Homicidal Psycho Jungle Griff
Griffons were technically omnivorous, and despite their many shortcomings as a society, they were considered civilized. But there was still no denying that they were apex predators. They were, after all, part-cat in a way. Which meant all of the typical hunting behaviors you’d expect in such a predator still very much applying to any griffon.
Such as pouncing.
This isn’t a skill a griffon knows from birth though, it is one that must be learned. Though none of them were really ever seriously his friends, Gallus did have good memories as a youth while growing up on the streets of Griffonstone of play-pouncing with other griffons his age, a game that had never gotten old and usually was the best sort of entertainment you could get at that age anyway. For a griffon it was tons of fun…especially if you were the one successfully doing the pouncing.
Of course, now that Gallus was older, he didn’t play-pounce anywhere nearly as much as he had as a cub. But every now and then, he still got into a “mood” per se, and had an itch to practice his pouncing on whatever was available. He privately kept around a few toys for this purpose, but pouncing on nonliving, immobile, toys could only be so much fun. What was really fun was having someone else to pounce on, someone who’d react back.
And as it happened, Gallus now knew five other creatures who’d be just perfect for this purpose.
Better still—none of them were griffons like him, and so he couldn’t be sure just how they’d react, adding to the unpredictability and challenge of it. So much the better.
He chose his first target as Smolder, the dragoness standing by herself in the dormitory hallway, leaning on a column and watching the world go by. She had her back turned to Gallus, hidden around a nearby corner. Perfect. Keeping himself low to the ground, he smirked as he slinked forward, sneaking stealthily up behind the dragon until he was just a few paces behind her. She still hadn’t reacted to Gallus’s presence or given any sign at all that she suspected he was there or that there was a danger nearby. She hadn’t even tensed.
Feeling the thrill of the hunt coursing through his veins, Gallus crouched low, tucking all four legs tightly under him, coiling up in preparation to spring. His tail silently flicked back and forth in anticipation. He was close enough to not need his wings, so he kept the feathery appendages pressed tightly to his sides, giving them no chance of throwing him off balance. He waited another second to be absolutely certain that Smolder suspected nothing. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Gallus was experienced enough in the art of pouncing to know that even if Smolder was pretending to not suspect, there’d still be some sign of it—a tensed muscle, a droplet of sweat, and so on.
Actually, did dragons sweat at all? They were basically reptiles…but then because of their firebreath, Ocellus said they constantly maintained a hot core temperature, so…
No, no, don’t get distracted! Stay focused.
Gallus gave it another second longer to be absolutely certain his targeted prey was unaware and would not try to flee. Though a chase could be fun too…a small part of him almost wished she did try to flee, if only for the added challenge. But no, when he was feeling “pouncy,” the best solution was to curtail any fleeing and pounce.
So Gallus pounced.
He pushed off first with his front legs, which got him started going up into the air, but it was his hindlegs pushing off the floor that were doing most of the work, stretching out to their full length as he vaulted himself up and up. In mere milliseconds, he was already shooting up to a point above Smolder’s full height, and he still hadn’t reached the peak of his jump. When he had, though, he continued arching through the sky, starting to point downwards to come down right atop of the dragon.
By then, Smolder had realized something was wrong and twisted around to look, eyes going wide at the sight of him starting to shoot down towards her. Her surprise only confirmed that she had been completely unsuspecting, and Gallus couldn’t help but smirk as he quickly moved towards her.
Unfortunately, Smolder moved quicker.
When most would just freeze and tense up at the sight of a griffon leaping at them and just a blink of an eye away from impacting, Smolder reacted, grabbing Gallus’s left leg with both claws before he could lay a talon on her and, using that leg as a lever, yanked him bodily right out of the air, swinging him up and over her head and down, back first, into the floor, slamming into it hard.
For a moment, neither of them moved except to gasp for breath, Smolder because of the strain of the effort and Gallus because the impact with the floor had winded him.
