Resilience (Under Revision)

Location: Griffonstone
1000 A.B. - After Banishment
Time: 10:47 PM

The streets of Griffonstone were often vacant during the night. Its unknown if its from the criminals that lurk in each dark corner or the untrustworthiness of others, but the citizens of the city have come to fear the things in the dark. However there are some places that refuse to crumble under the oppressive darkness, and one of these places had an old green sign in front of it that said, "The Lucky Seven Tavern". Contrary to the name though, it seemed that the only thing lucky about the tavern was how it could have stayed open for so long with its creaking floor boards and cracked walls.

Crunching could be heard along the gravel road as Gilda walked towards the steps of the rickety building, the sounds of the crowd inside getting louder by the moment.

Letting out a quiet yawn, Glida rubbed the dark bags under her eyes as she pushed open the doors to the tavern. Cringing a bit at the smell of drunk griffons and vomit, she moved over to a lone table that had a female griffon sitting upon it.

'Out of all the places she could choose to meet up, why does it always has to be here?' Gilda thought to herself as she stepped over a passed out griffon.

The griffoness was smaller than herself with dark brown feathers with white specks adorning them, and was currently chugging down a mug of ale along with a half drunk griffon who looked like he was simultaneously on the verge of passing out and drowning at the same time. Slamming down her empty mug onto the rickety table, the griffoness raised a clenched claw in victory and let a out loud belch.

"I win!", she shouted over the crowd.

The drunken griffon she was drinking against, growled as he threw a bag of golden pences and stumbled back into the chaos around them.

A mirthless laugh escaped from Gilda's beak as she pulled out a chair next to the table. "You still trying to poison yourself Abby?", Gilda couldn't help but snark out as she sat next to the griffoness, who was too busy counting her coins to notice her.

Its been a little over a year after Gilda first met Abby, and coincidentally, it was this very tavern that they met one another. When she first entered through the rickety green entrance of the tavern, she saw Abby sitting upon a throne of which was made of drunken griffons and spilled mugs of ale proclaiming herself to anyone else still mildly conscious that none could match her, the "Champion of Ale". No one in the tavern bothered to rival her self proclaimed title, mostly because they were either passed out or on the verge of, except for one. Gilda stood and challenged Abby the tyrant for her throne of ale and it was that very night it seemed the drinking champion had finally met her match.

Abby's eyes snapped over to Gilda before lighting up. "Gilda! It's been too long, but I knew you would come back sometime."

Gilda waved down a waiter who placed another round of drinks onto their table. Taking a sip from her ale she placed it back down and chuckled. "Yeah. I needed a while to prepare before seeing your ugly face again."

"Yet you still came back to see it." Abby let out with a laugh. "Where have you been? For the last few weeks I had to rely on these lightweights for drinking partners and each one passes out by their fifth mug."

"I've been working Abby." Gilda took a another sip from her drink. "I had to pull a few extra shifts in order to cover some stuff, but I'm relieved for a few days now. Something about mandatory leave that my captain ordered me to take." A small growl left her as she continued. "Even though what I should be doing is going back out there."

"You might think that, but no one else does. Anyone can take one look at you and tell you, you like shit." Abby patted her on the shoulder. "You should take this break seriously. Just by the way you look I can see that you haven't had much sleep." She took a large gulp from her drink. "Is there something you want to talk about? For some reason I doubt you came back just for old times sake."

Gilda didn't respond immediately, instead she sat there swirling the brownish liquid in her cup. Letting out a sigh, she set her mug back down and ran a claw through her head feathers. "Nah not really. Just a bit tired. I guess I really did need a break from my work."

Abby stared at her for a moment, not believing for a moment that was the truth, but opted to just shrug it off rather than pursue it. "Whatever you say G. Hey by the way there were a few soldiers that mentioned you earlier. I think they're still around."

Gilda arched her eye feathers. "Was it those guys from Charlie company again? I thought the last time I beat their asses they would leave us alone."

'I swear to the goddess, if one of them said anything about my flank again, I'll break their legs all over.'

"Oh no." Abby shook her head which caused Gilda to calm down slightly. "If it was them I wouldn't need to tell you, you would know as soon as you came in." Abby set down her drink and gestured to a table just on the other side of the tavern. "I was talking about them. They came in not too long ago talking about trying to find you."

Gilda turned and looked around the tavern before silently cursing at what she saw just a few tables down. The group of soldiers sitting across the room were none other but her team mates. It was strange seeing them outside of their armor, each one of them looking a lot different from the soldiers she was working with just a day or so before.

