Chapter 4
…
"And get those books to my room when you…." I was cut off from telling feather quill about some research material before I was interrupted by a loud "GGGHHHHAAAA" coming from down the castle. I looked down and to my disgust a giant naked satyr was rampaging in the town and was running straight to the castle.
"Anita, you go with feather to my office and then fly out to the nearest town. I'll send word when the emergency is over."
"But dad I want to help." I quickly thought up a response to that. "You will be helping feather here buy relief supplies for those damaged homes. Get a few contracts here to put in a bid. Can I trust you to handle it?"
"Yes daddy." Hook line and sinker.
I left them then to rush down to the foyer to try and help. My legs moving so fast it looked like my cutie mark was animated.
I got my cutie mark shortly before my parents left to go back.
Two weeks before.
I looked out at my new family. My daughter being toyed with by my mother, my father discussing the stone work with the griffin king and myself making sweet tea for everyone. This was life, this was peace. I remembered what I told the old man at the gate all those years ago, 'I want to know peace' I suppose in a way I got my wish.
Just as I finished pouring some tea when I left a small sting on my rump. I looked down and found a cup of tea with a content smile and a sword for a spoon tattooed across my flank. I suppose this would make a joyful occasion. But it doesn't really change anything.
While everyone noticed, no one commented on it. My cutie mark was peace and war. Said more about me then words ever could. Even if I Still found them odd.
…. ….
I raced down to the courtyard were the king and his nights were doing their best to hurt the satyr. But from what I saw they were going about it the wrong way. The beast was large and heavy with a great upper body. But its legs, while large, were mostly week and unprotected. The gryphons were targeting the large upper body and it was too well defended for them. Griffons instantly go for the top do to their wings.
For now, I just settled for dragging the injured back and cast a very old healing spell from the ghost zone that was used as first aid on all creatures.
Ghost energy and magic while similar had different parameters but could be disguised as the same thing. The ghost zone even had some regular magic and sorceress. I even got to spend near a decade in the Pantahime of magic learning. Basically, an infinite magical library.
I looked up just as king Rufus fell from a mighty sweep of the saytrs arms. I franticly cast my healing spell again and was just able to save hims life. His white head may have a few scars come time him to wake up.
I looked around but there was no one else but me and the monster. A pile of wounded soldiers behind me and some employees in the windows. I took a deep breath to calm down and stepped up to the beast. "I don't know why you are here, or who sent you but you will not get away with hurting my king and Friend." At the last part my voice got a bit more ghostly as my anger began to seep out. My eyes were already red with traces of pink around them.
"Ghe Ghe GHe, Little pony think he can take on the Great and Strong Bill goat? No bill will smash the little pony. Little mean fluffy payed good grass for that bird kings neck." So, a group that was fluffy wanted to kill the king? Great another assassination attempt.
I grabbed a downed blade and held it in my magic reining it at the molecular level into the sharpest blade I could get. I rushed at the beast as it billowed and dodged its hands as they slammed down. They crashed into the floor making it rattle like an earthquake. I slipped under its hands till I could get a cut into its leg. "GUUUU GUUU." The beast bellowed as I retracted its leg blood spilling everywhere and getting on my face and body. He rushed back at be not getting any time other than to raise my blade as he swatted me away. I slammed back first into a stone wall.
Oh god, the pain, "You think this will keep me down, I've had far worse." I got back up, broken ribs and all. I reached down into my ghost core and began a partial transformation. My horn elongated as dragon wings burst from my back. My fur turned an angry shade or red and my main shaped itself into a two-horned style. I said nothing as I flew up and charged my horn. And I felt my power be invigorated.
I galloped at the beast and as he grabbed a pillar and swung it at me as if it was a staff. I slammed into the pillar sending it and him back by several feet with cracks coming down the pillar. Without wasting any time, I got back under him and slammed my hooves back into his injured leg. With a sickening crack, the bones in his leg gave way and he fall onto his back.
