As Yakyakistan became active with the horns of alarm, Gilda watched from above with a growing smirk on her face. Someone below had caused one too many fuck ups, and now the entire nation was going on high alert. Judging by the movement she could see below, the gryphoness could assume that the suppression team had done a decent job, as only a small amount of were rushing out of their homes, presumably all civilians in a panic now that they knew their nation was under attack.

While it was unlikely that all of them trained warriors, Yaks were often thought of as oafish brutes by all other species, whose natural strength could easily destroyed most things like they were made of cardboard, which apparently was something they did frequently for fun. While not many had escaped being put to sleep for the night, an individual yak posed a dangerous threat to any gryphon they stumbled upon, thus only recourse those who had infiltrated Yakyakistan was to leave immediately so not to be brutalized by a bunch of riled up bovines. The suppression team fled in flocks, and it could only be presumed that the diamond dogs were ducking underground to safety as well. This was the moment Gilda was hoping and waiting for, as it gave her the perfect opportunity to steal the glory of this raid all for herself.

“Listen up everyone!” she shouted, addressing the support team as she shoved a crystal battery into her net launcher, “The dweebs screwed up as expected, and now it’s time for us to have some fun! Get your gear ready, and prepare for some action!”

Many of the gryphons of the team did as they were told, each following by Gilda’s example as they prepped their weapons. However, not all of them blindly did as instructed, recognizing that this was far too early for them to be involved. Concerned about this deviation in the plan, one spoke up on the matter.

“Aren’t we supposed to wait until the minotaur have made it into the city?” asked one of the males, noting that the bulls had not arrived, and were most likely still traveling across the frozen tundra around the nation on foot.

With the darkness surrounding the area around Yakyakistan, no one could tell if where the minotaur where at that moment. All they knew is that Rubric’s forces had not yet made it through the gates, which meant that they were supposed to sit tight and wait, even if things went south.

“Look, dweeb,” Gilda said in her typically aggressive manner, “If we let those yaks group up and get coordinated, then it’s gonna be a lot harder for us to get them under control. So either we go in and start taking down some wooly bullies, or risk letting this whole operation go up in flames.”

Gilda wasn’t really all that worried about the yaks grouping up, she just was tired of waiting and wanted to see some action. A bunch of the gryphons in her group were feeling the same, as waiting in the sky for the better part of the night was already putting them on edge. They didn’t want to spend another minute just flapping their wings in place, being bored out of their skulls having done so for so long already. Seeing that the majority were ready to go, those who wanted to stick to the minotaurs’ plan relented, and readied themselves for battle as well.

Seconds later, they were descending down to the city. Gilda’s team passed by those members of the suppression team who had booked it out the moment they heard the horns, shooting them smug smirks as to let the other gryphons know they were going in to clean up after their mess. A little longer after that, and the gryphons were in the airspace a few yards above Yakyakistan, able to see everything going on below in much better detail than before. The yaks had not managed to assemble into a larger force yet, and now that Gilda was there, she wouldn’t allow them the chance.

“Everybody! Split up into groups of three and start taking down targets!” Gilda commanded, taking charge of the forces given to her, “The minotaur said one net won’t keep them down, so nail them till they can’t move anymore!”

Gilda was determined to not be mere support in this battle, instead turning her and her group of aggressive gryphons into an assault force. With a gesture of her hand to begin the attack, the gryphons broke into trios, spreading out across the small nation to restrain any yaks they came across. Gilda, having formed a group of her own with the two gryphons closest to her, spied a pair of guardsmen that looked as if they were still trying to figure out where the threat to Yakyakistan was coming from. She didn’t even have to give a command as she flew towards them, the other just following her lead, as they fired a volley of nets at one yak in one pass, and then the other yak in the next, wrapping them up tightly in a triple layer of binding fiber strands that caused them to become unbalanced and fall over.

“Ha! Losers!” Gilda mocked, shoving another load of her ammo into her net cannon while adjusting her flight due to the recoil of her shot, “What’s wrong? That hair in your eyes make it hard to look up?”

The yak warriors struggled as much as they could to break free of the nets, but found that no amount of anger fueled strength could snap the netting. With how strongly as those constricting strands gripped to their bodies, it would take another creature of bovine strength to free them, but the gryphons flew off with devious grins on their faces as they knew a yak wouldn’t be the one to remove those binds.

“That was actually really easy.” noted one of Gilda’s teammates aloud.

“Of course it was,” Gilda replied, “Those minotaur over prepared for this. They should have just sent us in with these things.”

All around them, Gilda could see other gryphons firing their net launchers down at whatever yaks they could find, with the yaks throwing back enraged yells at their airborne attackers. While Gilda believed she was undoubtedly the best shot of all present, the yaks were so big and bulky that you’d have to aim in the opposite direction to miss them. With the element of surprise and aerial superiority they had, Gilda could see this whole raid finishing before the minotaur even arrived. If only the support team had messed up sooner, then everything could have been done already, and they would have had more targets to have fun with.

As the gryphons attacked from above, the yaks did their best to defend below. A few of them had been caught off guard by the initial attack strike, but those who had stayed on guard found ways to keep from being captured. While dodging was out of the question, they could defend themselves by grabbing large objects they saw out in the open, such as pull carts and city benches, to place a barrier in the the path of the nets being rained down upon them. They had no concern if they destroyed objects in the process, as Yak ritualistically smashed and rebuilt things daily, and these improvised shields proved effective in preventing them from becoming entangled and bound, the gryphons’ artillery not big enough to wrap around the both the objects and the yak holding it at the same time.

When a gryphon weapon would need to be reloaded, the yaks would launch a counter attack by hurling the object they held at the flyers, wasting no time after to grab the next large thing near them to replace it. In no time, the skies were being filled with back and forth debris, one side now firing with significantly less accuracy as their priority became avoiding being struck down by a random wagon wheel. They knew they were done for if they got hit head on or knocked down to ground level, so they had to put all their focus into dodging whatever loose things of decent size the yaks carelessly chucked into the air at them.

This pushback seemed to put the yaks in a firm advantage, as even if one of the bovines got randomly hit by the friendly fire of one of their fellow yaks, they hardly noticed and just went about their business, truly unmoved by any act of sheer force. Only after several minutes of this barrage of garbage, when it was looking like the bovines were running out of things to throw, did it seem like the tide would turn back in the gryphons’. That was until the yaks decided it was time to improvise, and rip apart the very buildings around them, smashing walls for brick and lumber, tearing doors off their hinges, not caring if a structure collapsed on someone still inside. The gryphons watched in astonished shock as they yak busted apart perfectly good homes to create more ammunition, not believing that they would tear apart their own city in their attempt to protect it, even as they witnessed it firsthand.

For some of the avians that was the last straw. What seemed to be a successful ambush was turning into a lesson in futility, with the yaks managing not only to prevent any more of their numbers from being caught up by the gryphons’ restraining weaponry, but breaking others who had been caught at the start free from their bindings, so they could rejoin in with defending their nation.

“Retreat!” one gryphon yelled to those around her, before getting her wing feathers grazed by a hefty piece of mortar.

It was far too much for what was supposed to be an aerial support squad to handle. Had half the nation not already been put to sleep, they would have all been knocked out of the sky by an unavoidable bombardment of debris. They had to fall back, at least until the minotaur arrived to act as a distraction by being a bigger threat than what the gryphons posed.

