It was late afternoon by the time Zargan finally tracked down the armored gauntlets that he had soul bound for his student. He had found them lying in an out of the way alleyway. Of course, they’d strike where there would be the least witnesses. Zargan walked up to the gauntlets and knelt down before picking them up and examining them thoroughly, still as brand new as the day he made them with her. Just as he was about to place the gauntlets in his bag of holding for safekeeping, a piece of paper fell out from one of the scale plate pieces. The dwarf blinks a few times before opening it up and reading what was written down.

Dear Master Zargan,

I don't know if you will ever find this letter, I..don't exactly know what's going to happen to me. I am hiding right now from my pursuers in this alleyway. I..I am scared, Master...I want to get back home to my family so that I can spread your good name. But they won't stop searching for me. They said that it is your fault that this is happening because you refused to shut down your forge. But I know that this isn't your fault. You can't let these thugs intimidate you. Please, don't ever stop doing what you do. This isn't your fault! It never will be-...

The letter abruptly ends, and a few blood droplets could be seen dotting the page as he looked upon it. The dwarf’s heart started pounding heavily in his ears, louder than he had ever swung down his hammer in his life, his magical aura pulsating in snce as anger flooded his emotions like the raging rivers of his homeworld, his gloves threatening to rip apart with how tight he was squeezing his fists “I am gonna make sure…those two shitstains will never be able to lift a god damned hammer or anything else like that ever again…” he growled lowly in fury before his full set of armor trailed up his arm from his gauntlet and soon covered his whole body, the helmet being that last piece to cover his head before the blue light shone to life from behind his visor before lifting off into the air with all jets firing at full throttle toward the castle.

The front castle courtyard was a buzz with the usual visitors and guards, and it wasn’t until the sound of Zargan’s jets brought the attention of the ponies below that put the guards on alert as the dwarf landed hard, leaving a crater five times the size of himself, causing a rather large circular wave of dust and debris to flow out, nothing but the light of his visor visible as he walked forward slowly with his hammer and tower shield equipped. The guards, who had actually fallen from the impact wave, quickly got up from their downed state before grabbing their weapons and began surrounding the dwarf quickly with their weapons drawn on him.

Zargan was not in the mood to mess with these ponies. If they dared to attack him, he was going to be breaking a few bones. Whatever he had had to do to get to his student. “Stop, in the name of her royal highness!” shouted the one whom Zargan assumed was in command of the group. Zargan simply lifted his head toward the commander “Tell me where I can find your castle smithies, and I won’t be causin’ any trouble toward the rest of this place. They have someone who is..rather important to me. And I am not leavin’ without her. A griffon named Laelah.” he said as he stepped forward a bit more, clearly not intimidated by the weapons trained on him.

The commander went quiet for a moment before answering, “Aaah yes, the thieving little bird who stole a full set of mythril armor from our smithies? Yes, she is being detained at the moment and is awaiting trial for her crimes. She is someone to you then?” he asked as he crossed his arms waiting for a response. Zargan’s blood began to boil as he heard the guard say that the smithies had claimed the armor was their creation. “So, that’s the lie they are spreadin’, is it? Tell me, do ya have the WHOLE entire set of armor that they claimed they made?” Zargan asked before reaching into his bag before pulling out the gauntlets “Or are ya missin’ one crucial piece right here?” he said as he held it up to show the commander the set of gauntlets.

The commander started sweating bullets at this point, as he was told by the smithies that there was no way the gauntlets could have been found by anyone, or picked up for that matter “
Th-That could be part of any set of armor! Quit trying to trick your way into releasing your thief of a friend from their crime. Or else I will toss you in the dungeons myself!” he said as he stood his ground with his fellow guards. Zargan sighed and placed the gauntlets back in his bag before redrawing his hammer and getting into a combat stance “Very well then, I will fuckin’ beat the answer out of you then.’.

Zargan flew forward with a charging jet boot boost, his shield firmly connecting to the torso of the guard who was most unfortunate enough to be in his way, sending them flying twenty feet back like a ragdoll. Not even giving time for the others to prepare, he swings his hammer right into the ribs of the guard next to them, sending them to the ground before leaping back from an incoming sword strike, then blocking a spear that came from his right.

