His sword met the flesh of a Griffon, the cry of pain echoing through the mist. The body slumped to the ground, limp, the dirt tinted red with blood. He leaped to the side as an arrow zipped by his head, spreading his wings and taking flight as another Griffon charged him, sword raised.
In one quick maneuver, almost too fast for any normal eye to see, he ran his blood-stained sword right through the chest of the second Griffon, another arrow flying past his head. He whipped his head around to find the crossbow-wielding Griffon scrambling to load another, and in a blink of an eye he was upon him, pinning him to the ground, crossbow knocked away. Raising his sword, he brought it down, impaling the Griffons shoulder with the blade. Not fatal, but something the hurt a lot.
But the Griffon did not show any pain. He looked up, right into his eyes, and growled. “You damn mercenaries, don’t you know what you’ve done!?” He began coughing up blood. “Of course you don’t. You fight for money, not for honor, or glory. All you care about is getting paid. You wouldn’t care if the world burned as long as you got paid for it.” He sighed, and laid back, giving one last cry of “Long live Griffonstone,” and died, the body going limp.
He withdrew his sword from the body, sliding it into its sheath, before looking up at the glowing construct in front of him.
It was mechanical, made of a shiny metal he couldn't identify, glowing purple runes covering its surface.
He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what it did. All he knew was that he had to turn it off. Fortunately, he knew how.
Lifting a discarded spear off the ground, briefly weighing it and doing the calculations in his head. And then he wound back and tossed it with all his might, the spear sailing through the air and impaling itself right into the machine, the gears grinding to a halt and the purple light fading.
Looking around him, the Griffons were in a rout. They were falling back, the ground littered with the bodies of the fallen. Finally, after all the death and destruction, the outcome of the final battle had been decided. They had won.
“Is it over?” PJ, a friend, a comrade, who he had met on the fields of battle, fighting for a common cause. “Is the war over? Have we done it? Have we won?”
He turned towards his wingman as he landed beside him, staring up at the tower of metal. “Whoa… Can you believe the Griffons were actually going to use that thing? Use it to blow up Equestria? Insane, right? I guess they really must hate us, huh?”
He said nothing, looking up at the now-dead machine, thinking.
The two of them stood there, silently, for what felt like forever, basking in the feel-good feeling of a job well done. They had saved the world from A World With No Boundaries, a rebel force that had taken control of the Griffonstone government after the peace treaty had been signed, wanting to bring ruin to those who had wronged them, claiming the weak Griffons had been the ones to surrender, while a “true” Griffon would never give in, and that Griffonstone would fight on and bring the whole world down with them.
But it was over. A World With No Boundaries was defeated, their top fighter slain by his blade. Their leaders were in hiding, and would soon be rounded up, and put to trial for their crimes. The Griffons would rebuild from this war, just like they always did, and life would go on,
But that was in the future.
“Hey,” PJ turned to him. “C'mon, let's get outta here. We’ve got pay waiting. Think we’ll get a bonus for this?”
He let PJ trail on ahead, holding back for a moment, taking one last glance at the doomsday machine. He was sure the Government would come and do something with it eventually, and he didn't just want to leave it here, but he wasn't sure what else he could do.
So he trotted ahead, catching up with PJ, the two walking slowly, side by side.
“You remember the mare I talked about, the one back home?” He gave PJ a quizzical look. His wingman smiled. “I got a ring back at base. Gonna pop the question when we get back. What better time, hmm?” He chuckled, and then stopped as he was forced to step over the body of a Griffon. “Think she’ll say yes?”
He nodded, giving him a small smile to show his approval. PJ smiled. “Thanks, man.”
For a split second, everything in the world was quiet. No sound. None at all. And then PJ gave one small gasp of air, his eyes turning to him in shock, giving him one pleading look, to do something, to help him, before his legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground, a spear going right through his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
It was a cold day.
It was late December, only a few days after Hearth's Warming. Thick clouds moved in front of the sun, causing him to shiver and the world to plummet into darkness.Fog rolled in off the mountains, blanketing the area.
In the distance...
“So, have you found a reason to fight yet, Buddy?”
The shape of a Griffon emerged from the mist, far enough away so he couldn't make out any physical features of the attacker, but he didn’t need to. He knew who it was.
“It's been awhile, huh Cipher?”
Pixy. An old wingman. An old friend.
“You’ve certainly made a name for yourself since we last met.”
The two of them had fought together through thick and thin, and together they were unbeatable. And then, six months ago, he just… left.
“I suppose you know why I’m here. I guess it's obvious, isn’t it?”
He had had theories as to why he had left without even a goodbye. The most probable one, was, well, he was a Griffon.
They were a very proud, noble warrior race, stressing honor and loyalty above all. And Pixy had betrayed all that, killing his own kind for cash. He had questioned him about it, but he had always said that it didn’t bother him, that he was only in it for the money. They both knew that wasn’t true.
“This seems sorta poetic, don’t you think? A final battle between two friends with the world at stake?” Pixy chuckled. “I know you're not one for reading, Cipher.” He sighed sadly and began to step forward, out of the fog.
Finally, they could see each other clearly again, after all that had happened.
The pegasus’s eyes were drawn to his former wingman's right side, where one of his wings were tucked away.
“Oh?” Noticing him eyeing it, Pixy unfurled it, so he could see it fully. “I guess I never explained this, did I?”