Finally, Smolder straightened, glaring down at the griffon. “So,” she panted, “now that that’s over…what are we going to do now?”
“To seek revenge,” Gallus vowed from the floor. He flinched from a painful tinge running up his spine. “Also maybe go find a nurse.”
Smolder rolled her eyes, annoyed, and released her grip on Gallus’s leg, letting it drop limply onto the floor. “Well, you’re on your own for that, you homicidal…psycho…jungle griff!”
She stalked off. Upside-down, Gallus watched her go. “I’m still going to take that as a compliment!” he called after her.
“You do that, then!” she snapped back.
To be fair, dragons were fairly apex predators themselves. Inevitably, they were going to know all of the same pouncing tricks as a griffon would. So it made sense that they would have some way of defending themselves against them. They wouldn’t be very good predators if they didn’t, right?
Either way, while Gallus figured that this false start was just a fluke, it was probably better to start pouncing with someone not as…vengeful…as Smolder would be.
And the polar opposite of Smolder was Ocellus, which you couldn’t get much better than that.
Gallus found her in a study hall, surrounded by books and in the process of reading one. He assumed she was doing some personal reading, as none of the books she had with her seemed like any of their usual schoolbooks for classes, but it didn’t really matter. The point was that she was nicely distracted, perfectly vulnerable for a good pounce.
Still, Gallus knew that he was dealing with a changeling here, a creature that can sense emotions. If he wasn’t careful, she’d sense his before he could leap, giving her time to react, and of course, Gallus didn’t want that. Catching his pouncing target unaware was all part of the fun, after all. So the first thing he did was do everything he could to calm his body, making it as emotively neutral as he could think to do so.
Considering how excited and itchy for a good pounce he was, this was no small task and the effort should be appreciated.
Once he had done that, he proceeded to do much as he had done with Smolder, starting taking up position to pounce. As there wasn’t a good spot in the room to do it from directly behind, Gallus instead took position more to one side of Ocellus. A riskier approach, but he wasn’t too worried—Ocellus was well known for getting quite engrossed in her reading, so he was confident that she wouldn’t see him coming. That done, he gauged the right spot to make the leap from so he could land exactly where targeted and crouched low, pulling his legs in close to his body like before. He was like a spring being pressed down as far as it could go, filled to the brim with kinetic energy pressing back, ready to release and spring forth. The anticipation was tangible and Gallus could barely wait.
So, assured Ocellus was oblivious, he didn’t.
He leapt into the air, talons outstretched towards the unsuspecting changeling as he sailed towards her. Unlike Smolder, Ocellus didn’t react to his presence until much later, only as his shadow passed over her book and she looked up to determine what the source was. Her pupiless blue eyes bulged when she saw the griffon bearing down on her, Gallus already close enough that he could just see his image in them reflecting back at him.
Boy, did he look awesome.
But more importantly, he had Ocellus right where he wanted her, alarmed, frozen in terror, and primed for the perfect pouncing. And as he arched back down towards the ground, blood excitedly thumping in his ears, he knew he had reached the point that there was no way this could go wrong now.
Then Ocellus vanished in a burst of magical cyan flames.
He had just enough time to see the small rock she had transformed into thump to the floor below him and to abruptly twist his talons downwards towards her, desperate to save it, before he overshot her completely and sailed on past. And because he had attempted to twist around to grab her at the last second, this had put his body in the unfortunate position of allowing him to slam into the floor face first. His momentum then caused him to skid a couple more feet across the smooth tile, rubbing his cheek raw in the process, until he thumped into the room’s far wall and crumpled into a limp heap, rump pointing up in the air.
Annoyed and his cheek stinging, Gallus huffily blew the tip of his tail out of his face. “Right,” he groused to himself, “forgot she could do that.”
Trying to pounce on fellow predators was all well and good for the added challenge that presented, with the extra thrill and complexity the task provided for doing it successfully…but maybe it was time to go back to basics and pounce on something more truly a prey species.
