Chapters “Ah! Hello, my friends, It has been quite some time!” The alicorn with his white coat and extremely light grey mane called as he walked down the spiral staircase into the nearly empty, underground room, greeted by nine gryphons at a large, round table.
“You brought HIM here?!” a black gryphon turned to the dark golden gryphon wearing a messenger bag around his upper body and neck as he was standing in the corner.
“I-I’m sorry! He threatened to rip out my innards and splay them above the old castle dour as decoration!” Both the black and gold gryphons were suddenly frozen into blocks of ice.
“Please, stop shouting, I have a headache.” The white alicorn mumbled as he flattened his steps and rested a hand against his head. He stood around 6’4” in the standard measurement units, towering above most of the gryphons, a rather tall height for his species.
“What is it that you want, Winter? You already prove your hostility.” A gryphon sporting an earthy brown main feather color with random grass green stripes and streaks all around said in reply, his lime green eyes staring at the white alicorn coldly, but Winter’s deep blue eyes stared back, far colder than the gryphon ever could.
“I simply ask that you join me in my siege against Equestria. After I have recaptured the throne, the nation will be yours to ravage.” Winter’s gaze softened.. Most of the other gryphons were still staring at the frozen council member and messenger. The brown and green gryphon mumbled something as to where Winter wouldn’t be able to hear.
“Speak up!!” Winter bellowed at the gryphon, who had barely flinched, due to his volume and the size of the room, all eyes were on him again.
“I said, we have a treaty with Equestria, no military personnel is allowed to cross either boarders.” The brown and green gryphon replied calmly.
"Your treaty means nothing to me, as far as I'm concerned, it's join me or die. Make your choice." Winter replied angrily.
"You come into our council chamber and threaten us to join your alliance. Yet you provide nothing of what we could benefit from joining you or even an example of your strength." There was a gryphon on a far end of the round table, his feathers were a moderate gold colored with peach, brown, and red streaks and markings all over his feathers, his golden eyes didn't soften his agitated glare.
“This should be example enough.” Winter’s horn glowed and a sword made completely of ice appeared in his hand. Winter held the blade against the gryphon’s neck tightly, trickling a slight of blood onto the blade. The gryphon let out a scree as he fell back in his chair. As the chair hit the ground as it threw him out and into the nearby wall. “Whatever is the matter? Never had a blade to your neck before? It is a rather compromising situation.” Winter chuckled to himself and the sword melted onto the floor.
“Now, Now. Let us not resort to violence, my dearie.” A mare’s voice rang out from directly behind Winter “But if violence is what you want, let us not destroy this place, we really should take it outside, it would be rude of us not to."
"No, we are staying here, the likelihood of you setting a trap outside is too high for me to risk at this point."
"Oh my, wherever are you taking classes my dear Winter? Wait, let me guess, is it Miss Cheerliee's elementary for mentally impaired foals?"
"I would shut up if I were you." Winter snarled, turning around to face the ash gray mare and grabbing her dirty-white mane before she could move. He pulled her down, guided by the hair. The unicorn attempted to cast a spell but Winter's free hand instantly went around her horn to prevent the spell "Please, you don't even know what I am capable of."
The mare looked up at him with her purple and white-speckled eyes just as the gryphons began to cough in an uncontrollable fit. The mare joined them and winter let go of her, allowing her to crumple to the ground.
"Fool! You thought you could stop me? Ha! You couldn't even bring your own mask!" The mare paused her coughing fit long enough to speak
"You bested me, Winter, I cannot deny it. I am yours, as there is no other choice."
"Good, having a mare of your particular talents shall be useful, i'll have to keep your around." Winter then slipped a ring around her horn, locking it tightly with a key, following up with a collar before giving her a vial, half full with a red liquid. "Drink, then go stand out of the way." She nodded and stood, opening the vial and drinking the mysterious liquid while walking off towards a corner. "Now..." Winter turned toward the gryphons "Shall we join forces? If not, I can just refuse to give you the counteractant and you all will die, frozen in a permafrost." Those of gryphon council that still sat, mostly unharmed looked at each other for several minutes before Winter spoke up again "So. What shall it be?"