The dwarf angles his shield just slightly enough to make the spear’s momentum work in his favor against the guard, using it to force them off balance before shield bashing them in the head hard enough to force their helmet to go flying, followed by a few large globes of blood flying from their muzzle as they slowly spun a few times before hitting the ground. It seemed that at this point, Zargan was unstoppable, beating down every single guard that got even slightly close to him.

However, the more guards he put down, the more seemed to join the fray. At this point, Zargan stood there breathing heavily. The only reason why he hadn’t sustained any real injuries was because there weren’t any easy access points to getting under his armor, but he was starting to get run down by the sheer numbers. Zargan started backing away slowly as he continued panting and growling in anger, the guards starting to circle him as he backed up against a wall.

“Well, lads. Looks like ya get to be my test dummies after all.’..” he said as the shield and hammer disappeared from his hands before he lifted them above his head, and a strange longing object appeared above him before he grabbed it with both hands and held it at his waist. “Boys, I’d like you all to meet Sasha, my latest good girl…” he said as he pointed the large set of rotating barrels toward the approaching group. The large cylindrical chamber below the processing unit pulsating as Zargan charged it full of his magic as it pulled from his ridiculously massive magic reservoir “Now is a good time for ya all to run…”.

They didn’t heed his warning, so with that, the spinning of the barrels reached their top speed before the barrels began spitting out small, concentrated bullets of magic. Thankfully, Zargan thought better about it and put it on the non-lethal setting. It wasn't going to kill them, but it was going to put them all on the ground for a good while. “OOOOOH FUUUUU-!” one of the guards shouted before he and all the others were being mowed down by this unfamiliar weapon. Zargan suddenly had the upper hand as he pushed forward slowly but surely, not even giving the other guard a chance to advance or even run away.

Soon enough, every guard but the commander was down and knocked out. Zargan walked forward with the barrels still spinning and pointing at the now covering commander who was trying to scoot back away from Zargan “Now then, are ya gonna tell me where I can find your friends and my student then? Or am I gonna have to turn this on lethal mode and put lots of holes in ya? See, these guards didn’t deserve this. You are the one who sent them to face down this monster…” he said as he suddenly flipped the switch to full on lethal mode, the chamber holding the magic reddening now.

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell you! I’ll even show you, just please!” he said as he continued to cower in fear of potentially being torn apart by such a weapon. Zargan stood there for a moment before making the magical minigun disappear and pulled out his trusty revolver before pointing it at the commander “Ya will lead me and not make a fuss or try and get anyone else’s attention, or one of these is gonna go right in your spine. Do ya understand..?” he asked with a low growl. The guard stood up on shaky legs before nodding multiple times before leading Zargan to where the smithies were holding Laelah.

Turns out, she wasn’t even being held in the castle dungeons. It was in a secret underground hideout where the smithies conducted illegal business. Boy, Zargan couldn’t wait to show the princess all this, to be sure. And the place was most definitely filled with traps, so he used the commander to either trigger them for him or disable them, enabling him to get through scott free. Soon enough, they came across a wall that the guard had to touch a certain few blocks in a certain way, making sure to memorize it thoroughly himself. “Alright…just go down this halfway and through that door…she is in there. Now pelase? Can I go..??” he asked as he still kept his back toward the dwarf, not wanting to make any sudden moves.

Zargan went quiet for a moment before nodding “Sure, you can go. It's gonna be a long crawl for you, though.” he said before the hammer on his revolver cocked, and a magic bullet was planted right into the guard’s spine, snapping it and making him drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, immediately paralyzing him from the waist below. The guard let out an agonizing cry of pain as he began to crawl away pathetic while Zargan stepped over him like he was garbage “Not like ya will be getting far anyway since ya were involved in this…” he simply stated.

Zargan kicked in the door hard enough that the whole lock on the inside simply fell off as the door flew off its hinges and slid across the floor. One of the smithies was making a quick grab for Laelah, who was tied up and blindfolded before a magic bullet was fired into the back of his knee, causing him to fall to the ground in front of her and grab at his knee in pain, aiming his revolver at the other smithy who now had his hands up.