The call for retreat spread fast, and each gryphon had to agree that it was the right call. One by one they ascended, getting out of the yak’s targeting range, which likewise put them at a distance where their nets would be useless, as all momentum they had from the cannons would be gone before they reached the ground.

Gilda was left dumbfounded as she watched the members of her squad fly up to a safe elevation without her order. “Hey! What are you idiots doing!” she yelled impotently at those fleeing, pausing only long enough as another block of bricks being thrown in her direction would allow.

The gryphoness managed to do an aerial dodge to avoid getting hit, but it was a close enough call that it finally dawned on Gilda that the situation was getting dire. She couldn’t flee though, not without accepting defeat and the embarrassment that came with it, so instead Gilda rushed over to a nearby rooftop for cover, with the two gryphons she had working with following right after.

“It’s a killzone out there!” One of the two gryphons complained as they landed, truly believing that any stray rock those yaks were flinging would destroy them if they ever hit their mark. It amazed the male gryphon that no one had already been killed or injured, only able to contribute that luck to the moonless night and their black outfits that acted as camouflage. “We have to get out of here!”

The other gryphon agreed, giving a stern nod, but Gilda couldn’t accept that. It was on her order to attack, and thus a retreat, even a tactical one, would not look good on her. Not when she was supposed to hold back until the minotaur arrived. More than that though, this was proving to be a big blow to Gilda’s pride. Every single member of the squad she was supposed to be in charge of had gone against her order, and she was being soundly defeated by these northern barbarians. Creatures considered so lowly that other bovines were trying to turn them into breeding stock. She was not about to let these yaks get the better of her, even if she had to take them on alone.

“You wanna run?” Gilda said, aggravated by the cowardice of her kind, “Fine! Go!”

The two gryphons were relieved when they heard Gilda come to her senses, but then became baffled to see her snatch a net cannon right out of one of their hands.

“I’ll take them on myself! You fucking chickens!”

Next thing the two knew, Gilda was flying back out into the fray. Every gryphon knew that she was more hot-headed than most, but this was insanity. Without anyone else out there to act as a distraction, she would be drawing in fire from every yak in the kingdom once they honed in on her. Not to mention she couldn’t have had the ammo to supply two cannons for more than a few shots. It was practically suicide, and while they probably should have went after Gilda to save her from her own hubris, one of them didn’t even have a weapon anymore, and the other didn’t feel like he could make a difference alone. Seeing the circumstances of the situation, the two gryphons placed this in the ‘not their problem’ folder, and made off into the sky.

Gilda grunted in anger as she watched them leave in her peripherals, expecting no less from those gryphons, but having hoped her tenacity would have inspired some courage in them as well. Unfortunately she had to accept that she was, as she always saw herself, alone in this matter.

While enraged, Gilda was not stupid, knowing that the yaks had every advantage now that her forces had left. If she tried to fight more than one head on, the best she could hope for was to net one while avoiding the other, which was effectively pointless since the yaks could free their downed comrades the moment Gilda couldn’t keep them distracted. She had to look for isolated targets, preferably ones that weren’t combatants. Better yet, if she could perform a surprise attack to take a yak down before they knew what hit them, she’d be able to fly off to, reload for another attack, and then go after another target in no time. Gilda knew she couldn’t take on Yakyakistan by herself, but she could show off by claiming some captures all on her own.

Flying through the sky, just high enough to blend herself into the pitchblack night, the gyphoness
avoided the groups of soldiers that were consolidating together now that the threat had eased up, seeking out easier prey in the form of the civilians that had ran out into the streets earlier. Gilda had no idea where they headed off to, assuming they were indeed fleeing to some safe zone set up in case of attacks, but she was determined to locate any still wondering about.

“There has to at least be a few left.” Gilda muttered to herself, trying to determine in what direction a yak might go to if they were in danger.

There was only one obvious choice, and that was the largest building the nation had to offer, the only one that towered over the rest. It was known to her that this was the capital building, where the yak prince, Rutherford, resided. It came up in the pre-mission briefing , a detail Gilda only paid attention to because he was supposedly the strongest warrior the yaks had, and all gryphons were to avoid him at all costs. If one wanted to be safe, they would go to him.

Gilda directed her search to any roads leading in that direction, and for a short time all she found was empty streets, until she spotted the glow of a light moving on its own through the narrow spaces between the yaks’ huts. The light could have been a torch or a lantern, but more importantly its source was being carried by someone, and that someone had to be a yak who who was slow to respond to the alarm horns.This stray yak was exactly what Gilda was looking for, thus she flew at full speed to prevent her newly acquired target from ever reaching safety.

As she got closer, the gryphon made visual contact with the one she was hunting, seeing that she was dressed in a shawl that was the traditional garb of yak females. This might have been the first female yak she had recognized seeing that night. The very prize the minotaur sought, what this whole siege on Yakyakistan was about, and it was wondering about like a lost lamb. Blinded by her determination to have something to show for her pre-emptive attack, Gilda, armed with a net cannon in each hand, flew down to ambush the yak.

“Got you now, you cow!” she yelled victoriously, pinning all her parameters for her success on this one yak. The gryphoness waited until the startled yak turned her head around to see who was yelling at her, wanting to see the look on her face, before squeezing the trigger on both weapons at once.

Near simultaneously, the nets were ejected from the barrels of the guns, launched forth with incredible force. Far too much force a creature as light as a gryphon, as the recoil of both weapons at once launched Gilda backwards. She had been dealing with the force of a single cannon before, but that was mid-flight and in the open air, where all she had to do was adjust her trajectory to go where the miniature cannon was forcing her to be. Trying to fire in spot was the problem here, as was the matter of being so low to the ground now that there was a wall in most directions around her.

With no place to go but backwards, Gilda found herself careening into one of the surrounding buildings, slamming into it, so harshly that the impact stunned her. The cannons fell out of her hands, tumbling to the ground before skipping away about a half a foot each from the spot they landed, with the gryphon plummeting to the ground after them, touching it for the the first time since she left the minotaur’s encampment. The gryphoness disgracefully landed face down upon the snow covered soil of the yak nation, both dazed and in pain.

Gilda groaned, more out of humiliation and frustration than from the ache that now throbbed all over her body. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her assault failed, her squad abandoned her, and her solo efforts were so bad she couldn’t capture a single stray yak. Despite a few hiccups working for the Society, she was one of the best hunters that her boss had. None of the other gryphons could keep up with her, as she was like an apex predator when compared to the rest of them. This sort of work should have been as easy as scaring a pathetic little pony with a roar.

The gryphoness, not yet having learned her lesson, tried to bring herself back to her feet, but found the process agonizing after being subjected to the kind of blown she had received. She learned the hard way that despite how easily the yaks broke the buildings apart, they were actually very well made and sturdy.

Prone and still in a good deal of pain, Gilda could only assume that the female yak had fled, and that her one chance to have something to show for herself ended in absolute failure. However, she soon discovered this to be incorrect as a light from a lantern came up to shine upon her, and the hulking form of the female yak holding stood over her.

