Unexpected Boundaries

"HELP!" Giovanni the gryphon shouted as he flew away from the young black unicorn that was in hot pursuit. This unicorn was frightening by the fact that he was dashing in the sky using his magic to make shields that served as footholds. The Gryphon was flying at top speed but it was no match for the pony was slowly catching up. The unicorn's horn glowed brighter as a black chain flew form the tip and zeroed in on the terrified gryphon. There was a scream of dismay as the chain bound it's victim into a helpless stance and the unicorn lowered the two to the ground.

"Let! Me! Go!" Giovanni shouted recieving a quick buck to the beak.

"Shut up. If you know who I am then you must know how much I despise gryphons." The unicorn spat levitating his prey beside him as they started heading for the nearest town.

"Come on Star, if you hate me that much then why don't you kill me on the spot?" Giovanni asked struggling against the chains that bound him.

"The only reason you're alive is because your bounty drops by half if you're turned in dead. Though it says nothing about roughing you up." Star grinned greedily.

"I'll make you a deal, if you let me go I'll show you where I attacked a couple. They might still be alive." The gryphon pleaded.

"You're a liar, thief, and murderer. Why would I believe you?"

"Even Discord will tell the truth to get out of a fix." Geovanni grinned. But his bartering tactics having failed to tempt the unicorn had sealed his fate.

"Star Guardian, you are the best rookie bounty hunter in all of equestria." The unicorn patted himself on the back as he walked toward his forest home. The capture of Giovanni had netted him a pretty 20,000 bits to add to his already large savings. Though what Giovanni said still nagged at the back of his mind.

Meh, he was just trying to escape, but I'll look anyway.

He scoured the whole forest and found nothing until he neared his house. There, lying on the ground were both a mare and stallion. From just a glance anypony could tell what had happened. "Gryphon attack." Star mouthed in shock. He ran over to the stallion but felt no pulse. He was startled by the mare who had shifted her position slightly. Upon closer examination she was still alive but was fading fast. She lifted her hoof revealing a tiny yellow foal. The baby gazed upon Star with big bright eyes before grabbing his hoof and laughing.

"Maple." The mother choked out as the last of the light in her eyes was replaced by clouds. Star looked at the foal with pitiful eyes, knowing exactly how it felt to be utterly alone in the world. He gazed at the autum leaves that were still on the trees and began to ponder.

"Maple Leaf. That's a pretty name." He finally said scooping up the foal, and continuing the trek to his house. Once home he pulled out his map of equestria and tapped his hoof on a small town. "What do you think about moving to ponyville? I've heard it's peaceful this time of year." He asked Maple who began laughing again. "Then it's settled! We're moving to Ponyville!"

"Daddy? You're still comming to family apprreciation day right?" The bright eyed filly with twin pigtails asked.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Star grinned happily, getting a squeal of happyness from Maple.

Several years had passed since they'd moved to Ponyville, Star had stayed home with Maple until she was old enough to go to school and even then he got a job only to kill time until she got out.

"Seeing as today's the last day of school let's have family appreciation day outside." Cheerilee said as she lead her students to where the black unicorn was waiting. "Mr. Star, would you please tell us about yourself?"

"It's just Star, and sure. I work for the Ponyville construction agency, we're responsible for building new houses, stores, and other structures. Like the Ponyville clock tower."

"Psh, boring! And you don't even look like a construction worker." Scootaloo interruped. "Besides you don't even have a construction cutie mark."

Star gazed at the shield with the double cresent moons on his flank and sighed. "You're looking for my cutie mark story, right?" He asked the orange filly who rolled her eyes. "I came from a small village where powerful unicorns were said to hail from. That village had been putting its members into the royal guard for centuries, one day we held a tournament to see who would get a scholarship into the royal academy and I won. That's when my cutie mark appeared, but a few days later a gryphon raid burned down the whole village and wiped out everypony that was living there. They didn't know I was alive and you can't give a scholarship to a dead pony so I didn't get to go."

"Yeah right. I'd sooner believe that Discord was a fairy princess." Diamond Tiara said getting a glare from Cheerilee but a chorus of laughter from the other students.

"That was a very interesting story." A purple unicorn said as she walked over to Star.

"Twilight? What are you doing here so soon?" Cheerilee asked.

"You said that you were letting the children out early and you wanted to grab some lunch with me." A puzzled Twilight replied.

"Yes, we were. Star is there anything else you would like to add?" Cheerilee said not wanting to make Twilight wait.

"Have we met before? I feel like I've seen you somewhere before." Twilight said to Star.

"I'd say so, you were Maple's tutor. I greatly appreciated the help you were able to provide." Star replied with a nod of the head.

Twilight's eyes went wide when she realized where she'd seen the pony, "Star Guardian? The famous rookie bounty hunter? Celestia was going give you a medal for the capture of the fifth most dangerous outlaw in equestria!"