Nix was a smaller griffon, nearing the size of Abby and was much younger than she originally thought, maybe closer to being a teen than herself . She had glistening teal fur with dark blue head feathers, her feathers holding a type of gleam to them unlike most of the other soldiers Gilda saw within the city guard force, reminding her more of the Lords and Ladys that lived on the upper branches than anyone that could be found down here. For a moment Gilda thought that maybe Nix was a noble born, but she quickly dismissed that thought, why would any noble want to come down to this dump?

Letting her eyes drift over, her gaze settled onto Dust next. Dust was much more around her own height with orange fur and bright yellow feathers, however at first glance it was hard to tell, a fine layer of dirt seemed to have settled permanently on her feathers and fur giving a light brown hue to most of her body. Small scars could be seen over her claws along with traces of callouses on the underside of her talons giving off the impression that she was experienced in labor work if that was anything to go by. It didn't surprise Gilda to see someone like Dust in the guard, with trade between towns closing down and bandits raiding whatever settlements that couldn't defend themselves, many farmers and workers flooded into the guard in any major town to in the hopes of finding work or just to get payback.

Gunther stood on the far side of their table and loomed over like a giant. He was definitely tall for a griffon, perhaps he could be mistaken for a cockatrice if he stood on his hind legs, his imposing stature already made it enough for most creatures to become petrified. However, contrasting greatly with his frightful appearance, his voice carried a sense of gentle benevolence whenever he spoke, reminding her of the old heroes in plays with how they would recollect their stories yore. He was a gentle giant to anyone who knew him for long enough, but goddess help anyone who makes him pissed or else they’ll have all of Tartarus to pay. Gilda knew first hand of this when she rushed over to a blur of brown fur and beige feathers that tackled a mugger on the street only to realize that it was Gunther. They weren’t associated back then but Gilda was already glad that he an ally.

Finally there was Tex. He still had a few bandages around his neck from the last raid, but the feathers underneath seemed to be practically healed already. He had dark brown fur like Gunther, but instead of having beige feathers, he had white feathers much like Gilda. He was much younger than herself, probably a year or so younger than Nix, and he hardly had any scars to speak of around his body, not even any deformed feathers besides the new ones around his neck. Gilda was drawing a blank on any idea of what type of background Tex might have, he couldn't be a farmer since his claws weren't mangled at this point so maybe he was from outside of Griffonia? That wouldn't make sense either since why would anyone willing draft themselves in the army of a place like this.

Shaking her head slightly, Gilda stopped analyzing her squamates and opted to pay attention to whatever new mess they are currently making and this mess was Gunther and Tex trying to prevent a pissed off, ale covered Nix from jumping over the table and strangling Dust who was busy laughing her ass off.

"You...should have seen...your face. HA!", Dust choked out between gasps.

This only seemed to piss off Nix even more as she struggled to get out of Gunther and Tex's grip. Surprisingly, even giving Gunther a bit of struggle as he strained keep the smaller griffin in place.

"I'll make you swallow your own claws!", Nix growled.

Gilda let out a sigh as she turned back to Abby.

"Friends of yours?", Abby asked while trying to stifle a laugh.

Gilda let out a chuckle. "Nah. They're a couple of recruits that came in not too long ago." Gilda begun getting up from her seat leaving her still full mug on the table. "Lets get out of here before they-"

"Hey Gilda!"

"Son of a-" Gilda turned around and saw Dust leaning back in her chair waving towards her, oblivious to Nix still shooting daggers at her.

Standing up from her seat, Dust left behind Nix who was finally subdued back into her chair, and weaved her way through the crowd over to Gilda.

"We were trying to find you earlier but as soon as we got back to base it seemed like you vanished into thin air." Dust said over the loud noises of the tavern. "Why don't you and your friend join us? Gunther says he's paying for the drinks this time."

Gilda was about to decline but before she could, Abby popped out from behind her. "I would- I mean we would love to have drinks with you." She turned to Abby and glared at her while Abby just shrugged her shoulders and followed after Dust with mug in hand. Gilda just rolled her eyes and started after them.

Gilda pulled out a stool and sat down between Nix and Tex. Her squad mates took this time to introduce themselves to Abby who was quite enthusiastically ordering more drinks, much to the dismay of Gunther if his cringe was anything to go by. All of them did this except for Tex who waved at Gilda once she sat down.

"Gilda!" Tex rasped out of his still recovering vocal cords. "I thought we would never find you!"

Gilda just gave him a huff of acknowledgment as she looked at the bandages around his neck. Tex seemed to take notice of this as he rose his claw to reassure her. "Don't worry. The doc said I would be fine in a few days. It would have been a lot worse if it wasn't for you, so thank you."

