Flights of Fancy
Disclaimer: I deny any ownership of any adolescent transformed shadow warrior chelonians. I do own all the inhabitants of Necron.
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in getting this up. All these other stories I have on the go, and new plot bunnies keep coming in insisting I write about them. However I haven't forgotten this story nor will I. Just be patient with me, I promise the story will be told in due time. Thanks. Ramica.
Chapter Twenty – Time to negotiate.
Gimod knew that he had to act quickly; he had to find the leader of the griffin prock before other griffins that were gathering opted to attack his friends. The dragon knew the others could handle a battle, but it was the toll of the battle that would follow, that concerned the dragon.
He roared loudly letting the gathering Griffins know that he was near by, and that they might want to think twice about making a move on his friends. Though in flying skill and in battle Gimod knew that a dragon and griffin were fairly evenly matched.
Gimod used his magic to take him from the outskirts into the rocky cliff range where the leader ought to be hiding, he quickly scanned the nearest ledges and caves with a sharp eye hoping for some sign of where the leader of griffins might be at.
Suddenly he saw two large orange griffins standing on a rock ledge above him, they screamed a warning at the dragon to back off.
Gimod smiled at their agitated calls, knowing that the warning was more to advise someone else of encroaching danger then to let him know that his life might be drastically shortening by continuing on this path. These orange griffins were sentries, which meant the leader of them had to be somewhere close.
That knowledge did Gimod little good when he realized that the sentries weren't about to let him pass, but as it was often said there was more then one way to skin a cat, and all cats, even with ones crossed with birds, happened to be highly curious.
Gimod shot up past the griffins and spat a couple of quick volleys of flame towards their feet. 'You want me out of here Griffins then you best come after me, for I am here to see your leader and I don't intend on leaving until I can meet with him.' Gimod informed them quickly.
The orange griffins snarled ruffling their feathers as they leapt after the dragon, their intentions were to chase the small wyrm away from their home, and to protect the leader and they were willing to do their task, no matter how much it took for them to do so.
Gimod levelled off over the peaks of the mountain range, his head slightly down he scanned the area for what he was looking for, he turned his long sinuous neck to let off a couple of flame balls at the griffins who were getting a bit close for comfort.
The two griffins rolled one to the left one to the right and swept upward on the thermal currents of the air, easily dodging the flame. They recovered to see the dragon making his way to two peaks that formed a very thin slot of air between them, they dived following after the runt wrym with ease, joining the dragon in his enticing game of follow the leader.
The griffin sentries knew that, Gimod had issued them a challenge, of sorts and depending on who could out fly who would determine the winner of the contest. Gimod almost purred with pleasure as he folded his wings skimming through the thin space between the two peaks, he knew that this was one way of drawing the griffin leader out, and was a fairly harmless way of settling matters between two beings as themselves.
Gimod rolled an eye back and could see the griffins imitating the move with ease, so Gimod snapped his body downward, pulling up not even an inch or two above some of the deadly rock peaks.
The griffins were quick to imitate the move, their lithe agile bodies, and large wings, twisting and snapping as they barrel rolled over the peaks.
Gimod did a sharp turn climbing high up into the sky, his momentum slowing as his wings laboured to lift him higher in the sky, here the griffins faltered for they glided more then flew, and griffins could never get as high up as a dragon anyways.
The griffins weren't about to give up they followed the dragons path as best as possible and waited patiently for the runt wyrm to bring the game back down to their level, in the meantime they taunted Gimod.
Gimod paid no attention to their teasing, instead he waited until he was sure he had climbed to sufficient height before practically folding his body in half lengthwise and folding his wings up close to his body, now he plunged nose first towards the ground, picking up incredible speed as he did so.
The griffins roared in surprise of this sudden move and quickly parted out of the way of the free falling dragon that shot between them, the two sentries regained their position and snarled towards one another before plunging after the dragon.
As they all plummeted towards the jagged rock peaks, Gimod slowly, ever so cautiously began to put out just a bit of wing to slow down and pull away from what would otherwise be a suicidal dive. One griffin obviously didn't care for how close they were getting pulled up and out too soon.