“Well, well, ya slimy pieces of gobshite thought I wouldn’t find out what ya have done, huh? Ya fuckin’ thought I wouldn’t retaliate and come lookin’ for ya myself? And ya thought to attack MY student because ya couldn’t get my smithin’ secret from me?!” Zargan yelled as his anger rose even higher now that he could see a few injuries all over Laelah’s arms and face. He lifted his gauntlet toward his face before speaking into it “Alpha, Beta, to my location, will you, my dears?” he asked before two of his fem constructs appeared in a blinding light next to him.

“Hold them both down, please. With their hands out in front of them,” he ordered. Before the two stallions could protest, the two heavy constructs leaped on them and pinned them down with their knees in the back and their hands wrapped firmly around their wrists, forcing their hands out in front of them. Zargan placed his revolver in its holster behind him before walking up to gently rub Laelah’s cheek to make sure she was alright “Are ya alright, my dear..?” he asked in a soft and gentle tone.

“M-Master..? You…you came..?” she asked, rather shocked but happy to see that he cared enough for her to do so. “Of course, I came for ya, lass. I may be a rough teacher, but I still care a great deal for ya when you aren’t under my hammer,” he said before cutting her ropes loose and helping her sit down, knowing full well she might be weak from her ordeal before removing her blindfold, seeing a scar had been newly formed over her right eye.

“No..they..did they..?” he asked as he reached up to examine her eye. Thankfully, Laelah tells him that it was only just the skin that got cut and not the eye itself. Still, that was enough to send Zargan’s anger into the danger zone once more. “Just…wait here. Ya may want to close your eyes and cover your ears for this…” he said before standing up and walking over to the now squirming smithies as a dagger appeared in his right hand.

“Ya know, on my way down here. I was thinkin’ about many, many ways how I could punish ya for what ya had done….” he said as he twirled the dagger around in his hand “I thought about crushin’ ya hands with my hammer. But, but then I thought of a better idea.” he said as he kneeled down and took one of the stallions wrists into his hand and slowly brought the blade to rest between the thumb and index finger” Riiiight here..is where a crucial part of the hand is for holding hammers or any matter of weapon or tool really. It's a tendon that without it, ya can’t hold shit.” he said before he began slowly cutting into that very spot, the stallion kicking and screaming as Zargan slowly saws through that very same tendon before he cuts clean through it, doing the same with his other hand and then the same thing to the other stallion, even carving deep X gashes into the tops of their hands.

Zargan then grabbed hold of their faces and plunged the dagger into one of the eyes each before digging it out and cutting it free of the optic nerves before tossing them into a corner for the rats to nibble on. The stallions wrote in pain before passing out, the constructs removing themselves from the stallions before walking over to Laelah, who had managed to get to her talons. They help steady the poor girl before Zargan gathers up her armor that was stolen from the griffon, even returning the gauntlets so that she could have a full set once more.

“Alpha, Beta, please see to her and make sure she is alright, get her anything she needs: food, water, even a little bit of extra money. You know which cobblestone I keep the stash under. And then get her out of town, and on her way back home, her family has been kept waiting long enough.” The constructs nod, supporting the griffon before she runs forward, collapsing into the dwarf with as tight of a hug as she could give “Master...Master, thank you so so much for coming for me! I hope…I hope to see you again soon. I love you, Master!” she said as she nuzzled into his now exposed face.

Of course, she didn’t mean she romantically loved him, but she saw the dwarf as more of a grandfatherly figure than anything. And she considered him part of her family now. Zargan lifted both his gloved hands up to her cheeks and gently rubbed them before gently tapping them with the palm of his hands “Ya are a good girl, Laelah. Ya stay safe and come back when ya get things running smoothly back home, ya hear?” he said before handing her the bag that had her armor in it. She gave a nod before the two constructs disappeared with her into the bright blue light they appeared in.

Zargan knew what was about to come next. But, if it was to save his student, it was worth it. He reached into his bag of holding and pulled out his flask before taking a VERY long swig from it and slowly making his way back to the surface.

Author's Note

Retributiioooooooooooooon. Well deserved for those two assholes. The question is..why the princesses understand why he did what he did? Will he get some jail time for it? We shall see how it all unfolds.

May the darkness grant you peace.