Gilda let her eyes linger a little bit longer on his neck before looking back up. "Be careful next time."

As everyone settled back down onto the table with their second round of drinks, fourth for Abby, Gunther was the first to speak up. "Well now that you have all thoroughly drained a months worth of savings from me, shouldn't we move on to our celebration?"

Gilda tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Celebrating what?"

"Celebrating our first successful mission together of course!", Dust shouted as she raised her mug in the air.

"Yeah you know, the one where Tex nearly got choked to death.", Nix said sarcastically from across the table.

Gunther turned to give Nix a glare. "If you don't want to be here then leave. If not, why are you here in the first place?"

Nix returned Gunther's glare for a moment before grumbling to herself and going back to nursing her drink. With that short dispute settled Gunther turned back to address the rest of the griffons at the table. "Dust is right, a few days ago we had both our first and first successful mission together as a team. I'll admit it did have some rough spots," Gunther quickly glanced over to Tex. "but what is important is that we all made it out together." With that he began to down his drink and the other soon followed, even Nix had picked up her mug began chugging it.

Gilda couldn't help but chuckle a little at the cliché speech Gunther had given, before proceeding to down her drink as well. From across the table, Abby slammed her mug back down on the table just a second before Gilda, earning Abby a triumphant laugh. "I'm starting to like your team already, G."

"I'm glad you do." Tex said. "I'm thankful that I got you guys as team mates. Honestly, if it wasn't for Gilda and the rest of you guys I probably wouldn't be here right now."

Abby raised an eye and looked over to him. "Really? What happened?"

Tex scratched the back of his head in contemplating how to respond for a moment before speaking again. "This mission we were just celebrating, we were raiding a narco house and while we were dealing with its former inhabitants I got blind sided by one of them. He was about to kill me, but luckily Gilda was there to-" Tex was suddenly cut off by a nudge from Gunther, with a point of his claw, he directed Tex to Gilda.

Gilda staring intently down at the mug that was shaking in her claws oblivious to the stares that the others were giving her. Slight cracks had begun to appear along the wooden cup in her hands as she glared down towards her reflection in the surface of ale. Slowly, Gilda began to release her grip on the mug as she shook herself back into focus.

Tex began to apologize."...Sorry Gilda. I shouldn't have brought that up while your still-" He was suddenly interrupted as Gilda stepped up from the table.

"It's alright." Gilda said. "I just have to get some air."

With that Gilda began to evade around the drunken griffons in the tavern, ignoring the stares she was getting from Tex and the others. Opening up the door, she stepped out and begun down the dark cobblestone path into the night.

As Gilda walked down the barely illuminated path flanked by dying lanterns, she couldn't help but feel two emotions wash over her as she continued back towards her home. Anger and frustration filled her as she remembered back to what she had done on her last mission, she knew something like this would eventually happen, but the image of the griffons glazed dead eyes still stayed imprinted in her mind. That wasn't the thing that broke her though, that bastard deserved to die, but what did brake her was how easy it was for her to take his life, how she did so without hesitation, remorse, or empathy, and how she … enjoyed it.

She tried to deny it at first, trying to convince herself that her feelings were justified, it was just another piece of filth that needed to be taken off the streets and she should feel proud of what she had done. However, no matter how much she tried to trick herself into believing that, the joy she gained from taking his life immediately was consumed by disgust and fear once she realized what she did. Did it make her a monster for enjoying that she killed another living, intelligent creature? One that was crawling away from her in fear?

'He deserved it...'

Gilda shook herself out of her thoughts as she realized she almost passed her house. Pushing open the door to the house, she didn't even bother trying to clean herself up before she passed out into her nest, its warmth welcoming the tired and exhausted griffoness into its embrace.

10 HOURS LATER

"How long until the army comes within engagement range of the city?" Jack asked

ALDO's mechanical voice filled the room. "Estimated one hour until the attack will take place. Suggested course of action: Pre-emptive strike upon xeno threat to destroy siege machines."

"No. Don't attack until I say so. Wait for the attack to take place then we will intervene."

"Waning. Course of action would carry high risk of civilian casualties from xeno settlement."

"That's the point.", Jack stood from his chair and gazed into the holographic map in front of him.

ALDO stayed quiet for a while before responding. "Calculations complete. Course of action has a success rate of 78% over 14,784 simulated."

"That'll have to do.", Jack pondered something for a moment before turning back to the big screens of the command center. "ALDO, have you been able to recover my combat suit?"

"Affirmative."

Across the room a panel opened up to reveal his old combat suit.

Jack walks over and takes the helmet off the armored suit and saw his reflection in the glass visor. "You've waited this long for another fight. Lets not wait any longer."