The yak gave the injured gryphon a glare of disdain, for reasons Gilda could probably guess. It was an intimidating gaze, only made mores so by the impressively stout figure of the bovine. Her body was what one would expect from one of her kind; a stout figure, with large breasts, thick thighs, and a rump big enough that it would satisfy any creature who liked their women large. Her traditional yak attire, consisting of a layer of fabric that would have been ridiculous in the cold climate of the far north, if not for her own natural insulating hair, along with teal shawl that draped over her shoulders and down her back.

What parts of her body that weren’t concealed by clothing were covered in a light brown wool so thick it was impossible to tell how much of her mass was just that. Strangely though, these were not the things about this yak that drew Gilda’s eye the most, as there was one other feature aside from her daunting size that demanded attention. Atop the yak’s head was her brunette hair, which had been tied into a pair of thick braids that hung from the sides of her head, starting just underneath her large horns, and ending all the way down to her ankles.

“Gryphon!” the yak boldly said, her voice loud and boisterous. She took a step towards the downed avian, practically on top of Gilda at this point, just narrowly avoiding landing her hoof not only on top of the gryphon, but also upon the tips of her own long hair, “Why attack Yakyakistan in middle of night while yaks all sleeping?! Gryphons and dogs trying to insult yaks but fighting unfairly?!”

Gilda didn’t have anything to say to this yak cow, refusing to give answers to the questions asked, or any others that would surely come after. While Gilda didn’t hold any particular allegiance to the Society, the minotaur, or anyone else aside herself, she would remain silent only on the principle that giving information to the yaks would be admitting she was afraid of what they might do to her if she didn’t, and that would have been a true admittance of defeat for her. She wouldn’t allow that, her ego would not allow that, especially when these barbarians did nothing to deserve her humility.

Receiving no answers in return, the female yak scowled, “If gryphon not speak, and not stand up, then Yona will just smash gryphon!”

It was the reaction Gilda expected, and she could not deny that had the roles been reversed, and it was Gilda in need of information, she would not have hesitated to resorting to violence either. The gryphon could only watch as the yak lift her arms up, readying to pummel the avian with a series of downward slams. Even Gilda had to flinch once the fists were sent down towards her.

“NOW!” came a yell from out of the darkness, followed by two figures jumping out from the shadows into the light of the lantern.

It was a pair of diamond dogs, small ones, who leap at the much larger yak, fangs bared. They didn’t aim for her body, where her hair was so thick that they would never reach the flesh underneath, instead going for a place where they would be intentionally biting into only hair. Each dog grabbed ahold of the ends of the yak’s long braids, clasping them in their teeth before diving between the yak’s thighs. Both Gilda and the bovine were caught off guard by this, as neither expecting this sudden strike from the shadows, done by two lone diamond dogs of all things.

However, the dogs were not actually alone, and as they made it to the back end of the yak, there was another, much larger diamond dog waiting. This bigger canine, a great pyrenees, used her paws to grab the braids brought to her by her teammates, waited for the other two dogs to release, and then pulled back with all her might. The expertly tied hair ropes went taut against the yak’s muscular thighs, snapping upwards against her crotch, creating a fulcrum in which the yak’s head had to follow the path her hair was trying to go. Bending over as far as she could, the well endowed yak soon found herself becoming top heavy, tipping forward so far that she ended up face planting into the snow covered dirt.

The whole sequence of events had the yak on the ground next to Gilda, her eyes spinning as gravity hurt her worse than the actual attack on her person. She ended up dazed and disoriented for a short moment before she straightened able to put together what had happened, but that was all the time the great pyrenees needed, as she repositioned herself to the yak’s side, persistently tugging at the yak’s braids like a set of reigns.

“Stop pulling Yona’s hair!” the yak yelled at the dog, upset for more reasons than the canine could understand about this part of her being targeted.

Her first recourse to get the dog to cease was to grab her braids and pull back, but the pyrenees proved strong enough to maintain her grip, pulling back with equal strength. Every tug caused the yak’s hair to not only yoink her head in an uncomfortable direction over and over, but also made the braids rub and strike the yak in the soft spot between her thighs. So long as the diamond dog kept tugging the braids in this way, the yak would have an incredibly difficult time getting to her hooves. The yak only kept up this tug-of-war with the dog until she started to feel some of the strands snap, which made her see that using force in this instance was not viable.

The yak’s next course of action was to try and get to the dog itself. She tried crawling over to the pyrenees, grabbing and swiping at it, but to her dismay her hair was too long, and allowed the canine enough length to keep her distance while keeping the hair strains tightly pulled. Blinded by a desire to get the dog to stop, practically forgetting everything else that had happened that night when her lovely hair was at stake, the bovine flailed about until managed to flip around onto her back, one her her legs going over the hair ropes to do so, which placed them at her front once more. This caused the dog to lose the leverage she had which allowed her to match the overwhelming power of a full grown yak, but at this point it was no longer needed. All of the pyrenees’s actions had been done to get the yak into this position.

As the yak started to sit upright, dead set on dealing with the dog still holding onto her cherished hair braids, she wasn’t aware that another gryphon another gryphon was slipping into the light of her lantern, rushing her from behind. Next thing the yak knew, a burlap bag was being forced around her muzzle, one that this gryphon had lifted from a food stall prior to engaging in this attack. In shock, the yak female ended up flailing around more, but at this point the other two dogs had returned, and along with the pyrenees, were causing so much of a commotion that the yak couldn’t focus on any one thing for too long.

That was exactly what the gryphon wanted, as her only objective was to stall the yak long enough for her true plan to take place. It would only take a few seconds, just long enough for the timer of a sleep gas grenade to hit zero, and this would be all over. The yak was in so much of a confused panic that she didn’t even notice the solid object bouncing around inside the bag, pressing up against her nose, and after the expected time, the vial released its contents, filling the bag with sedating fumes that had no place to go but the yak’s lungs.

The struggle ended shortly after, as the yak’s eyelids grew heavy, and her motions became just as weighted. It didn’t take much longer for it to be lights out for her, and the yak succumbed to the effects of the gas, collapsing limply against the gryphon behind her before proceeding to fall to the ground. Once subdued, the gryphon removed the bag from the yak’s face, and with the gas bomb still releasing its sleep inducing fumes, chucked the whole thing onto one of the nearby rooftops.

Through all of this, Gilda had been watching from the sidelines, completely in disbelief as a gryphon accompanied by a bunch of mutts took down an adult yak, without the use of the weapons her team had been given specifically to help combat them. It might have just been a confusing back alley scrape pitted against the yak’s favor, but even under those circumstances it was amazing that the bovine ended up getting beaten in a direct conflict. Gilda would ever admit it, but even she was impressed.

Most importantly though, the interference of this other gryphon had spared Gilda a beat down, and now that she had time to recover from her earlier blunder, she was able to pull herself to her feet. “Hey…” she said to her rescuer, “Um… thanks for the save.”

The gryphon looked in her direction, wearing one of the gas masks given to the support team. That was another blow to her pride, knowing it wasn’t even one of her squad that took down the yak. It only got worse as the gryphon came over to her, speaking in a voice, that while muffled, Gilda had heard far too many times to not know who this was.

“Are you ok?” said Anya, looking Gilda over to make sure she wasn’t hurt. While the two didn’t like each other on a personal level, the older gryphon was not so callus that she didn’t are about Gilda’s well being, “That yak must have nailed you with something heavy if she managed to keep you down that long.”

