The door loudly hissed as I entered the bar.
The constant chatter suddenly stopped as everypony's gaze fell upon me. Some surprised, others seemed glad of my arrival. Shruging their gazes I strode from the door, passing between the numerous bar tables with Rose following suite, striding in a fish out'a watter fashion. I recognized most of the faces in the bar, old friends, contractors, mercenaries from the Dagger guild. The bar counter grew larger more and more as I passed by more tables. Ponies turning their heads away from me as I passed, whispers, unleashed like wild beasts, were danceding behind me.
Finally, I reached the bar made of , wooden planks covered by alcoholic stains and dried splashes.
I sat down on one of the stools, Rose, after figuring out the gymnastics of getting on to something your height, sat next to me. I rested my hooves upon the counter, and took a deep breath. “Bartender!” I called out.
“Right up!” A female voice called back from behind a door near the bar. “What is it…” The voice's owner staggered, a brownish coated elderly earth pony stood in a redish smock with the dagger guilds logo on it. After a brief moment of silence a warm smile formed on her face. “well, well, well" She took a few steps, now starring straight into my eyes standing right in front of me. "Now tell me, am I going psychic or is there a ghost sitting at my bar" She said with a sarcastic undertone.
“Leave. It. Be. Cider.”
“Nope, I wanna know what did you do to piss your mare off so much that she declared you officialy dead" She stated. Heart beat later she was at the nearest cider barrel pouring a drink. “This one’s on the guild" She said and placed a wodden mug with so much force it cider poured out onto the counter. "if you tell me what you did” she declared heartbeat befor I've taken the mug.
“Well, it’s quiet straight. I was on a mission, got gravely wounded and left behind. Miraculously I sutvived and now I'm here.” I said and took the mug of cider back, from her hoof.
“We both know that's a lie, otherwise, you wouldn’t come here in the first place Crimson. You did something, and don’t want to come back." She said and frowned like she was challenging me. "But who cares! What is important is that you’re back and willing to do your job again, am’ I right?” She winked at me.
“Yes you are, but there's a slight problem. Equipment” I said while pointing at the fact I was only wearing a dirty trench coat.
“Sure, you can get the starter pack for free.” She said with a devilish smile.
“Yeah thanks, and don’t get your hopes up too much. I’m not going to wear that jacket.”
“Oh come’ on! You were so proud of it years ago.” She said and pulled out a black leather Jacket with words: ‘I will stab you like a dagger, ‘cause daggers RULE!’
“Yeah was, now I’m just ashamed granny” I said putting an emphasis on ‘granny’
Rose quietly laughed at the jacket in the background.
“I’m not that old yet.” She said and put a pistol, knife and some pouches strapped to a harness on the bar counter. “And who are you now?” Cider turned the question towards Rose
“I’m Crimson’s friend” Rose answered.
"Oh mind my manners!" The golden maned bartender spat out in a commedic voice "M' name's Cider tap, best bartender this side of Bright town! Now, can ah' know the name of Crimson's new Marefriend." She stated while emphasising the term 'marefriend'.
“Buck off Cider, She’ll help me with the work!” I lashed out in childish rage.
“If that’s what you say…” She said and smiled to her self.
“There’s a client back there, balck tuexudo, red tie. He's sitting in the second row, fourth table, surely desperate after sitting here for the fifth hour, five days in a row. Get dressed.” She informed me with a voice cool as wind, her mug polishing routine so perfect she does it without even landing an eye.
I took the equipment and went to the changing room. Minutes later I was out, with a harness uderneath my trench coat and equipement where it belonged.
I sat at the said table where a single gentlecolt was sitting. His gaze immidiaetly fell upon me as I sat down, his eyes trying to drill into my soul, a face of a true governement official.
“I reckon you’re looking for a mercenary" I said and leaned back on my chair.
“Possibly, depends on how good you are" gentlecolt stated without doing as much as to blink.
I've sent a knife flying up to his throat in response “I’m the one who’s time is wasted here, don’t forget that”
“A hybrid" he said and calmly pushed my knife to the side with his hoove. “Reckless, but you might be useful, an important official is looking for additional bodyguards. You want the job?”
I floated the knife back to its scabbard and pressed down on the table.
“Maybe. Let’s talk about the payment” I said and unclipped the holster cover.
“there is no talk, you take five hundred greyins upfront and then a thousand after the job.” He said impatiently.
“seems fine, but you’ll have to give us double the price” I said and nodded towards Rose who stood in a marble grey trench coat behind me.
“if there are two of you then each will get two hundred and fifty upfront and five hundred after” he said without nating an eye at Rose.