Normally, Griffon's wings were the same color as their bodies, the most common colors being shades of brown, white, grey, and black. But, Pixy was unique, and that, while his body was a normal brown color, his right wing was a bright red color, something that had intrigued him but he had never asked about.
“It's something of a birth defect. I was born with it. Doesn't impact my flying in any way, it just looks cool.”
He pulled it back against his body, and the two stood there watching each other silently once more.
“So, this is it...”
The two mercenaries stood there, waiting, waiting for one to make a move.
Pixy lifted his head, looking towards the mountains in the distance, his breath forming clouds in front of him.
“I’ll ask again. Have you found a reason to fight yet, Buddy? Because I sure have.”
In the distance, the knocked-out superweapon whirred to life again, the reactivated runes casting eerie purple light across the field.
Cipher unsheathed his sword, gripping it in his hooves.
Pixy softly chuckled, the pendant around his neck glowing the same purple as the machine.
“Here comes the snow…”
A single snowflake drifted down from the heavens. At first it was one, and more and more began to follow it, the little white flakes lazily falling to the ground.
And that was all they needed.
He spread his blue wings, and leapt into the air.
“Those who survive a long time on the battlefield start to think they’re invincible. I bet you do too, buddy.”
They shot up through the clouds, breaching into clear skies above, He looped around, bringing his sword to bear. One quick swipe would be all it would take. Right across the chest, and that's it.
“Can you see any borders from here?” The Griffon asked, diving on him. He rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding the Griffons claws. Pixy disappeared from sight into a cloudbank, but his voice was still audible.
“That's what I fight for. The removal of borders. What has borders given us? Nothing but war, pain, and misery. Borders are nothing but a symbol of power, an imaginary line drawn across the land. Why should we hate and kill others just because they live on the other side of that invisible line? We’re going to start over from scratch, that's what V2 is for.”
He appeared behind the Griffon, gliding on silent wings, raising his sword to strike. Slashing right across his body, he quickly dived away, turning back expecting to see the Griffon falling.
Instead, the red-winged Griffin was right behind him, not a single ruffle of his feathers.
“You're going to have to try a little harder than that!” Pixy taunted, swiping at him.
Back and forth this went, each momentarily gaining an advantage over the other. Pixy managed to land a few lucky blows onto the pegasus’s side, nothing too damaging, but when Cipher returned them with his sword, nothing happened, they all simply bounced off.
It was a delicate dance the two did, swooping, diving, turning, trying to stay behind their enemy. A delicate dance of life and death.
All while, in the background, a whine grew louder and louder.
And then they stopped.
Cipher hovered there, bleeding from a few scrapes and cuts, and breathing heavily, but managing to stay in the air. Pixy hovered there without a scratch, looking at his former comrade with a somber look.
The whine reached its loudest.
“It's time.”
The V2 slowly lifted off the ground, spewing fire and smoke as it rose, quickly gaining speed, now moving too fast for anyone to catch it.
“Too bad, buddy. This twisted game needs to be reset.” Pixy’s voice carried on the wind. “We’ll start over from “zero” with this V2 and entrust the future to the next generation.”
They resumed the fight, diving in and out of the clouds, the snow now coming down heavily, reducing visibility greatly.
Cipher flipped over, flapping his wings hard to gain some distance between him and the Griffon. Seeing him fleeing, Pixy scoffed. “You and I are the opposite sides of the same coin. When we face each other we can finally see our true selves. There may be a resemblance, but we never face the same direction.”
He took off after him, but had already put a large distance between the two of them. Suddenly, Cipher pulled a tight loop, coming in fast towards the oncoming Griffon.
Before Pixy could react, he slashed his sword right across his chest, once again doing no damage, but causing Pixy to stagger in the air momentarily.
“So that's how we're doing this, huh?” He growled, quickly recovering. “Now we find out who’s number one!”
Again Cipher did this, putting some distance between them before quickly swinging around and dragging his sword across Pixy's chest.
Pixy got more and more frustrated. Cipher knew he couldn’t damage him with his sword, yet he still attacked him, always coming in head-on, a game of chicken where only Cipher could loose. Yet he continued to do it.
A thought entered his head. He had won. The V2 had launched, and, in only a few minutes, the cities of Equestria would be reduced to flaming rubble. He could disengage right now, and fly away, his job complete.
But Cipher would live.
No, he decided, his pride getting the better of him, he would stay and fight, he would kill Cipher.
And so, he once more dived in towards the blue pegasus.
Head to head, they closed rapidly. “Fire away, coward!”
Making one final adjustment in his position, he readied his claws. “COME ON!”
At the final moment, Cipher ducked below him, bringing up his sword, and caught the chain of his amulet with the blade, yanking it away, the chain snapping.
He gasped in surprise, twisting himself around to try and track it, leaving him, for a brief moment, open to attack.
Cipher slashed him across the chest, the Griffon crying out in pain. Unable to recover, he tumbled to the ground.
The sky lit up in a blinding flash, the late afternoon suddenly brighter than when the sun was at its height.
As he hit the ground, Pixy saw the outline of Cipher against the bright light, looking at where he had fallen. For only a moment, the Pegasus hovered there, before turning and flying away, back towards home.
A thin layer of snow covered the ground, the only sound the whistling of the wind.
Pixy laid there for some time, simply listening to it. Listening to the wind and the snow as he slowly bled out.
The glow in the sky faded.
In the following years, one mare would travel to this location and place flowers at the grave of a lost love, a fallen soldier. Sometimes she would look to the sky, and wonder. Sometimes she would listen to the snow.
Author's Note
<>