“I’m fine,” Gilda said, looking away in a huff as she blushed lightly in embarrassment as Anya showed concern. This was only half true, as she was still aching a little from her collision with the wall. Her pride prevented would never allow her to show any weakness though. “I just… had some trouble with my weapons is all.”

Gilda would have given a more outright lie to Anya if she felt she could have, but she wasn’t clueless about what had happened. A takedown like the one she witnessed was not the kind one did at the spur of the moment, and he older gryphon must have seen her fuck up while using two net cannons at once. What little time Anya had when seeing the yak go to deal with Gilda had to go to putting together her hasty, but functional, rescue plan.

“What are you doing down here anyways,” Gilda continued, “Why didn’t you retreat with the rest of the suppression team, like you were supposed to?”

“If you want to know, I was worried,” Anya said, “I didn’t want an early alert to lead to this mission failing. I know this is just a job on your end, but I have more at stake than just money. While everyone else fled, including those in my squad, I stuck behind to try and gas whatever houses I thought hadn’t been touched. Then your team came down, and I thought I did as much as I could… but then it dawned on me that Rubic’s raid forces couldn’t have gotten here that fast. I was wondering what was going on, but I guess you all jumped the gun.”

“I thought that a gryphon strike force was all we needed to take care of these yaks,” Gilda replied, reflecting on how she ended up where she was right now, “But I guess this time I was wrong. The other gryphons ran like cowards, and I couldn’t accept defeat.”

“No one said you had to,” said Anya, still needing this raid to end up in victory for her employer, “But a tactical retreat isn’t a bad idea right now. Besides, your early attack did help out in one way.”

“Oh, and what’s that?” Gilda asked, assuming the older gryphon was being sarcastic, since they weren’t exactly fond of one another.

Anya walked to the corner of one of the huts around them, walking around the sleeping body of the yak, while the diamond dogs of her squad used the bovine’s rope like hair to bind her wrists and ankles together. She cautiously took a look around the round wall of the building, then waved her talon at Gilda to come to her. Gilda, being a bit curious as to what the other gryphon was going on about, did as she was told for once, and joined up to see a strange sight.

They were looking out into one of the more open streets of Yakyakistan, one that had gone silent despite the state of alert that had befallen the nation. It was clear to Gilda that Anya wanted her to see something, but she couldn’t tell what it was.

“See, over there,” Anya pointed to a partially demolished building, a victim of the yaks restocking their ammunition, “You can see the good your attack did coming from that building.”

It took a moment for Gilda to figure out what Anya was going on about, the dark of the moonless night not helping in the matter, but after peering at the building as hard as she could, Gilda finally saw what the older gryphon meant. The building was one of the ones that had gotten hit before the support team’s attack, and thus had been filled with the sleeping gas used to prevent the streets of Yakyakistan from being flooded with more bovines that their raid forces could handle. However, since the walls of this building had been breached, something else was flooding out from it, in the form of a blue fog seeping from the broken structure.

“It looks like the sleep gas we’ve been using is pretty heavy,” Anya explained, “And it’s not just flowing out into the air. By breaking their own homes, those that were filled with this stuff are now releasing it. You can even see that some of the guards are falling to it.”

Anya pointed out a trio of unconscious yaks laying in the street not too far away, covered in a large cloud of blue fumes, perhaps the ones who unknowing let the gas out in the first place judging by the debris that scattered on the ground around them.

“Well at least the attack did something…” Gilda said, grumbling that she couldn’t actually take credit for this, then she realized a bit of a problem with this situation, one that could turn this accidental boon into a big problem, “Hey, should we be staying here with that stuff floating around?”

“Me and the dogs should be fine,” Anya said, tapping her gasmask, “But I don’t have another for you. You should really get out of here before you inhale too much of that stuff. Either that, or find a place to take a nap.”

Gilda had to accept that Anya was right about this. Her team was supposed to stay at an elevation where the gas would never get to her, so without a mask she was forced to leave. She couldn’t even spare the time gathering up her equipment, as the gas used on the female yak was starting to flow down from the nearby rooftop Anya had tossed the bag onto. Soon this entire area would be flooded with the stuff.

“Fine,” Gilda agreed, for once not sounding outright irritated that she had to obey someone else’s order, “But you need to leave too. The boss said that all support team members have to leave if the alarms were sounded, and your you can’t expect to keep getting lucky.”

“Don’t want an old bird to show you up more than she already has?” Anya said, playfully mocking the younger gryphon, wearing a smirk behind her mask, “But ok, since I’m just a squad leader, and you’re a team lead, I’ll obey your order. Just let me go deal with the dogs before we take off.”

Anya went to instruct the trio of dogs under her command that she was leaving, and that they should retreat underground until the minotaur arrived. Unlike the rest of the suppression team, the dogs had another job to do once the raiding party arrived, and the time in between would let Maddie and her gang take a small break before the real action started.

Unable to do anything with the yak maiden, they would have to leave her laying tied up on the ground, assuming the minotaur would find this slumbering prize before she had a chance to wake up and break free. The dogs ducked into a nearby tunnel, and the two gryphons took to the sky.

Gilda knew this was just a prelude for her, as she would have to return when the final attack took place. She would need to regroup with her team, who would hopefully still follow her orders after the first failed attempt, and prepare for a secondary strike once the minotaur arrived. Anya, on the other hand, would be sitting the rest of this out until the fighting was over. At this point, the success of this mission was out of her hands, and she could only hope what little extra she had done had made a difference.

The two avians were fortunate enough to not be spotted as they made their leave, both believing that all other gryphons had left Yakyakistan now that they were gone.

However, not every gryphon had escaped the yaks’ lands, as there was still one making his way through the city streets. Gallus, who had taken up the mission his treacherous team captain had left unfinished, was doing his best to navigate this unfamiliar territory, having to go on foot thanks to the scuffle with that hen leaving him with a severely damaged wing.

Making his way to his new objective was not without obstacles, as Gallus got caught up amidst all the chaos that had taken place during Gilda’s solo attempt at the yak nation. Gryphons causing havoc overhead, only to get everything including kitchen sinks thrown back at them. For the duration of the battle Gallus had hunker down, not wanting to get mistaken as a target by some gryphon with an itchy trigger finger, or be pelted by the heavy debris the yaks were using as projectiles as it fell back down from the sky. During this time, Gallus had momentarily believed that the minotaur found their way in already, but after noticing a distinct lack of non-wooly bovine warriors, and the full retreat of his fellow gryphons, he figured that someone had jumped the gun, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out who.

After things settled back down, Gallus had to travel the rest of the way to the main gates while every yak guard was on high alert, but he found a means to get around them when he heard some talk about the ‘blue fog’ that was overtaking the city, as the yaks discovered what it did and warned one another to avoid it. Gallus wasn’t stupid, he knew this was part of the minotaur’s suppression plan, but if the yaks were going nowhere near it, then braving the fog was his best method to avoid detection.

Several times the gryphon had to enter areas where the sleeping gas was present, moving around it the best he could while holding a cloth to his beak, occasionally using his less injured wing to painfully blow away the clouds when they completely impeded his way. This stuff was supposed to knock out a yak, but he hoped that if he stayed away from being immersed in the fog, it wouldn’t affect him. He was completely unaware that the gas was only visible when it was in high concentrations, and he was already inhaling the substance.