“It’s either half grand upfront or nothing” I said pointing down at the table
“I already told you what the pay is” he stated in an aggresive tone.
“If you say so" I stood up from the table. “I’m sure you just came here and will find lots of mercenaries willing to take the job” I said and took a few steps from the table.
I was allmost two tables away when the stallion called out.
“Maybe we can get to an agreement!” I stopped dead in my tracks.
“ 'Guessed you were tired of waiting” I chuckled to myself. “Let’s settle the deal then"
I sat back in the chair.
“a thousand upfront and two thousands after the job" I said and took out an empty coin pouch.
“maximum I can spend is seven hundred upfront and one thousand after the job, per one of course" He replied dead cold, starring me straight in the eyes.
“Then you’ve got yourself a duo of mercenaries my friend! You won’t regret it!" I replied imitating a voice of a slave trader.
“Tomorrow, at that place, get all the gear with you, we’ll be moving out at eight a.m.” He said and placed a sheet of paper on the table. Moments later he took out a fat stack of coin and poured it into the pouch. Seconds later he was already leaving when a clicking sound of a primed musket reahed his ears
“Stop right there” I said pointing my gun at him. “Where’s the payment for her?” I said and waved the gun in a look-at-her gesture.
After that, the gentlecolt took out a pouch filled with greyins and threw it at Rose. Rose caught it in red magical mist as the pouch floated into the pocket of unicorn's trenchcoat. I slid the gun back in its holster and the gentlecolt left.
I went back to the bar and threw our pounches on the counter “ Get me and Rose some armor, and a rifle for me”.
“Armor I might get ‘ya but not the rifle. Sorry Crimson but law is law, You have to get one yourself.” Cider answered with a slight sigh.
“Oh come on, a little bit of help for an old friend?” I begged.
“Crimson, rules of the guild can not be broken, you know that, also It wouldn't be fair for your friend here.” She said and pointed a hoof at Rose.
“Fine, just drop us those armors at that address” I said and scribbled the address of the place we stayed with Rose at.”See you soon Cider!”
“Don’t die Crimson!” She said back.
I left the guild bar into the raining street and turned left. Once Rose came out of the bar We begun going down the street. The rain slowly soaked in our coats, it was a cold and warm feeling at the same time.
“Where do you know her from?” Rose asked.
“An old friend of mine. She introduced me into the guild and helped me multiple times.” I answered.
“makes sense but, why did she say that you were dead” She asked clearely interestedin the topic.
“Just a joke between us two, nothing too big.” I lied.
“If that’s what you say…” She said with a big dose of scepticism in her voice.”So where are we going now?”
“to our hotel, I asked Cider to drop our armors there, also we have to get some sleep before tomorrow" I said.
Tomorrow…
I woke up around five a.m. . I picked up our armors, checked the weapons and bought whatever we needed in the Gunmarket with what we've had left.
Around seven a.m. Rose woke up. We ate at the hotel cafeteria and left for the contract. I took out the paper that was meant to have the address on it and, to my surprise, saw it was the contract itself.
It didn’t explain much but it did tell us where we were heading.
We were meeting up with a team of other mercenaries at the train station and were headed to Griffonstone. Our objective was to protect the governor of The Grifoni county.
The sun’s blaze hammered us to the ground. Tired, we barely moved forward anymore.
That day was a scorcher. Even without our armors me and Rainbow were sweating like crazy. Twilight was lucky enough to have a ragged cape to cover herself with, we traded it for my munitionless weapon earlier. We were slowly reaching the Equestria-Gryphonian border.
Twilight counted on the Gryphons to help us, since she helped them way back when.
We were on the brink of dying from exhaustion when a weird sound quietly creeped in.
I turned my head around only to see a weird contraption strolling in the distance.
A small amount of thick black smoke was erupting from it’s smokestack as it came in closer.
The thing grew in size with every moment and begun resembling a familiar vehicle. ‘is that a train?’ I thought but quickly dismissed this idea and continued on just going forward.
In a moments notice we all stared in awe at the weird contraption, that has now stopped right before us.
It was enormous in size, giant one pony tall wheels left a deeply carved trail on the ground. Multiple smoke stacks created a wall of thick smoke that was wide and thin at the same time.
From the contraption steeped out a pony dressed in blue leather thing with multiple pockets.
“You need a ride?” asked the Pony.
“wouldn’t mind but where are you shouted" I shouted trying to overcome the contraptions hissing.
“To Griffonstone" he shouted back.
I turned my head towards Twilight upon which I was met with a nod of approval, afterwards, we entered the contraption. Along us there were a few other ponies inside of the vehicle.