Gimod chuckled to himself, as he began a steep ninety degree climb keeping as close to a rock face as possible, then in a quick move he back flipped and barrel rolled away. The last sentry knew that he could not imitate the dragon's move told Gimod that he had won the match of agility and courage.
Gimod, hearing the griffin's acknowledgement of defeat, let loose a roar of victory.
" Have you come here to start a war with us then, you runt wyrm?" Came a deep rumbling noise from above.
Gimod scanned the area, quickly noting a griffin the size of Shanza, along with the feathers he bore a full black thick mane, the massive griffin leaped down the rock face with ease.
' I am not here for war but to prevent one' Gimod replied honestly, 'If you are the leader of the prock of griffins who reside here, then I wish to speak with you.'
" Speak?" The griffin snapped his beak sharply, " then what about this display of yours?"
' To get your attention and it obviously worked.' Gimod replied smugly, ' I am Gimodaptor and I and my friends need to negotiate safe passage through your domain.'
" Safe passage for dragons, who can merely fly over?" the griffin wondered suspiciously.
'Not all of my friends are dragons, many of them can not fly at all' Gimod hedged, ' Perhaps if we could all speak together we could reach a worthy agreement uh…' Gimod paused realizing he didn't have the griffin's name.
" Pride" the griffin, responded quickly, his dark eyes shone and he fluffed the feathers around his neck, and shook his mane, " Very well I am sure we can reach some sort of agreement through negotiations. Shoshi and Cortan will come with us." Pride declared quickly as he unfurled his wings.
Gimod caught up to the griffin ' Before we go too far, I think I ought to mention that some of the friends I travel with are herbivores.'
Pride slashed his tail and turned to give the dragon a mystified, perplexed look " Wyrms are supposed to eat herbivores." He countered.
Gimod smiled, ' I eat only the ones that I don't call friend and there is a good number of those!' he smirked, ' I tell you this so your sentries will behave we need to negotiate under truce conditions.' Gimod insisted.
Pride screeched " Whatever. It is truce at least until our meeting ends."
XXX
The others had drifted a little away from the bloodshed and were watching, somewhat anxiously for any sign of Gimod, or worse yet further trouble, Shanza had all ready healed Demon Wing and the two now were grazing side by side.
Marina was a relaxed lump of fur and wings, her eyes having the glassy look from sniffing too much catnip. She was amusing herself by caterwauling at the top of her lungs to irritate any in hearing range, the toshe with their keen ears, could only bury their head's in their paws and whine. Traba had more then enough of the cat's ear splitting rendition of music began to creep, slowly around behind the catafly, he gave Marina a good hard chomp to her tail, sending her last screech into a howl of pain, as the catafly shot up into the air.
Traba licked his lips and laughed rolling around in the grass, " I got me a bit of tail, maybe next time I'll get it behind the ears instead." He yipped as he snapped his jaws open and shut a few time, his gleaming teeth clicking ever so softly.
Marina began hurling insults at the toshe, calling them rude, obnoxious, good for nothing cowards, to begin with and going on from there.
Symbia stomped her hooves for attention before calling to the others, " Gimod is back and he is bringing griffins."
Leo saw a glint come to Raph's eyes as his hand moved to his belt withdrawing the pair of sai, to twirl expertly " Bring them on" he goaded.
" Raph put those away, I am sure that Gimod has seen to it that the griffins won't harm us" Leo insisted, for he knew that he would never willingly lead danger back to the others, and trusted Gimod to do the same.
" I'm sure he has Leo but I like a little extra insurance" Raph stated casually.
Leo gave his brother a very stern but sour glare that was enough to encourage Raph to tuck his weapons away, however reluctantly.
Gimod landed a few feet away from his friends with Pride and his two sentries behind him.
Shanza inhaled the griffin scent and did her best to keep her muzzle from curling up in sheer disgust, but a slight shiver, detectable in a bit of rippling of her hide, traveled down from her shoulders to her rump.
She took a cautious step forward, arching her neck slightly, and raising her tail she moved forward to greet the guest. Demon Wing stayed at her side matching her step with his own, but typical stallion, he couldn't resist rearing up on high, unfurling his wings and neighing loudly before coming to the ground and stomping a fore hoof sharply on the ground.