"I.. I think we'll agree to... your terms.." The brown and green gryphon spoke up, his voice shaky.
"Absolutely perfect!" Winter said in a mock-delight, smiling as if he'd just been thrown the best party ever "I need you to allow me permissions to take control of your military, then we'll be all done and you can have the counteractant." The same gryphon nodded slowly, pulling a quill, inkwell, and parchment from under his seat at the table. He quickly began writing, then rolled it up after it was finished.
"There.." The gryphon spoke up "If you could just unthaw my messenger, I can send this to the general."
"Fine, fine." Winter waved a hand as his horn glowed and the gryphon messenger fell to the floor, panting "Get up, peasant!" Winter yelled to the messenger as the brown and green gryphon gave him the letter
"To the general boy, make it hasty, our lives are on the line." The messenger nodded and quickly ran out, past Winter.
"Now then." Winter's horn glowed and a box of vials, similar to the one the mare had drank earlier appeared "As promised, your counteractant. Now, If you don't mind, I have business elsewhere." Winter turned and headed up the staircase. "Oh!" He came back down and grabbed the mare by her shoulders, pushing her against the wall as he kissed her roughly, pulling back from her nearly non-existent struggle nearly a minute afterwards "Now, Savina, will you be causing me trouble?"
"Not at all, my master." The mare- Savina -shook her head obidently.
"Good, Now let us go, my pet." Winter walked back up the stairs, Savina right behind him.
The forest, a perfect place to find a companion who can gather an army to fight for you, right? For Winter? Maybe.. Anyone else? Not likely. Speaking of a forest, a snowy white alicorn could be seen trudging along a dirt path surrounded by vegetation, mostly grass and ferns, but there was quite a few fruit trees, likely a place for bat ponies and saberhorns (batpony, but a unicorn instead) to collect food for the tribe. There was a mare following him, a dark grey hood flicked down to reveal an ash horn protruding from an expertly cut hole in the hood that not only covered her face, but kept the hood in place. Her head was down but it was seen that the dirty white mane from the mare in the council room hung down over the ash body of the mare as the cloak held together from the inside. The only other aspects that were visible would be the pair of ash grey hooves hitting the ground with soft thumps upon each landing.
"Ah! The forest, a beautiful sight don't you think, Savina?" Winter practically yelled his satisfaction with the scenery and nudged the cloaked mare.
"It would look better, either burnt to the ground or covered in permafrost." She mumbled in return, not even needing to look up from the ground, she had used magic to allow her a sonar-like vision in her mind, mapping out her exact location and changes in the environment. She saw everything without seeing it to say in short.
"Oh come on! Don't be such a downer Savi, it's amazing here, even I can enjoy calm scenery!"
"I would prefer it destroyed.." Up ahead, there was a saberhorn, she held a tightly woven basket while collecting fruits, possibly for her family, but she had more than enough for a feast.. perhaps she was feeding a village?
"That is why we don't destroy forests, because of beauties like that." Winter gestured to the dark grey unicorn sporting a mid-length midnight blue mane and tail.
"Whatever." Savina mumbled.
"You know, I was expecting you to be more lively."
"And I was expecting you to be able to control your hormones."
".....Fair enough." Winter quietly approached the saberhorn, clearing his throat when he was just out of arm's reach. The mare gave a little squeak as she jumped, dropping the basket and dumping a fair group of fruits on the ground while she spun to face him "Hello, dearie, you should know who I am.." She shook her head slowly "Your king.." his expression narrowed.
"I- I am not ruled by anyone!" She stumbled back and took off running the opposite direction. Savina appeared a ways in front of her, charging an attack spell. The saberhorn's horn glowed as her arms turned to blades, deflecting the spell as it was thrown at her. The mare charged Savina, flicking her across the cheek and kicking her side, forcing her to turn. While her back was turned, Savina's back was cut open with an unbleeding cut, the saberhorn disappeared.
"No! Damn it!" Winter shouted "Follow her!" Savina was on her knees panting, slowly crumpling to the ground. "What is your problem?!" She just gave a wheeze before disappearing. "Useless." Winter shook his head and began to walk away, angered.