A yak like Yona seemed to fit the ticket nicely. And with her being so large, how could you possibly miss?
Gallus found her reading the announcements board in the school’s main lobby. An unfortunately more public place than he would’ve preferred, but there were plenty of columns to hide behind, so he could make it work. Besides, it was the afternoon in the middle of the weekend—there was hardly anyone around at the moment anyway. The only complications that he could see were two ponies standing and conversing nearby, but on the other side of the room from them and seemed totally oblivious to Gallus even being there. It was a pity that would change after he pounced on Yona right under their noses, otherwise he’d be really tempted trying to pounce on them next. Maybe make a challenge of it once he was warmed up and try to take both of them down simultaneously.
But he digressed.
For right now, he had Yona in his sights, and like all of his attempted targets before, she was distracted and unaware to his presence. He could see her moving her lips as she read the announcements off the board to herself. But he had also learned from his past two failures, so he quickly scouted out the yak, making sure she was truly as unaware as she appeared and would not be getting the drop on him like the others before her had. He did this by slinking back and forth between columns as he made his way closer, going from one side of Yona to the other, testing her awareness.
She did nothing to react to his presence, and there seemed to be nothing that would give him away prematurely.
Good.
He wasn’t sure how much longer Yona would be staying there reading the announcements, though. Surely there couldn’t be many left she still had to read. So, without further delay, he dropped low and started sneaking towards her. His paw and talon steps sounded louder in the big empty lobby, but Gallus treaded carefully to keep this noise down to a minimum. Yona did not give any sign that she had noticed anyway.
Finally, he arrived at a spot just a few feet behind her, her back end almost filling his view. In his head, he had to repress the desire to make a naughty joke. Pouncing was serious business and had no room for such immaturity.
Besides, Yona never appreciated such jokes, and Gallus didn’t want to have to deal with Sandbar’s flak should he find out—as he usually did—that he had been making such jokes about his girl.
He geared up again to make the leap, tucking his legs and wings in close, and this time he had enough room to put his all into it, causing him to raise his wriggling rump slightly into the air in the process. He was ready, and the thrill of the pounce taking him over again, he vaulted himself into the air.
Everything went smoothly and perfectly. Yona, unlike the others, didn’t even notice he had leapt, and her attention remained focused on the announcement board as he sailed up and then down, aiming to pounce upon her low back. Gallus eagerly felt the thrill of a successful pounce triple within his heart, feeling victorious as he, at last, completed the pounce, latching onto his intended target.
He then quickly realized two very big problems. One was that Yona was much bigger than he had planned for or expected, and he struggled to find purchase holding his grip on her. As he scrambled to keep on, he realized he could slide off of the yak again if he didn’t get it together and then it’ll have been pretty much pointless. But it was the second problem that was the most disappointing—Yona hadn’t reacted to his pounce. At all. She hadn’t flinched, not even wobbled from the impact of his body slamming into hers. She hadn’t even noticed, as she kept right on reading the announcements, unaware. It was like he wasn’t even there. He might as well have tried to pounce a statue.
The dissatisfaction of this second problem caused him to lose the motivation to keep trying to resolve the first, and he ended up slowly and ineffectively sliding off of Yona, plopping down onto his butt. He just sat there annoyed for a moment until Yona, apparently finishing, finally turned around entirely of her own volition and noticed him sitting there.
“Hello Gallus!” she greeted cheerfully, though with some surprise. “When did griffon get there?”
Gallus just scowled at her. “So you didn’t even feel that pounce at all, huh?” he grumbled.
Yona just stared at him blankly. “Yona not understand what Gallus talking about.”
Gallus just let out a frustrated growl and stalked off. “What are you staring at?” he hissed at the two other ponies in the room as he walked past them, who had stopped talking to stare at the events unfolding.
Maybe he was going about this the wrong way. In fact, maybe trying to play-pounce with someone that’s not another fellow griffon wasn’t such a good idea after all. Perhaps what he needed to do was get back into pouncing something he was more familiar with. What he needed was another griffon.