Later on we learned from those ponies that this vehicle was known as a bus, and was the major form of transportation between smaller villages where the train couldn’t or just didn’t reach. Near Griffonstone we also learned that this service was free of charge.
Once we arrived at Griffonstone Twilight was shocked to find out that the city was drastically different. It didn’t consist of broken down shacks with hay roofs. It now was a city sprawling with life and looked much alike Vanhoofer. There were ponies and griffons alike but, with the majority being in griffons. Everyone had some kind of an outfit, varying from standard fatigues to short dresses.
We took it to the streets, trying to find somepony or someone that we could trust, but to no avail.
I lead the way, with Twilight following closely behind. It was the middle of the night and Rainbow went off to try and find some place to sleep.
I decided to walk around the area with Twilight and also try to find a place to stay for the night.
It didn’t take long for it to start raining. We soaked to the last hair and begun to get cold. A sentry team of soldiers approached us and said that it’s dangerous to walk here at night and offered us a stay in some kind of a hotel for immigrants, but a really crappy one at that from how it sounded. So we refused the offer.
We continued down the street when I heard an unfamiliar metallic sound. I turned around, ready to fight, but saw nothing except a cold and rainy street. I turned back towards Twilight whom now looked slightly scared.
Her cape has completely soaked, and was of no use whatsoever. She was slightly shaking, probably because it was getting cold.
There was nowhere more left to go and we decided to hide in an alleyway between two buildings. It sheltered us from rain with multiple tiny roofs that stood over multiple sets of back doors. The alleway was covered in filth ad dirt from the streets, the weird green metalic containers rusted and broken. We've layed our beds made out of cardboard and Twilights cape and tried to sleep, with the cold pavement beneath us it was farely hard but sooner or later we've drifted off into dream world...
My eyes opened, a horrible scream filled the area. It changed into a whimper, then disappeared, sounds of flesh being torn off the bones and bones snapping taking its place.
Moments later dread filled my heart as I realised, I was inside a cage, and I wasn't the only one! There were cages, on all sides of the room, and ponies inside, most of them either sleeping or unconscious layed on the. Some were awake and looked like they saw death herself.
That, was the moment I realised Twilight wasn’t with me. A rush of adrenaline gripped me and pushed towards the bars to try and escape but to no avail. What followed was sadness slowly creeping in as adrenaline wore off.
‘I failed her, again’ I thought to myself staring down at the floor.
After a longer while and ponies after ponies being taken into a different room where the screams came from, a different sound became more and more apparent, it sounded like someone was arguing.
After that enraged Rainbow Dash stormed into the room. After her a griffon with the musket rifle followed.
She flew around the room first finding me and ordering the gryphon to open my cage and then flying off into the depths of the room.
Once my cage has been opened I was pushed outside the room. Outside a female gryphon awaited me and told me to wait for Rainbow to come back.
She had a noticeably different attire than other gryphons. It still was painted green and brown as the others but looked way more expensive.
In a few moments Rainbow came out with Twilight, whom looked terrified. The moment Rainbow begun talking to the gryphones in front I took Twilight under my wing, she didn’t have her cape anymore.
“Now Gilda, what are ALL those innocent ponies doing in those cages!?” Rainbow begun very angrily as we started making our way down the corridor.
“They are NOT INNOCENT! They serve the Grey Empire, and that’s good enough of a reason to just kill them all.” The gryphones answered sounding kinda’ offended.
“But why are you holding them here?”
“To show them, that they are not welcome here!”
Rainbow quieten down after that, she didn’t know how to respond. Knowing that all of ponykind except them wasn’t welcome somewhere seemed odd to her.
We continued down the weird circular shaped corridor. Within every four or five sets of doors there was one that had screams coming out from behind it. Twilight seemed to scour in fear as we passed by them.
“What’s wrong” I asked, but all I’ve gotten for a response was her getting closer underneath my wing and mumbling something to herself.
“What’s happening behind those ‘screaming doors’?” I asked the gryphones presumably named Gilda.
“We’re… Resocializing them" She answered with a long pause in between two parts of the sentence.
“What do you mean by ‘resocializing’?”
“Oh you know, teaching them that they are not welcome here.”
At that we all quieted down and simply continued down the corridor that the gryphones lead us through. It was wet and seemed oddly new, but that could be said about anything in here.
At some point we reached an intersection at which we turned right. At this point our surroundings changed completely. They now consisted of a small stream of dirty water and plant life seeping out from the orange stone that the round walls were made of.
We passed few a couple more of those intersections and Twilight seemed to regain her composure with each one that got us further from the cage room. When we reached our destination she was no longer underneath my wing but stood beside me with a an angry if not slightly frightened expression.