It wasn’t enough to knock him out, as the gas was not very potent when only in a fume state, but it wasn’t completely without effect. At first it proved beneficial, as the sedative dulled the pain he was feeling, his damaged wings becoming less excruciating as he proceeded. However, as his pain faded, so did other senses. He was having more trouble hearing things, as they became like distant echos, and visualizing things became wonky. The dark got darker, while anything illuminated seemed saturated in light, being surrounded in a white aura to Gallus.

“I need to find this gate soon…” Gallus said, still holding it together mentally, but realizing that he was now on a time limit other than the minotaur’s arrival. He gave his head a good shake to stave off the effects of the gas, and pressed forward.

Gallus did his best to stay the course, moving ever forward in the direction he believed the main gate to be in, taking extra precautions to insure he didn’t stumble upon wandering yak patrols as he did. Despite believing he had aimed himself directly to the gates, his efforts eventually had him hitting a wall. A literal one, as a tall, impassable barrier obstructed his path.

“Come oooonnnn…” Gallus bemoaned, assuming this was yet another building he would have to navigate around to get back on track.

As he looked side to side for the nearest corner though, he could only see the wall stretch out endlessly to him in his impaired state of mind. The gryphon worried that the gas was getting to him, obfuscating his perception even more than before. If he was this far gone, he didn’t think going forth would be a good idea, though neither was to stay there to be discovered by the yaks.

Gallus wasn’t as worried about what would happen to him if caught, as much as he was worried about the mission. While he didn’t have as much as Anya to lose if this whole thing went up in a haze of blue smoke, he would loath letting down Titanius after all the support the minotaur had given him. He didn’t know how much of the raid plan relied on the gates being undone for the minotaur’s arrival, but it was probably safe to say that if they were not opened, the minotaur were not getting in.

“We got to keep trying.” Gallus said, giving his head another shake, before moving along the wall. Skewed perception or not, this wall had to have an end, and once found he could get back on track.

He moved along this seemingly never ending, choosing a direction on a whim, intent to go as far as his feet would take him. The wall was unlike any other Gallus had come across that night, comprised of solid wood instead of stone supported with wooden logs. Gallus also couldn’t see a rooftop when he looked up, the darkness consuming the wall before he could see the top.

“How far does this thing go?” the blue gryphon asked himself aloud, doing all he could to keep himself focused, letting his determination drive him.

He was completely oblivious to what this wall truly was for a good while, until he stumbled across a set of torchlights that appeared ahead of him. His first thought was that it was a patrol, having finally found him. Being too tied to try and flee, he kept walking towards his presumed fate, only to find that these torches were not within the hands of some large wooly bovines, but were inside a set of sconces fastened to the wall he was moving along. The sight of it sobered up his muddled thoughts, as Gallus had come to realize he had been walking down the defensive wall surrounding the city, having misjudged where the main gate had been, missing it by a few yards.

“Seriously?!” Gallus blurted out, amazed by his own luck. Had he gone in the other direction, he would have been walking for miles to the next entrance gate.

With that in mind, he momentarily questioned if this was even the correct gate to begin with, but quickly dismissed that notion. There was really no room to second guess this. Right or wrong, this was his only chance to give the minotaur a means into the city.

“Hey!” a booming voice said from directly above the gryphon, “Did yak hear something down below?”

“Oh shit!” Gallus exclaimed in panic, though hushing his tone so he wouldn’t be heard a second time as he pressed himself flat against the wall, just in time to avoid the eyes of the gate guard peering over the ledge. He was so glad that yaks were so loud and boisterous, unlike the minotaur who were more stoic and calm speaking, else he would have been exposed then and there.

“Not sure.” said another voice, clearly another yak stationed above the gate, “But yaks should probably check, with all the alarms yaks heard.”

“Too dark for yaks to see beyond walls anyways.” said the first one, the darkness across the tundra being too deep for them to see more than a few feet outside of the kingdom.

Knowing that he would soon have a pair of unfriendly yaks searching for him, a surge of adrenaline flowed through Gallus’ veins. He thought about laying in wait for but a moment, but the gryphon knew this small boost in energy was not gonna last long, and he didn’t have a clue how close the raid forces were to their arrival. If he was going to act, he had to do it now.

Gallus hurried to the gate, it having no yaks guarding it on this side. The entirety of the defenses of it looked to be an incredibly sturdy set of doors, barred by a log that looked to have come from a section of oak tree. It would be difficult for even those of minotaur might to break through that, and impossible for the gryphon to move it even if he wasn’t injured, so there had to be some other means to get rid of it.

“Ok, what did you give me to take care of this?” Gallus asked himself, hastily going through the pouch he confiscated from his team leader.

He grabbed everything within the bag, pulling out several glass containers of some white substance he couldn’t identify. Opening the top of one bottle, he gave it a sniff, finding it had no odor, and touching it he found it to be a finely ground powder. Gallus didn’t have a clue how this was supposed to take down a gate as finely built as this one, his anxiety growing as he was aware he wouldn’t be alone for long.

“Come on, there has to be something in here that tells me what to do.” Gallus dug into the bag again, and felt a piece of paper at the very bottom, “Yes!” pulling it out, he opened it to find a single sentence written, it saying ‘pour on door brace and ignite’.

It was simple enough instructions, and Gallus got right to work, opening and dumping bottle after bottle of powder across the surface of the log, making sure to pour it between it and the door to prevent the substance from spilling or being blown away by a random breeze. He went through a half a dozen of the containers, until a decent amount of the stuff covered the tree trunk and there was none left to use.

With the powder in place, there was only one thing left to do. The gryphon reached into his own pouch to grab his torch, only to be reminded that he had lost it earlier when fighting with the hen he had taken the powder from.

“Fuck, how am I supposed to-” Gallus was about to scold himself for losing something so important for this moment, but then look up to the things radiating light on either side of him, “Duh!”

Gallus grabbed the torches out of their sconces, and tossed them both atop the log, into the pile of white powder. The gryphon then quickly made distance from the gate, expecting something akin to a huge explosion, only to be disappointed when nothing happened. The log was starting to burn, yes, but it didn’t seem to burn any faster than it would have had he just tossed the torches on by themselves. Watching it, he could tell it would take a while to burn through the wood, if it could at all, and this was time he did not have.

Another horn of alarm sounded, coming from near the wall, as the two gate guards discovered the attempt of sabotage. Gallus understood that this was gonna bring a number of other yaks to come see what was going on, but he had no place to go. Being tired, incapable of flying due his hurt wing, and out in the open, the gryphon could only stand there as soldiers within ear shot of the horn arrived to the scene. He was caught, and had to face the music.

“Gryphon!” yelled a yak from the back of the forming crowd, pushing his way to the front with ease.

Of all the yaks present, this one was among the largest, his coat a dark brown, while his beard was a lighter shade and the hair atop his head a hue of orange. As the huge wooly bull stomped his way right up to Gallus, the gryphon figured he was being addressed, though he had little to say in return.

“Why gryphons try attacking Yakyakistan at night?!” the yak stated, in a tone that expressed… disappointment? It seemed odd coming from a creature whose nation had been under siege, but this is what Gallus was getting from the way the yak spoke, “Gryphons make Rutherford wake up from traditional yak slumber time. Gryphons should have attacked during day, when gryphons could bare witness to yak battle prowess.”