A hippogriff was close enough, right? “Griff” was still in the name at least, so surely it was.
Gallus found Silverstream outside, frolicking around in a nearby field. He watched from a nearby bush as she pranced playfully around, play-pouncing on flowers. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who was feeling a little pouncy today. So much the better—Silverstream was more likely to just play along, and then maybe they both could scratch their respective pouncing itches.
…actually, that gave his mind a really weird mental image, so Gallus resolved to never put it that way again.
Shaking that distraction from his head though, he started inching his way towards the hippogriff, moving carefully and silently. The field was filled with tall grass, so if he stayed low, it was easy to sneak up on her unseen, even with his blue coloring not exactly giving him the most natural of camouflages for the environment. Besides, you couldn’t ask for a more traditional pouncing arrangement than this. This felt raw, natural, unhindered by modernity…this was the sort of pouncing his long-distant ancestors from ancient times would do.
Better still, Silverstream remained oblivious to the slight rustling in the grass sneaking towards her. She was too busy with her own play-pouncing to take notice of her surroundings—a critical error to make. A good and practiced pouncer was always aware of their surroundings, even at the moment of the pounce. Otherwise another creature just might get the drop on you too.
And Gallus certainly knew all about that after how today had gone thus far, but he chose not to dwell on that.
He wondered if maybe Silverstream was just out of practice…she did spend a large part of her life living underwater. Did hippogriffs even do pouncing underwater? Could you do pouncing underwater? Or was all the water too much of a hindrance and you had to resort to other tactics?
Questions for later. Gallus again shook the distractions from his mind.
What was important for right now was that he was thus far catching Silverstream totally unaware. As it should be, but he also knew that he’d assumed that several times already today only to have his pounce not pan out anyway, so he decided to give himself the extra challenge by taking the precaution of sneaking his way around the unsuspecting hippogriff in a full and fairly wide circle. By the time he was back where he started, he saw nothing amiss or anything he thought might be a problem, and Silverstream was still unaware he was even there, still preoccupied with her own pouncing on flowers.
Honestly, it seemed pouncing flowers wasn’t quite doing it for her, because she was only looking more wound up than when he first found her. Clearly, her pouncy needs weren’t being met.
So Gallus decided to give her a pouncing playmate.
Committing to the pounce, he started moving closer and into position. He thought at first trying to pounce from behind, but Silverstream was too active currently to be sure she’d stay still long enough, so he chose instead to approach from the side. That way, he could watch her face and get a better read of her immediate intentions and react accordingly. From there, the rest was fairly routine. Legs and wings in, coiling up to leap, and so on. He paused both to wait for the right moment and to make sure Silverstream wasn’t going to make any sudden movements, but he saw her hunker down too, gearing up to pounce another unsuspecting flower. Good—she’d be vulnerable while she’s gauging it up, so Gallus decided to beat her to the punch and leapt.
Like all of his attempts before, the pounce began beautifully, sending him arcing gracefully and fearsomely up into the air, on target to start coming back down on the unwary hippogriff.
Then Silverstream leapt for her pounce too.
Worse still, she leapt in a direction Gallus hadn’t anticipated, putting her head-on right into the path of his own leap. She didn’t notice the problem until she was already well into the air and suddenly caught sight of Gallus in her peripheral vision, head twisting to look at him and wide-eyed. By then Gallus, realizing the imminent collision, started to throw out his wings to brake, trying to abort the pounce, but he reacted a second too late.
With a loud CRACK they painfully ran, head-first, into each other before dropping disorderly back onto the ground with ungraceful fwumps, cradling their aching skulls. They remained like that for a good number of moments, just trying to recover from the impact.
And neither of them had successfully pounced on anything.
Oddly, Silverstream lost interest in continuing to pounce after that and decided to turn in early, complaining of a sudden headache.