“Here we are Dash, Behind these doors you’ll find our commander. I won’t follow you inside but don’t try anything stupid.” the gryphones said.
At that Rainbow dash smirked and opened the door. Behind it was another corridor and a set of stairs.
We entered the corridor, with me closing the door shut as the gryphones ordered.
Immediately after the door has been shut, Rainbow stopped.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Beside the fact I have no idea where are we, I’d say I’m fine" I said.
“I can’t believe that the gryphons imprison and torture ponies! It doesn’t make any sense! What? You taught us friendship? Well that means you hate us and we have to punish you! This is un bel…” Twilight ranted until she got cut off by Rainbow.
“Twilight, stop! I don’t know why do they do this, but they must have a good reason for it.” Rainbow said.
“They better have one” Twilight said angrily and passed by Rainbow.
She lead the way up the stairs into a giant cylinder shaped room, brownish water flew around the room, with giant tubes spewing out and sucking the liquid. The air was infested with a weird smell.
We tread in to the middle of the water surrounded platform. I wanted to ask why was nobody there but the moment I decided to ask, part of the wall moved, revealing an elder gryphon sitting upon a stone throne, his head resting upon his claws, and one paw holding a grip of a pistol.
“So you are that group of ponies ‘Qualified’ to speak with me. I expected better.” he said. “Anyways, what can you possibly want? Don’t waste my time.” He stated and afterwards waved a gesture with one of his paws.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle, the princess of Friendship and I demand you release all of my kind from your imprisonment!” Twilight boldly demanded, upon which the gryphon began laughing.
“I don’t think *gasp* you know in what situation you are…” he paused to laugh a little bit more, Rainbow just as I began to worry and tried to tell something Twilight but got immediately cut off by the gryphon. “You were held in prison, and were released as an act of goodwill since one of my fellows trusts you. And here you stand, demanding something from me, what a weird race you ponies are!” he stated and broke into laughter
We stood there quietly for a moment, no pony going as far as to take a breath. Then Twilight broke the silence.
“Why are you doing this?” Twilight spoke, quietly and calmly.
“Tell me ‘princess’, do you know what kind of feeling revenge gives one?” He asked, at which Twilight nodded in disapproval. “Pleasure, immeasurable joy that fills you to the brim. That’s the feeling.” he stated, with a bit of maniacism in his voice.
“But revenge for what?” Twilight asked.
Afterwards the gryphon looked baffled, his mind could not comprehend something, but we did not know what it was at the time.
“Where are you from exactly? Which county?” He asked after regaining his composure.
“We are not from a county! We are from Equestria!” Twilight proudly stated. “or, were I guess…” She corrected herself, with sadness in her voice.
The gryphon pondered for a moment, he waved his claw and a gryphon came into view, they exchanged a few sentences and then the leader got off of his throne.
“So you say that this giant pacifistic isolationist Princedom of yours has fallen?” The Gryphon leader asked.
“Yes, yes it has.” Twilight sadly stated, her gaze now stuck to the ground.
“hmmm… possibly you could be useful” Gryphon pondered. “I suppose you don’t have a home at the moment, since we found you in an alleyway.” He stated and turned back to the other gryphon.
“You really chose to sleep in an alleyway?” Rainbow whispered to me.
“We didn’t really have a choice you know? And where in Celestia's name were you?” I responded a tad annoyed.
“um… I don’t really…”
“On behalf of the kingdom of Griffonstone, I shall give you an opportunity, to prove that you really are who you present yourselves as.” the gryphon leader announced, additionally, interrupting Rainbow.
“And how can we prove that?” Twilight asked.
“Tell me ‘Princess’, if you are a spy from the empire, would I tell you what is the test, so you could relay it to your friends, and get a response on how to act. No! And that means you can either accept the offer or reject it, your choice.” he asked.
“We don’t really have a choice.” Twilight whispered to us “Yes, we do want to prove to you who we are.” She stated.
“Great!” he declared happily “Now once you leave this chamber a group of soldiers will lead you into you quarters.” he stated. Moments later he disappeared behind a waterfall and we heard a wall move back in its place.
We all looked around the chamber if anything new or changed but nothing happened, and so we traced our steps back to the metal door.
The moment we stepped outside a group of armed gryphons escorted us into a set of corridors, down a few floors, and finally into our quarters. They were a small room with three stacks of hay acting as beds, probably.
We were pushed into the room and got locked inside. Twilight tried to use magic for something but the moment her horn begun emitting a violet glow, same four gryphons came in, upper handed us and put a magic blocking ring on twilight's horn.
Some time later we all decided that there was no point in trying to escape, and settled for some sleep instead.