My Little Griffon: The Red Paw

Author's note
Sorry about this one being kinda late and short, I've been busy and I'm running out of steam, next chapter's gonna shoot forward some time to get that speed built up some more.

Plans
______________________________________________________________________________

“Everybody’s got plans...until they get hit.” ~Mike Tyson
______________________________________________________________________________

Even though she knew it was coming, the ominous knock on the door startled her. Gilda put down the newspaper and walked to the door. Peering out the eyehole showed a griffon dressed in black-red armor. One of the royal guards.

Gilda opened the door and without further ado, the griffon spoke, “Griffons Gilda and Clive are to see his majesty immediately.” Gilda looked back into the house that had been provided to her and Clive and called his name. When he didn’t respond, she heard the sound of running water from the upstairs bathroom and remembered that he had gone up to take a shower. She had impolitely refused his offer to share the shower, to his disappointment.

“I’ll be right back,” she told the statue-like guard before heading towards the stairs.

She opened the door to the bathroom and knocked. Clive poked his head around the shower curtain, “Offer’s still open if you’ve changed your mind,” he said.

“No, numbnuts, hurry up. Royal guard’s downstairs to take us to his majesty,” Gilda explained.

“Oh,” Clive’s face fell, “Gimme a minute and I’ll be right down.”

Without further ado, Gilda headed back downstairs.
______________________________________________________________________________

Later, the three pairs that had been charged with killing the escaped target, stood before the impassive king of the griffons. Nothing about him betrayed any form of emotion. His eyes wandered slowly around the room with all the appearance of spotlights.

“You have failed,” the king said after a minute or so of silence, “The only reason that you do not die is because in your failure, there is renewed hope.”

This surprised the six griffons.

“The pegasus that you...executed belonged to a very wealthy family in Equestria. My intelligence has discovered that your target was the one behind the murder. After killing his guards, he took her to an alleyway and...did away with her and escaped. Based on this case, you did not fail because your assassination attempt never happened. As a matter of fact, this meeting didn't happen either. That is all.”

Everygriffon turned to go besides Fulton, Ales paused and turned back. Gilda and Clive also noticed this and stopped in their tracks. The last pair didn’t notice and were quickly out of the room.

Once they were gone, Fulton spoke, “We have reason to believe that there is a mole in the system, sir,” Fulton said, “I would like to request permission to take my partner and these two,” Fulton gestured to Gilda and Clive, “and seek out this mole and eliminate it. Sir.”

“Granted,” The king said, again without emotion.

If Fulton was annoyed that the king wasn’t very perturbed by there being a mole, he didn’t show it, instead he bowed and the four left.
______________________________________________________________________________

“Only the four of us know about this mole, us and his majesty of course. We must tell nogriffon else,” Fulton said once the four had taken to the streets, “All of you need to have your eyes peeled for suspicious behavior. Gilda and Clive, I want you to search out this spy based on observation, report your findings as soon as you have them. Ales and I will go through the records and search for clues in the past database. If anygriffon asks, it’s Special Operations work and classified. Is this understood?”

The three other griffons gave signs of acknowledgement as Fulton glanced back at them.

“So we’ve got backup from his majesty, how we gonna use that?” Clive asked.

“We can get full access to all databases for our research. If anything comes up and we need some form of supplies then let me know. Once we find this bastard, we can get help from other pairs to go for the final push to capture the mole, but not until then.”

They had their plan.