But Gallus was, if anything, feeling even more pouncy, so much so that he felt like his own cells would start pouncing each other if he didn’t get a good pounce in sometime soon.
But in light of every other pounce he’d attempted today having ended in failure and growing desperate, he turned his pouncing sights onto what he’d knew would be the easiest, most unchallenging of targets available to him—Sandbar.
Now Sandbar was normally a pretty chill pony. It took a lot to get him really worked up much about anything. But for some reason, just the mere idea of him getting pounced seemed to be one of the few exceptions, always guaranteeing to put him on edge. Perhaps it was some latent equine instinct giving him an understandable leeriness to pouncing, with mind of the usual implications that followed, at least out in the wild. Gallus obviously had no intention of doing that part of the pouncing though. This was all just for play, to relieve a pent up, primal energy, of sorts.
But Sandbar didn’t seem to see it that way, which was part of the reason why Gallus had saved trying Sandbar for last, and why he hadn’t really seriously tried to pounce on him before now, even though the two shared dorm rooms and he’d long been a convenient and easy target. He’ll likely spook the pony badly pouncing him, and then feel so badly about it that he’ll then have to turn around and do the thing he hated having to do due to how hard and embarrassing it always was for him.
Apologize.
Indeed, there was some internal debate about whether or not pouncing or sparing himself that embarrassment was more important to him. Suffice it to say, pouncing still won out—he really wanted to pounce something. He hoped that once he’d sufficiently explained to Sandbar the situation (after the planned pounce, of course), he’d understand and spare Gallus the need to apologize much. Granted, it wasn’t much of a plan, but Gallus fully conceded that he was basically grasping at straws at this point.
Regardless, he went and sought out Sandbar and found him as the colt happened to be exiting the boys’ restroom. Gallus quickly ducked around a corner as he appeared and was pleased to see that Sandbar, turning in the direction opposite of him, hadn’t noticed and kept walking. Discreetly, Gallus followed, thrilled by this little development as it pandered to his stalk and hunt instincts well. If he pulled this off, it’ll help make the final pounce feel all the more rewarding.
He even debated trying to pounce Sandbar while he was walking, so to give himself a moving target as a challenge. But then he realized that defeated part of the point of choosing to target Sandbar in the first place. A challenge wasn’t what he needed right now, he just needed to pounce something that’s not an inanimate squeak toy. So he kept following at a distance, waiting until Sandbar reached wherever it was he was going and settled down. This was relatively simple—Sandbar only looked behind him once, and Gallus was able to quickly duck out of sight before he could catch a good glimpse of the griffon, leaving Gallus certain that he remained in the clear.
Eventually, though, he realized Sandbar was heading for the school cafeteria, probably for an early meal, and that was a problem. Even in-between mealtimes, the cafeteria was usually filled with other creatures, if not for eating then for some other activity that was convenient to hold there. There would be plenty of witnesses that would no doubt see Gallus stalking Sandbar and do something to alert his target. If he was going to pounce Sandbar, it would have to before he got in there.
Deciding on the moving pounce after all, he proceeded to prep to leap, working at closing the gap between them quickly but discreetly, without alerting the colt. The pounce was going to have to work a little differently this time as he needed to keep his legs out for a final running leap, but otherwise many of the other steps were much the same. He was pleased to see that, as he closed in, Sandbar still seemed unaware. Gallus knew he was certainly going to spook him pretty good then. It occurred to him that Sandbar might panic once pounced, presenting new challenges he’d have to deal with and have to do something to calm him down again, but he chose not to dwell on that for now.
That would be future Gallus’s problem.
As Sandbar turned onto the final stretch for the cafeteria though, he saw it was all or nothing now, anyway. Committing to it then, Gallus galloped forward as quietly as he could, gaining on Sandbar until he was a couple feet away then leapt into the air already at full speed. He was thrilled to quickly see that despite the haste of his preparations, the pounce was already off to a beautiful start and completely on target. Sandbar didn’t even start to react until a second too late, starting to twist around in alarm in time for Gallus to land atop of him, quickly moving his talons to latch onto the pony. Frightened, Sandbar quickly started to squirm and twist away, but Gallus worked to hold him down, determined to make this pounce the one. He felt Sandbar rear up to try and throw him off, but he only tightened his grip, confident that it wouldn’t be that easy for the pony.
