleeping area and so was the one after that. The fourth car, however, appeared to be a lounge. This was where the griffon’s problems began. The ponies in this one were awake.

One was laying down and reading while three others were engaged in a card game of sorts.

The only pony facing them was one of the ones at the table, but she was too focused on her cards. Even if they had been looking, it wasn’t guaranteed that they would have seen the griffons in their darksuits. That, and most of them looked tired, if not half asleep.

“We might have to go loud,” Gilda gestured.

Clive nodded in agreement.

They assessed the threats before them. The pony reading was a unicorn and would probably be the most deadly. One of the card players was an earth pony while the other two were pegasi. All looked tired to some degree and none were armed. With Ales and Huntley they could probably take the whole of them in at least a minute. The noise levels would probably be drowned out to non-issue levels by the door and the sound of the train.

Once the other two griffons were finished taking care of the ponies in the previous car, they entered this one and chose targets. Huntley would take the reading unicorn, the others had one of the card players.

Without further ado, they attacked.

Huntley sprinted up behind his target, leaped on him and snapped his head back. The unicorn went limp with a snap of neck vertebrae. He never knew what hit him.

It was about this time that the other griffons were spotted and shortly thereafter attacked their own targets. Ales leaped high and came down on the earth pony facing the rear end of the car, knocking her breathe out before delivering a stunning blow and snapping her neck.

Clive swung his weighted paw and hit his target in the throat, crushing his windpipe and knocking him over backwards with his chair. He finished the job with a few jabs to the head and throat.

Gilda, getting the pegasus facing the opposite side of the car, got behind her target and quickly and cleanly snapped his neck. It was over in just under forty seconds.

The four griffons each confirmed their kills and gave the all clear. Then the door opened and a scaly purple dragon walked in, only to freeze when he saw the carnage before him.

Huntley, who had removed one of his brass shoes, reached around and grabbed his Arcumsire, he aimed and fired. Spike’s figurative guardian angel had other ideas, though.

Spike snapped around in fear, the bolt just going over his shoulder and burying itself in the door. He grabbed the handle before getting struck by Clive, who knocked him away with a blow to the skull.

The blow would have knocked out or even killed a pony, but Spike’s scales made sure that all he got was a headache as he hit the side of the car. His head throbbed and he looked to his black clad attacker as the griffon came in for the kill.

Spike shot a blast of flame, it wasn’t large or powerful, but it was very bright and very much in Clive’s face.

Clive yelped in pain as his low-light goggles fed his eyes extreme amounts of lights. His swing at Spike slammed into a wall, missing its target.

“My eyes!” Clive cried out, stumbling away.

Ales was right behind Clive, shooting past him and taking a swing at the small dragon.

Spike hopped to his feet and leaned back, Ales’s paw just missing him. Spike leaped forward, yelled out and threw a slash at Ales. Unfortunately for him, he had trimmed his claws and the attack did nothing as Ales threw a punch to his gut. Spike doubled over, but latched on to the attacking appendage and bit down with all his might. He hadn’t trimmed his teeth and they went right through Ales’s armor.

She slammed Spike against the wall, trying to get him loose, but he didn’t budge, keeping his teeth firmly clamped down on Ales’s foreleg. She swung again, this time hitting one of the windows. The glass shattered and the force of the blow dislodged the baby dragon, who was sent screaming into the darkness outside.

“Fuck!” Ales groaned, clutching her bleeding appendage.

Huntley got to her side swiftly to assess her injury. It wasn’t fatal but it was bleeding rather profusely.

“Can we confirm that kill?” Gilda asked, pulling back her mask to speak properly.

“Nothing could survive getting thrown out of a train at these speeds,” Ales shot back, having pulled back her own mask as well, “Damn little bastard had sharp teeth.”

“What happened?” Asked Clive, who was blinking away the brightness.

“Ales sent that dragon out the window,” Gilda replied, “Your eyes okay?”

“Yeah,” Clive laughed, “She threw him out the window? I bet that looked ridiculous.”

“Go!” Huntley yelled through his mask, wrapping Ales’s foreleg in a bandage.

“Right!” The two griffons slid their masks back on and pushed through the door.

And Gilda came face to face with a certain pony she had had the pleasure of meeting a little more than a year ago.

“Hey Spike, what’s...wait, you aren’t Spike,” Pinkie said.