Gimod turned to the side and stepped between the two parties, ' Pride, leader of griffin rock prock, may I introduce, Shanza daughter of Zar and Shanleigh. Demon Wing her mate, Symbia the centaur, Lobo leader of the toshe pack, Leonardo mutant turtle, leader of the shadow ninja of New York City on Earth, and Marina the catafly.' The dragon announced with a great deal of importance, as he waved a hand at each.
" He made a mistake I should have been first" Marina sniffed.
" What about the rest of us…" Raph began, feeling insulted that they had not been part of the introductions.
Trina gave a low growl at Raph's interruptions " when dealing in large groups it is not proper to introduce all members before meetings" she explained quietly, " One may introduce single members of a group like Symbia is a representative of centaurs, or the leader of a number of beings in the group. Or one may announce both by ranking, but lower rank members are not important."
Raph crossed his arm over his plastron " Isn't that always the way?" he grumped miserably, " the only one who is important is the perfect leader!" he sneered contemptuously.
Don came up behind Raph " Come on, you don't want to be a part of that boring meeting, that the leaders are going be talking over Raph" Don grinned, " that is probably going be worse than any Leo lecture."
Raph grinned lightly " Don nothing is worse than Leo's lectures" he declared.
Don smirked, " Don't count on it Raph" he paused, " They most likely will be busy for some time, I'm wondering if we can go find something to eat before we have to move out." He looked back at the fallen griffin bodies, " It wouldn't be right to cook them, not with the negotiations coming."
Shea wagged his tail in agreement " Sure we can hunt, there is lots of food around, the griffins have to live on something you know. You are right hunting some meat will be better then just eating roots, nuts and leaves."
Traba made a hacking noise that sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball " Fruit and things are all fine and dandy in their place, and that place is any time when meat can't be found and you are starving." He insisted as he wrinkled his nose.
Raph nodded liking the idea of going off on a hunt, it sounded a lot more interesting then sitting around waiting for the others to finish their yapping, " Sounds great. Mike you want to come with us or wait here" he asked suddenly sounded a great deal more cheerful, as he realized that they probably had the better end of the deal.
Mike shrugged looked at the others gathering in a circle and grinned " I think I'll come, it looks like things are going get mighty tedious around here. Besides I want to see as much of Necron as I can" he paused, " But will it be safe to go away from here?" he asked his brow furrowing with concern, as he considered some of the events he had lived through since first coming to this world.
" Don't worry we'll be safe as long as we don't go any where near griffin rock, nothing more dangerous then griffins about in this area, they are top predator in these parts." Trina replied.
Mike blanched, not exactly sure that was the information he wanted to know, " What about less dangerous but still deadly creatures?" Mike amended.
Traba gave a wolfish grin " That would be us, and luckily we are on your side."
Don gave a sidelong glance Mike's way " Lucky us" he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
Mike snickered at his serious brother's comment.
Traba barked " Let's go hunt some food," he howled drawing out the o's in food as he and Trina lead the way off.
XXX
Pride ruffled his feathers " So what is this all about? It isn't normal for a wide assortment of creatures to band and travel together."
Shanza blew out ' It is a long story…' She preceded to tell Pride everything, ' That is why we must now travel through your lands but we must be assured of safe passage if we are to help my son and prevent this catastrophe that looms over our world.' She concluded.
Pride looked about as if he had heard nothing, but the others waited patiently knowing the large griffin was merely contemplating what had been said. Pride turned to Leo.
" Shanza says that you are not of this world, and that you can't really return home but these events do not really concern you at this moment."
Leo nodded, " Yes, that is more or less correct."He replied carefully.
" So, tell me why do you bother to step in now, instead of waiting to see what comes of things, why not let those who have to, do the work?" Pride wondered.
Leo knew that it was a loaded question, he knew that if he said the wrong thing, that the griffin might not grant them what they so desperately sought, so he knew he had to be careful about what he said, and more importantly take care in how it was said.
He said a silent prayer, or perhaps it was more a silent wish, that he could have Splinter's gift of talk and words so that he would say the right thing no matter what.
TBC