Gallus was a bit confused by this reaction, as the yak started scolding him not because his kind led an attack on the city, but because it was an inconvenient time of day for them to make the attempt.

“Also, why use blue fog to put yaks to sleep? Gryphons using underhanded tactics to fight, when gryphons should try smash yaks like real warriors! Gryphons dare besmirch sacred art of war with underhanded tactics?”

“Is… is this like a game to you?” Gallus asked, trying to make sense of what this yak was upset about.

“War no game!” the yak declared, “War where two groups of warriors come together to display might, followed by traditional post war feast in celebration of invaders’ defeat, because yaks best at war!”

Gallus had to shake his head, thinking he was losing some form of context here because of the sleeping gas he had inhaled. “What?”

“Does gryphon not understand how war goes? Invaders come to challenge yaks. Yaks smash invaders into surrender. Then yaks invite attackers to grand feast in name of bravery, since yaks never defeated. Is how yak wars always go!” The large yak stepped over to the gate, looking at the fire Gallus caused, “Gryphons even started traditional destruction of Yakyakistan grand entrance, but only one gryphon is here. Yaks been searching where gryphons went since battle start, but gryphons nowhere to be seen. Did gryphons run like cowards?!”

“Uhh… yeah, I think they did.” Gallus replied, not sure what the yak wanted to hear from him, “But if it helps, I think they’ll be back.”

The yaks gathered in the area let out a series of angry and disheartened groans, displeased at what Gallus had to say. The one speaking to Gallus put a hand to his face in frustration. “War does not have break time! Yaks and enemies are to fight to finish! How are yaks to display that yaks are best if enemies flee?!” Gritting his teeth and letting out a low growl, insulted by the gryphon’s retreat, the large yak turned back to the others of his tribe. “Fetch water. Put out fire. If gryphons want to break down gate, gryphons must do it properly.”

A few of the yaks left, going to fulfill the command of their leader, Prince Rutherford. The others stayed right where they were, muttering among one another about how poor the events of this attack were. Yaks were a civilization of battle hardened people, with every member of the city raring to start a fight when it was presented. While they would prefer better circumstances, not enjoying the gryphons’ chosen time or use of aerial combat, these were conditions they were willing to accept if it meant they could prove the might of their people.

Having to play by the code of conduct of those that would try to best them was part of the pride the yaks wore when defending their homelands, but they did not respect anything aside from outright combat, and even something like a tactical retreat was treated as a dirty move. This, on top of all the other tricks the gryphons employed that night, was making it difficult for the yaks to respect these opponents.

On the other side of things, Gallus was becoming rather aggravated himself, finding no rationality in the behaviors of the yaks. Their homes had been destroyed, their people attacked, the sanctity of their kingdom infringed on, and the only complaint they could muster was that the fight was not finished to their standards? In Griffonstone, if you so much as looked at another gryphon’s property the wrong way, they’d jump down your throat so bad they would metaphorically climb out the other end. The yaks were so backwards in every way, and while he should have felt relief that it didn’t seem they would hurt him, a resentment was building on how perfect their lives must have been to be this carefree about a threat to their kingdom.

After a short wait, the yaks that left came back with large pales of water, making their way past Gallus to the now spreading fire of the main gate. Overall, the flames were still not enough to actually damage the doors or the hefty tree trunk keeping them closed. All in all, it appeared that Gallus’ efforts were in vain, and the raid attempt was a failure. The young gryphon didn’t know how he’d ever be able to look Titanius in the eye again, if he would even be permitted to leave Yakyakistan.

“Fellow yaks!” Rutherford said in a commanding tone, “Put out fire, and show gryphon that yaks will not be beaten by schemes and tricks!”

The other yaks obliged, not getting too close to the flames, cautions as to what such a large fire might do to their wool. In a unified action, each yak tossed their bucket onto the small flame, assuming it would be completely extinguished as the flames got smothered. As the water splashed down though, a strange and unexpected occurrence took place. Instead of putting the fire out, the flames exploded outward, its heat and size more than doubling in an instance. The incident they tried to avoid took place, as the hair on their bodies got singed, with some yaks having to pat themselves down to put out a small flame igniting on them.

“Water didn’t work?” Rutherford said, questioning the situation, “Go get more water. Be quick!”

The yaks went back to get more water, doubling their pace from the time prior. When they got back with freshly filled buckets, they repeated the process of throwing their contents onto the now engulfed entry gate, but once more the addition of water only seemed to make the problem worse as the blaze increased in size and power. What had been a small fire at the start had grown into an uncontrollable inferno steaming from the tree trunk. Rutherford was at a loss, as were the other yaks.

On the other hand, Gallus was starting to piece together what was going on. He didn’t know if straining his tired mind was giving him some sort of epiphany about what was happening, but he figured that whatever he had poured earlier was not supposed to accelerate the fire he started, but was always supposed to turn the yaks efforts to put it out into something that made the situation worse. It was a devious trap that any creature would fall for, since anyone would immediately think to dowse a fire when they spotted it. The gryphon had to marvel at the creativity and ingenuity of the minotaur to have come up with something like this, completely forgetting that their Antlertean slaves were the ones that devised the devices and contraptions for this invasion.

Rutherford wasn’t nearly as impressed, as he saw this as yet another deviation from his concept of a perfect battle, a defilement of the ancient tradition of yak combat. There were ways that creatures, no matter how physically inferior, were supposed to breach the city walls, as they were like a test to see if the would be invaders were even worthy of fighting the yaks in the first place.

Hit the door with enough force to burst it open, torch it to the ground to with heats so destructive that the wood turned to ash in an instance, cut through it with an axe, or just knock down the walls around it. These were the yak approved ways to be attacked, and to see yet more tricks filled the yak with rage. Now aware that these flames were somehow enchanted or altered to not be put out by conventional means, Rutherford decided to take a different approach. Approaching the door, not caring about the heat of the flames, he grabbed the trunk by one of its ends, and lifted it up off the wooden arms holding it in place.

For Gallus, it was a sight to see as the yak juggled this massive piece of wood between his hands, trying not to get burned, while taking a few steps away from the gate. As the hair of his body started to catch fire, he placed the log in one palm, before effortlessly tossing it over the tall walls surrounding the yak’s city, out into the empty tundra outside. Rutherford then patted down the patches of burning hair on his body, having seen others do this prior, extinguishing himself in mere moments. With that trunk now gone, the remaining flames looked far less imposing, and were likely to put themselves out long before the door would succumb to them.

“There.” Rutherford said, with some satisfaction with himself now that the besmirchment was gone.

However, in his haste to remove this blight, the yak never stopped to consider why winged beings would bother to have a barrier like this removed in the first place.

With the matter of the burning door taken care of, Rutherford went back to Gallus, ready to give the captive avian a stern talking to about how the gryphons conducted themselves in battle. “Now, Gryphon listen. Yaks will fix city, get rid of fog, and prepare for grand battle. Gryphon will go tell other gryphons to come back midday tomorrow, after yak lunch time. Then Yaks and Gryphons will fight the right way, and gryphons learn how real warriors wage war. If gryphons don’t show, then we wage war in Gryphons’ home!”