Meanwhile, Savina was having difficulty with keeping up with the saberhorn's constant teleports.. It almost seemed as if.. She was draining magic from Savina's pool. The saberhorn gave one last teleport before Savina couldn't continue following, she stopped trying and just shuffled off towards the nearest town where she collapsed in a heap
in an alleyway..
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A few hours later, the ash mare woke to the sound of shouting and hoofsteps headed her way, some armor clanking as well. Savina grumbled and gently rubbed her head.. the hood was still on.
Several stallions appeared in the alleyway, all wearing a snow white armor- Meridians.
“You, mare! Where did she go?!” One of them yelled at her.
“Wha..”
“Dont play dumb with me!” The shouting meridian grabbed her by the collar and hoisted her up to meet him at eye level. He took one look at her and dropped her instantly “I- Im so sorry, ma’am!! I didn't recognize you!” he stepped away, clearly terrified.
“You're lucky my magic pool is drained.. i’d have frozen you as soon as you touched me…
GET LOST!” The meridians quickly ran off.
Savina looked up at the sky.. it was still night. She needed to see someone, but she needed a map to find them.
She headed off down the street, in search of a vendor that was open.. there was one. Savina approached the stall and the gryphon behind freaked out.
“nono!! Dont hurt me, please, I did nothing!!” She even hid behind a barrel to make the fear apparent.
“Hush.. I am here to barter.. what do you have on the forests in this region.”
“uh.. which side.. North or Sou-”
”Both.”
“One moment..”
“Make it hasty.” The gryphon ducked under the stall and rummaged around for a minute or so before finally pulling out two hard map cases, fit with straps.
“Four hundred bits.. ma’am.” Savina took the maps and slammed a bag of bits on the table.
“thrown in a case of quills and it's worth it.”
“Done.” The gryphon set a round tube on the counter.
Savina instantly grabbed it and walked off, leaving the bits behind.
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“Okay… let's see… I'll check the north woods first, then make my way down to the south.” Savina was looking over her maps,sucking on one of her quills in the meantime. “Yeah.. That’ll work.” She nodded softly and rolled up the map, setting it in the case.
Savina slung the case over her shoulder and headed off east, pulling a compass from her bag, she quickly turned the other way, north and headed off.
A few minutes later, Savina came across a forest, she took the map out to check her location and put an ‘X’ next to the wooded area with what seemed to be a purple ink. Then she walked in the vegetation, spying a light up ahead. She ran towards it..
Savina found a cottage at the end of the light, it seemed familiar… Perhaps her lab partner’s?.. She approached and knocked gently “H-Hello?..”
A tall zebra answered the door, his eyes drifting down till his met her own, waiting eyes
“Oh my go- Savina!!” The zebra hugged her tightly and yanked her inside “I thought you were dead!” Savina returned the tight embrace with her own, pathetic physique.
“I may as well have been dead, Winter found me… just.. Do-”
“What the- XERON?! WHY IS SHE HERE?!! SHE NEARLY KILLED ME!” It was the saberhorn from the woods. Savina’s eyes widened as she stepped away, the zebra- Xeron -allowed it. The bat’s arms turned to blades again as she approached, Xeron held her back
“What are you doing?!”
“SHE WORKS FOR WINTER!!” The bat screeched at both of them.
“Savina?...” Xeron turned to Savina, She’d had pressed herself against the wall.. She was nodding slowly.
“He.. He poisoned the Gryphon Council.. Forced them to give him their military powers..” Xeron’s eyes went wide ‘Wha.. what the… no.. no.. that’s not possible..”
“It’s what happened…” Savina’s voice was rather shaky. The bat was calmer now.
“How do we know she’s not a spy?”
“Savina…”
“.. let me help.. “
“As much as I want to trust you, I can't.”
“No! Please!!” Savina cried, dropping to her knees and hugging his legs “D-don't send me off…” she mumbled, looking up to him. She whispered towards him
“I.. I just wanted to see you again.”
“...” Xeron stared down at her, obviously thinking.