Then the next thing Gallus knew, he was peeling himself off the nearby wall, two distinctly hoof-shaped bruises already forming on his chest.
“Right,” he gasped to himself, sliding onto the floor in a limp heap, “earth pony…wickedly strong kicks…ooohhh…”
So this was what it was like to be future Gallus.
It hurt a lot more than he expected.
Meanwhile, Sandbar, now free of his perceived attacker and in control of the situation, turned around to investigate only for his eyes to bulge upon seeing it was Gallus he had just bucked off of his back. “Gallus! Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…I…I didn’t know…I…I thought…”
“It’s okay,” Gallus wheezed, waving off his attempts to help, “My fault.”
Sandbar still winced, having an idea of the griffon’s pain. “You…going to be okay?”
“Yeah…just need to writhe around on the floor in agony for a second or two, then I’ll be good. Probably.”
So in the end, Gallus went back to his room, defeated, sore all over, and having never successfully pounced on anyone to his satisfaction. That was probably the worst part of it all, the fact that he still had that burning need to pounce pulsing through his veins. But what more could he do? He had failed to pounce on all of his chosen targets for one reason or another, and now they’re not only going to all be on guard for any possible second attempts, some of them would probably actively resist him if he tried again.
And he’d suffered enough bodily harm for one day, he felt.
Though probably what stung the most wasn’t his physical body, it was his pride. He was supposed to be a mighty griffon that could pounce as he pleased and not have to worry about dumb problems like this.
Dejected, he sat down on the floor with a heavy sigh, at a loss for a solution to the problem. He supposed he could try to just make do pouncing with one of his toys…but it just wasn’t the same, and some days you just wanted the real thing. But if not his friends, what else could he use that would work? And given his long list of failures today, would he even have any more luck with it than before? He wasn’t sure if his pride could withstand any more blows like this.
He scanned the room almost desperately for inspiration, but none readily stood out to him. That is until he felt something brush against his leg and he looked down to see it was the fuzzy tip of his tail, which had been swishing back and forth excitedly, in anticipation for the oncoming pounce still yet to arrive. He hadn’t even really noticed it was moving, as he wasn’t giving it any real conscious thought. It was almost like his tail had a mind of its own.
Hey…
Gallus locked his eyes on the tip of his tail, moving them as his tail kept moving back and forth. He couldn’t for the life of him get it to stay still, but then he didn’t really want it too either. He studied its movements, finding the pattern, determining where it would be when he made his move. He remained seated, but he still proceeded into the usual pouncing motions—legs and wings in, coiling up to leap, yadda, yadda, yadda…he at least had this part down pat. He watched his tail move for another moment longer, reminding himself that it was still attached to his rump so it’ll get pulled along the same time he moved it, and worked to plan accordingly.
And then he pounced.
It wasn’t much of a pounce, in the sense that he didn’t really leap onto the tip of his tail so much as he threw his talons down upon it, but it was close enough him, feeling the thrill of victory rush up his spine as he pinned his own tail to the floor, feeling it twitch and writhe as he held it down. Then it went still, as if conceding defeat.
Gallus held it there for a second, then glanced up almost worriedly as he scanned the room, half expecting something, anything, to happen that would take this victory away from him somehow, like all the other times today. But nothing happened. His tail remained exactly where he wanted it to be, under his talons and properly pounced.
Breaking out into a grin, he straightened, triumphant. “Yes!” he declared, pumping a fist, “Still got it!”
Author's Note
Just a silly little idea I had over Thanksgiving weekend. It had to wait a week or two, but I got around to making it a reality regardless. 