Gallus knew there would be no battle after this one. Even at the threat of a Griffonstone invasion, his people didn’t care enough to come back and take their licks for attacking the yaks. The fight was always supposed to hinge on the minotaur fighting the yaks directly, and since they could not gain entrance to the city, under what might have been the best circumstance for them, another attempt would not be made. At the very least, he was relieved the yaks were letting him go to act as messenger, but with his broken wing it was gonna be a long and pathetic walk back to the encampment, and with his head all clouded from breathing in the tainted air inside Yakyakistan, Gallus wasn’t even sure he could trek that distance before collapsing into slumber.

As Gallus was about to accept that his efforts were for nothing, he noticed a bit of unexpected movement from behind Rutherford. Tilting himself to get a better look, he witnessed the heavy gate doors opening, seemingly on their own as none of the yaks were doing it. He wasn’t the only one to notice either, as a few of the surrounding yaks watched this with bewilderment, as the doors were far too heavy to be simply blown open.

Rutherford, hearing the sound of the wood scraping on ground, turned to see the entryway part open, a growing crack to the outside forming down the middle. “Gryphons return already?” he questioned, thinking that it would take a large number of creatures like them to push open the gates. “Yaks, push doors closed!”

Those closest to the door went to shove the doors back in place, as Rutherford had declared the gryphons unworthy to breach the door and join into battle. The moment the yaks got close though, the door shot open, hitting the wooly bovines and knocking them aside. To Rutherford’s surprise, it was not a hundred gryphons bursting through to begin battle, but a small force of two dozen bovine creatures like themselves.

“Minotaur?” Rutherford said, instantly recognizing the bulls, questioning both their arrival and why two of the creatures were carrying with them a large black crystal. “What Minotaur doing here? Minotaur banned from Yakyakistan ages ago!”

Gallus, now just a witness as to what was to unfold, had to take a seat on the ground. Every part of him was exhausted, with his mind, body, abilities, and tolerance for the yaks having been tested that night. Yet, it had appeared that by some fluke, he had done it. The minotaur had set hoof into the city, and while there were only twenty-four present, the sight of the waystone was not lost on him. As the two carrying the black rock set it on the ground, and others closed up the main gates again, the minotaur’s infiltration of Yakyakistan was complete.

Among the minotaur who had entered through the yaks’ main gate were Rubric and Titanius, along with their respective seconds in command, Bacchus and Brutus. These four minotaur observed the situation before them, their small band of bulls facing down a veritable herd of yak warriors, with the nation’s prince standing at the forefront of them.

“Looks like the king’s reindeer was eerily accurate again.” said Titanius, his voice slightly muffled behind a black mask he was wearing, the same type the suppression team wore, except sized for one as large as the bovine. The others all wore the same contraption, preventing them from falling victim to the sleeping gas that now permeated Yakyakistan’s air.

Rubric stepped to Titanius’ side, not acknowledging or questioning Titanius’ comment. Whatever the other bull was speaking of, he was not privy to its context, nor did he need to be. All he knew was that over a half a year prior the minotaur’s king summoned him, and charged him with the overtaking of the yaks’ kingdom, to claim and bind its inhabitants into servitude to Minopolis and those who inhabited it. He was to work with Titanius, and follow his instructions, assigning specific people to specific tasks at precise points of the operation.

The orders were not so meticulous that he needed to move every member of his raiding party in exact ways, as most were bit players whose involvement apparently meant little, but he was instructed who within his flock of hired gryphons should be placed in charge of which divisions of the raid, and where he personally should be at various points of it. In doing this, the series of events that occurred had allowed the minotaur access to the city, which in itself supposedly foretold their inevitable victory. If he cared about concepts such a fate, he might have been a little unnerved about all this, but truth be told it didn’t matter to the minotaur, so long as he got his cut of the spoils of this land.

Having intruded on yak territory, in a manner that spat in the face of the yak’s code of conduct, the bovines could not go unaddressed for long. Only a few minutes of silence passed before Rutherford made his way over to the minotaur, and once he made his move, Rubric took a step forward in kind.

“No,” Titanius said, placing a hand on the other minotaur’s chest, blocking his way, “This one is mine to deal with.”

“Another one of your instructions?” Rubric asked.

“Yes, but this is also personal.” Titanius said, moving towards the approaching prince.

The two bovines met halfway between their two forces, Rutherford stopping first, with Titanius only stopping when taking another step would have been impossible. The two bulls stood chest to chest, with hardly any space between them, the pair glaring into each others’ eyes, Rutherford having to tilt his head upwards as the minotaur looked down at him.

“It has been a while, Prince.” Titanius said, “You have certainly grown into a fine man. One that I would gladly welcome into my bed chambers.”

“So minotaur is who Rutherford thought,” said Rutherford, anger in his voice, “Haven’t seen Titanius or minotaur in decades. Thought minotaur learned lesson, and obey father’s decree of banishment!”

“Your father has not been around for some time,” Titanius replied, “And his insistence that my kind never graced Yakyakistan soil ever again always was too demanding. You yaks always expect things to go exactly how you want it, thinking yourselves to be better than every other creature. We are here to show you once and for all that you’re not.”

Rutherford blew a huff of air from his lips, dismissing Titanius’ claim as nothing more than empty bravado. “Rutherford not scared of minotaur. Remember how quickly minotaur were beaten after breaking through gate last time. Not even a challenge.”

“Then how about we put our might to the test, shall we?” said Titanius while preparing to grapple, his arms up and legs bent to brace the rest of his massive form.

“Lets!” Rutherford agreed, seeing this as the easiest means to prove yaks superior to their lesser bovine cousins. Raising his own arms up, he shot his hands into those of his minotaur opponent’s own, and the two immediately began struggling against each others’ strength.

No one on the sidelines made a move to try and help, knowing that this was a battle between two men, with the pride of each one at stake. Of everyone watching, only Gallus seemed to be in any way worried, with every bovine secure in their belief that their side would win.

“Not bad.” Titanius said, between strained grunts, “Certainly better than the last time we grappled, but you were hardly a man then. Too stubborn to know when you were outmatched. Or did you simply want to get close to me in a way that wouldn’t get you disapproving looks from the king?”

“Titanius talk too much,” Rutherford said, unphased by the other bull’s taunting, pressing forward with all the might he could muster.

No words could get under a yak’s skin, as their inflated egos would not allow themselves to fall prey to the words of those who could not compare to their glory. Yaks were the best at everything they did. Feats of strength, building, smashing. They played the best music, made the best food, and had the best culture in all places both in and outside Equestria. If yaks could use magic, they would be the best at that too, and no puny, aging minotaur would ever get the better of the very prince of Yakyakistan, who in himself was the best among yaks.

Rutherford shoved forward with all his might, managing to push the bull back, as Titanius’ hooves skid across the dirt. The force the yak was employing was too much for the ground’s friction to hold the bigger bull in place, and footing was just as important as one’s own strength in a competition of power such as this. This was something that the older bovine knew well, and was why he wasn’t going all in like Rutherford was.

Given credit where credit was due, the prince was perhaps as powerful as he boasted, his strength unrivaled by most, but all this strength was just pure brute force with zero refinement, and no restraint. It was everything Titanius was expecting from the prince of yaks.