“You can't seriously be considering letting her stay!” The saberhorn was practically shouting again.
“Please..” Savina whispered, tears had formed in her eyes at that point.
“Fine…”
“WHAT?!!” The saberhorn was absolutely furious. She stormed right out of the cottage. Savina was full out crying again, hugging Xeron tightly while muttering to herself
“thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou…” Xeron gently tugged Savina up to her hooves and hugged gently, as to not crush her. Afterwards, she was led to a bed and told to lie down.. she did so without question and was left alone in the dark.
There was a cabin in the forest, a mare and stallion lived there, no social connections… they are unimportant here...
There was a heavy knock on the shack door
“Meridian Army, open up!!” another heavy knock “Need I break this door down? Open up!!” No response.. “Looks like it.” The stallion who had knocked, turned away from the door and walked away… then ran back and charged it, the door slamming off it’s hinges and to the ground upon impact. The small group of Meridians, dressed in their respective, white armour, all holding the standard issue Meridian assault rifle, quickly scattered around the house. Multiple reports came in
“All clear!”
“Nothing here, Sir.”
“This area is clean.”
“Sir.. You might want to see this.. In the basement..” The leader of the group who had done nothing while the others searched quickly ran to the basement stairwell and slid down the handrail
“What's the matter cor- Oh..” There was an ash grey pegasus, bearing a light grey mane with a red stripe down the side, the tail matching aside from the blue stripe. He was chained to the wall and asleep. The Meridian higher rank picked up a radio “Uh.. Search unit 3472, precious cargo acquired, over.“
“Affirmative, bring him in asap.”
“Copy that, we’ll be back at thirteen hundred hours, over.”
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Several hours later, the ash pegasus slowly woke, he was laying on the dark, damp, and uninviting floor of a prison cell. The cell only contained the standard three stone walls with the the fourth wall being purely a cage. THe cell contained one window, a bucket, and a wooden board hanging off the wall, held up by a set of chains and a couple hinges. A pillow rested atop the wooden board.
“Wha… where.. Am.. I?..” He found that his hands were bound in front of himself as he sat, cross legged while he attempted to understand his situation.. Also he was attempting to see correctly, as he’d been under a strict, low-light policy.
Eventually, the pegasus did regain his sight and looked around again as he did so, his eyes meeting nothing but the ill-maintained cell and corridor. There was the sound of snoring from outside but no visual picture, likely one of the guards “He-hello?..” He slowly crawled to a stand and leaned against the metal bars, looking around only to be met with the clang of metal on metal.. Right next to him. He instantly flinched and stumbled back.
“Back up, pegasus!” A rough voice practically spat at him from behind the edge of the metal bars’ run into the stone “I’ll break a finger if you do that again, got it?!” He gave no reply.. Aside from continuing to back away and sitting down on the board he assumed was now his bed, simply staring at the wall. Hoofsteps were heard echoing down the hallway as the hollow sound of armor shifting around sounded, the guards had snapped to attention.
“Which cell is he in?” Winter.. The voice triggered a memory..
There was three figures.. Savina, The pegasus, and a medium-haired zebra, all climbing up the path to the top of a snowy mountain as they held cloaks tightly bound to themselves.
The Xeron, zebra was in lead, pushing freshly fallen snow out of the path where he paused and turned around. Savina was directly behind him and the pegasus had fallen behind a bit “Faukhorn, you alright!?” The zebra called to the pegasus in the back through the howling winds. Yes.. that was his name.. If you looked closely, Faukhorn and Savina looked shockingly similar… almost exactly the same..
Faukhorn called back to Xeron up front
“I’m fine, keep going!!” And continue they did…
Within minutes, the group had reached their target, a castle, about three quarters the way up to the peak. They made their way inside the structure slowly and carefully. Faukhorn ended up leading in, having to break a thick layer of ice over the door, which finally gave way to the blunt end of an ice pick and clattered noisily to the a cold, stone ground.
Once inside, Savina made a fire, using a basis of a silver liquid from a vial.. odd.. Either way, she began to do a bit of cooking to help recover from the day’s climb. Faukhorn sat near the fire and started to look over the maps brought with. Xeron headed off with a lantern to look around.