The fillies who had lost interest had suddenly perked up due to this new information. Star facehoofed the moment Twilight's words escaped her lips, and even she seemed to had known what she had done. Since this info had come from Ponyville's famed egghead it had to be true.

"A real life bounty hunter? That is so awesome!" Scootaloo said as she ran over to the unicorn, "Please show me your awesome moves!"

"I regret to announce that I have no 'moves'. I could show you how to lift a steel beam using magic though." Star desperately tried to change the subject, though nopony was buying it.

"One little demonstration wouldn't hurt anypony right?" Twilight pleaded wanting to see this unicorn in action.

"No. I gave that up a long time ago. And nopony will convince me otherwise." Star rejected them.

"Okay," The purple earth pony said like scolding her students "have a funny summer!" Nopony had a chance to leave the scoolgrounds though as an angry griffon screeched above them. All of their eyes went wide as they traced the noise to it's source, the very happy griffon looming overhead.

"Everypony! Hit the deck!" Star commanded as the Griffon dived straight for them. All of the ponies did as they were told allowing Star to put a barrier over all of them. But oddly enough the Gryphon gently landed on the shield and eyed Star hungrily.

"Star, just how stupid do you think I am?" A familiar voice said through the dome. Star's eyes were the size of dinner plates as he came face to face with equestria's fifth most dangerous outlaw, Giovanni.

"I'll fight you, but only if you agree to my conditions." Star began to barter.

"No, I've still got a score to settle from last time." Giovanni grinned as his powerful beak punched a hole in the barrier.

This turn of events was enough to scare all of the fillies into running for their lives most ran into the school but the cutie mark crusaders followed Maple in climbing the nearby tree. Star and Twilight stood their ground as Cheerilee ran into the building to console her students.

"Still gonna deny being a bounty hunter?" Twight asked as she stood at the ready to duke it out.

"Only if I die here." He smirked as the gryphon prepared to strike.

"The princess's personal student? What a big bonus I'm going to recieve." Giovanni said hungrily.

The gryphon was much faster than last time, in the blink of an eye Twilight was sent sailing through the air like a pegasus and Star's back was to the tree. Star smirked as a pair of black chains erupted from the ground and attempted to bind Giovanni, but he was too fast. The gryphon was up in the air before the chains got near him. With an ear piercing screech he dived towards the ground pinning Star in the process. This was too much for Maple's eyes, she knew that she had to do something but what? An idea popped into her head, not a bright one but it was her only shot. She jumped out of the tree and onto the gryphon's back. She took in a deap breath and before Giovanni had time to react she'd burried her face deep in his feathers clinging onto them as tightly as she could with her teeth, she then proceeded to flail helplessly on his back. The gryphon was in pain but proceeded to finish with this target before moving to the one on his back. "Come on crusaders, do you wanna live forever?" Scootaloo asked loudly as she followed Maple's example, causing Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle to join in the fray. The pain was unbearable as the gryphon's focus momentarily changed to the four fillies flailing around on his back. Star used this window of opportunity to launch a chain right into the gryphon's jaw knocking him off balance before rescuing the filies on his back. A blast of violet light crashing into his legs was enough to finish the job as Giovanni crashed into the ground before being chained up by Star.

"You mentioned getting paid to kill us. Who is your employer?" Star barked.

"Kill me." Giovanni moaned. "I failed, I'm a dead gryphon anyways."

"But." Twilight started to object as Star put his glowing horn to Giovanni's throat.

"Any last requests?" Star whispered quietly enough that only the two of them could hear.

"Yeah, take down the organization that hired me, the Shadow Alliance." Giovanni's breathing began to slow.

"How will I find them?"

"Just follow the blue sphere." Giovanni said with his dying breath. His body lie there for a moment when a blue sphere left his mouth and darted off towards the notheast.

"Did you kill him?" Twilight asked getting a quick nod in reply.

"How could you kill him?"

"Euthanisation spell. It was the cleanest and most painless way to go." He snapped at her. "Look I'm going to need a sitter for Maple. Can I trust you with the job?"

"Why?" Maple asked with teary eyes. "Don't you love me any more?"

"I love you very much, but I'm going where it's dangerous and I don't want to see my precious little girl get hurt." He replied pulling her into a hug.

"I'm going too." Twilight interrupted completely ruining the moment. "They came after me too, and I want some answers."

"You realize it'll only be the two of us right?" Star asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"If that's what it takes to get answers, then yes." Twilight adamantly replied.

"I'll watch over Maple." Cheerilee sighed having heard the whole discussion from the schoolhouse.

"I'll behave." Maple pouted thinking that it was going to be one boring summer at Cheerilee's house.

The two ponies walked in the direction the sphere had gone as they set off on their adventure.