By shifting all of his weight to the side, swiftly placing one hoof in front of Rutherford’s while stepping out of his opponent’s direct path, Titanius allowed the yak’s own momentum to send him stumbling forward, with only their locked hands keeping the wooly bull upright. Now that the prince had lost his own footing, Titanius did not waste this opportunity to take control, pulling Rutherford’s arms into a compromising position behind the yak’s head, the minotaur’s own powerful biceps finding a place under Rutherford’s chin.

“You yaks are all power, no tactics,” said Titanius, “And even a dragon can be wrangled if you grab them by the head.”

Rutherford tried his best to get out of the hold, but he was in an awkward position, and the minotaur was not that drastically weaker than him to begin with. There were ways to escape a choke hold like this, but the yak was completely unaware of any of them. This was a problem he couldn’t simply brute force himself out of, and strength was always the first, second, and last solution a yak turned to.

“You know, prince,” Titanius continued, “I quite enjoy seeing you in this position. Held in place, struggling fruitlessly against my might, sweating and grunting while your backside is pressed up against my front. I’m not yet done embarrassing you in front of your people though. I’ll let you go so we can continue this fight under more fair circumstances.”

Titanius leaned back, using his height and leverage to pull the yak backwards, betraying his promise to release the prince. Rutherford was heavy, but not so weighty that a muscular minotaur couldn’t part his hooves from the ground. Suspended like this, the yak’s neck had to support his beefy body, intensifying the choke hold and cutting off Rutherford’s access to air. Titanius held this pose for a brief moment, just enough for Rutherford to become desperate for another breath, and once he thought the yak had enough, the minotaur gave his body a mighty twist, flinging the smaller bovine into one of the nearby buildings.

Rutherford smashed through the wall with ease, receiving little damage from the impact itself, as yaks honed their bodies to endure most any impact. However, this particular building was one of the yak homes, and had been visited by the suppression team earlier that night. With the yak destroying the structure with his powerful form, an explosion of blue clouds escaped the building, and then slowly descended into the surrounding area.

“That should even the playing field a little.” Titanius said, making a leisurely stroll over to where he tossed Rutherford.

The yak prince was no doubt gasping for air now that he wasn’t being strangled, not even thinking about the sleeping gas he was now saturated in. It might not have been enough to sap all the fight out of Rutherford immediately, but it would fill him with enough fatigue to make the rest of the fight a simple matter, made worse with each passing second Titanius trapped him in there.

It was about this time that the other yaks had seen enough. They were more than happy to let the minotaur face off against the prince when they assumed defeat was impossible, but they could tell that the fight was swaying against their favor. They also assumed that the only reason this could be was because the minotaur had cheated in some fashion, as yaks were best at grappling, so some kind of trick had to have been employed if the minotaur beat their ruler like this. Not wanting to let Titanius reach Rutherford, the yaks began a charge. The minotaur were still outnumbered, and there was no way the twelve of them would overcome them all.

Rubric, having been told prior to entry not to do anything until the yaks initiated what would be the battle for Yakyakistan, saw them rushing towards their group as the signal he had been waiting for. Having been standing next to the waystone since Titanius told him to stand back, he slid his hand into the stone for a brief few seconds, and then pulled it back out.

A hoard of minotaur, each with a gas mask strapped tightly to their head, appeared from the stone one by one, stampeding towards the oncoming yaks, having been waiting for Rubric to wave them into a full on fight. The yaks, not expecting this sudden increase in the minotaur’s ranks, ceased their own charge in shock, as their numbers were quickly being matched, and then overwhelmed by creatures of even strength to their own. None could think to retreat though, as their battle creed still compelled them to stand and fight to the end, no matter how growingly demoralizing the conditions against them were.

The battle began, with yaks and minotaur exchanging blows with one another, as the two factions of bovines put their might to the test. To the yaks’ dismay, the minotaur were easily gaining ground, with each yak warrior having to face off against pairs of the invaders at a time, the front lines easily being decimated as they were teamed up against and subdued. The ones behind them had a slightly easier time, as the pairs would split up once they felt a yak had been sufficiently softened up, but watching their brethren be so quickly brute forced through lowered their morale even further than it already was, and the sedating clouds had now settled back to ground level where they’d have to breath it in to keep fighting. All in all, there was nothing about this fight that was in the yaks’ favor. Regrouping elsewhere would have been the only means the yaks had to hold out, though that might not have prevented a defeat that now seemed inevitable.

Rubric stepped into a clearing in the conflict going on around him, to the spot where Gallus had been sitting, completely ignored by those participating in this historical event. “Are you ok?” he asked the prone gryphon, “Titanius wanted me to ensure you’d be taken care of once the raid began.”

Gallus gave a nod, not able to form words at that moment. He wanted to express how stunned he was over what was happening around him, but his thoughts were becoming hard to make as the blue mists settled around him. It was taking a great deal of effort to not close his eyes and go to sleep himself.

Rubric, accepting Gallus’ nod, looked back to Bacchus and Brutus, who were still at his side, “Brutus, summon the gryphons and dogs to join us in battle.”

“On it,” Brutus replied, already having a flare and a tremor rod in his hands, shoving the metal staff into the dirt to signal the diamond dogs, while setting off the flare to let the gryphons know the true raid had begun.

“Good,” Rubric stated, “Once we’ve cleared out the warriors here, we will move into the city to collect the ones that are sleeping, and bind them before they can awaken. Send a secondary team to flush out and capture those who avoided sedation, and take the yaks’ palace. There should be a good amount of women held up there, protecting their children from harm. Do not underestimate them, Bacchus, unless you want a bruised skull throughout the duration of the conquest ceremony.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Bacchus said dismissively, before joining the fray.

Rubric went back to the stone, awaiting the arrival of the diamond dogs, as the gryphons descended to perform their second, more successful attack on the city. Brutus, on the other hand, just stood there for a moment, looking in the direction of where Titanius and Rutherford were now fighting.

Titanius’ second in command let out a whistle from behind his mask. “Didn’t expect the boss to just toss a bitch like that. Kinda hot, don’t you think?” he asked, addressing the blue gryphon at his feet.

Gallus still couldn’t reply, but the words echoed in his mind as he finally gave into his fatigue. Thinking back to how he saw the fight between Titanius and Rutherford, he remembered the spectacle of it all, as the two bulls went at it, surrounded in a radiant glow in Gallus’ eyes. The display of power from the minotaur was impressive, and admittedly attractive in an intimidating fashion. If there was ever a creature that was the personification of masculinity, it was a minotaur, and Titanius seemed to exemplify this.

At least, that’s what Gallus thought as he closed his eyes, and fell backwards onto the snow covered ground. The gryphon would slumber for the remainder of the raid, unable to awaken until it was finished, and by then the nation of Yakyakistan would be under minotaur occupation, with the conquering creatures preparing to partake in the spoils of war.

Author's Note

New chapter today, and I hope you all enjoy it. I put a bit of effort in this one, to make it feel engaging while focusing on the story's three main gryphons.

However, I'm curious what you all would like for the next chapter. Do you all care to see how the minotaur subdue their soon to be yak prisoners, or do you pretty much get how the raid will turn out from here, and wish that we get down to business with the sexy aftermath. It has been a long time getting to this point, so I would not be surprised to see the yaks get the punishment that has been awaiting them. In this alone, I'm certain I will not disappoint