“Fauk.. are you okay?..” Savina asked, noticing a bit of a saddened expression on Faukhorn’s face as he read over the map.
“I’m fine, Savi, just thinking about if we ever knew mom and dad..”
“They were gone before we would have comprehension.. There was no way we could have known them..”
“I get the feeling.. Every once in a while they’re reaching out to us.. Perhaps with a warning, or advice.. But I don’t seem to understand it..”
“I get it too.. Try to get some rest for now, alright? We explore in eight hours.”
“Yeah.. Guess you’re right..” Faukhorn laid down on his side, rolling up the map as he did so.
Faukhorn snapped back to the present, shaking his head as he recognised he was being yelled at
“Hey!! You damned worthless pegasus!! Acknowledge me!” Winter was standing in front of the pegasus’s- Faukhorn’s -cell, enraged that he hadn’t been listening the whole time.
“What do you need?..” Fauk replied, clearly irritated.
“I merely wished to speak with you, dammit!”
“And?.. Your point is?...”
“I wanted to have a calm conversation, but noo, you must be too good for that!”
“Cool…”
“Do what you want to him for now, i’ll be back later.”
“Yessir.” The guards mumbled before unlocking the cell and advancing into the three-walled cage. Winter walked away in the meantime.
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“Faukhorn Friendric, the only undercover equestrian law enforcer…”
Winter was speaking, standing in front of Faukhorn’s cell again. “... Fell to just two of my guards? My military power is better than I expected… either that, or you're just pathetic.
“SHUT. UP!” Faukhorn slowly staggered to his hooves and pointed a finger to Winter “What the fuck is your problem anyway?! We release you from a near-eternal prison and this is how you treat us?! Fuck yourself!”
“You really don’t have the position to be making insults, my friend. If you haven't forgotten have you? You are in MY prison.” Winter retorted.
“Count the grains in the wooden floorboards above us, and that’s how much I care.” Winter looked up.. The ceiling was concrete with marble patches spread around.
“I really hate you right now…”
“Should I repeat myself?” Winter sighed and shook his head “Very well.” He turned and left, leaving Faukhorn alone with the guards that dotted the floors.
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A Meridian guard opened up Faukhorn’s cell door as an indication. Faukhorn got up and slowly walked over, setting his hands behind his back and turning around, but before the guard could bind his wrists, he pivoted on a hoof and punched the guard in the throat, forcing him to grab at his throat, attempting to breathe. Faukhorn then grabbed the side of his head and jaw, snapping his neck forcefully, and with a deathly stare.
Faukhorn began stripping the guard of his equipment, armor, and weapons, applying them to his own self. He dragged the guard back into the cell and walked out, locking it before headed down the rugged, concrete corridor. The walls quickly smoothed out into a pure white quartz as he walked and the floor under him had a rug now, and guards lined the hallway.
He continued down the hall uninterrupted and unbothered, right up until a guard with several medals hanging off his breastplate and a stripe down the middle of his helmet suddenly yelled at him to stop, and he didn’t. Gunshots rang out from seeming everywhere and Faukhorn took off running toward a window. A guard suddenly was blocking his way. Faukhorn surged forward, sprinting at the guard as he set up. Faukhorn swatted the rifle off to the side and grabbed the midsection of the rifle, flipping over him and ripping the rifle from his hands with the aid of the guard’s shoulders.
Faukhorn fired a short burst out of the automatic rifle into the guard’s back and kept running toward the window approaching swiftly. The small hail of bullets tore through the guard’s armor, ripping apart his abdomen as the bullets shattered inside of him, leaving debris scattered throughout. The guard sputtered and coughed up several mouthfuls of his own blood, the moderately thick fluids dripping from his mouth and chin as he fell to the ground.
The peagaus smashed through the window, shoulder first, turning, back to the ground and firing the rest of what was in the rifle into the guards attempting to fire upon him from the window. He dropped into some shrubbery below, receiving many scratches along his ash grey fur, and sticks stuck into his nearly white mane. The guards fired out of the window frantically, hoping to strike him, but to no avail.