He struggled and writhed before I slammed a hoof down on his head and secretly compelled him to sleep.
I could have done that at the very start of the match but griffins are like Vikings. They respect strength. There would be no show of strength if all I did was cast a spell. But my physically taking down a opponent that took out the kings guard, Well there is respect in that. They tolerated me since I helped with the kids, But this should open up a few more doors.
Cheering came up from the castle walls as the civilian employees celebrated the threats end. The last of the guards that had come in after the king had collapsed piled in. "Have ten guards, guard the prisoner at all times. The rest bring the king and his guards to the hospital. I want at least several guards watching him always. He is not to be left alone for any reason. If see him alone when I get to the hospital Ill dock you pay in half. MOVE" They were all staring at me talking command but started to move as I Yelled and threatened to doc their money. Since I Was seen around the king a lot and was his scribe I could do it as well.
"Now someone get me a scout." I march on in to the palace already dreading the paperwork.
…..
I so hate this paperwork. Piles of it everywhere. It would not be so bad if the content of said papers wasn't pure chicken scratch at times. "If I wasn't a mayor of a city as big as this country id have pulled my hair out by now" The filing system was non-existent and they just gave all the paperwork to the top rather than delegating anything.
There is just way too many people that were idiots. But that can be handled latter.
For now, my eye was twitching from a bird brain. "Are you telling me that the scouts were all distracted by a Scare crow?"
"Well it was a walking scare crow." Wild heart Captain of the scouts said looking embarrassed his men fell for that.
"I don't care get your men into the sky this second and start coming for other threats. And get a detachment to follow the trail of that Satyr. I want to know where he came from, who hired him and what he broke on my desk by tomorrow. Now dismissed.
I filled out the relief forms and then headed to the hospital to see a king.
… …. …
King Rufus Blood Beak woke up from his pleasant dream of swimming in a chocolate river to white walls and the acid smell of cleanser. He felt stiff and sore and like he really needed some water. He looked around and saw a gathering of guards all guarding him and making menacing faces as the staff milled about.
The door opened and Iron Hooves came in and took a seat. "Glad to see you awake your majesty. You had us all worried when you were struck down." Said captain Brush Wing of his guard.
"Report what happened, and do it slowly my head still is beating like a drum." He rested his head back down onto the nice soft pillow.
"After you fell I dragged everyone out of the line of fire and healed what damage I could. Then I taught that satyr what you don't mess with Gryffonia." Silver said while zooming into the room with large stacks of paper levitating behind him as he worked. "Unfortunately I could not help you look any better. Looks like you are stuck looking like that sire." Sivler held up a mirror showing the king looked… the same. "Dick" "And you love me for it continuing."
"After the Syter was defeated we began reconstruction of any damage done by it and have sent out scouts to verify any more potential threats. A gag order was placed about anyone leaving the city to keep word of your health in check. The Sytre is being held now and I will begin questioning it shortly. The castle is still standing and nothing more than the court yard was broken into. The city however has some considerable damage to a few buildings. A large portion of our food reserves were eaten or destroyed so we must deal with that soon. I can Keep things going while you rest but I need permission to start an investigation and to make emergency decisions."
"You, have it? Go do your thing. I'll be back up in no time." With that Silver left with the guards making a tunnel for him.
"So how was the fight? That guy will underplay himself."
The guards then went into an explanation about what happened by the end the king had a new head ache. "If he keeps doing this he might as well become king himself. Well that explained the bandaged torso. Also, got to think about an award ceremony and the food issue. I wonder if I can get him to take care of that for me?"
.. … ..
Later that day the king was sitting up with Silver over a cup of some Alaskan tea. The bite of winter went with each sip leaving a chilled and focused feeling.
"The interrogation worked well and we can have the perpetrators trapped soon." Said Silver as he tossed the king a scroll with the details.
"How did you manage so fast?" The king caught the scroll and unfurled it.
"I know a spell that reads minds, while a guard was asking him questions I snuck into his mind from the back and just listened as he remembered the memory. We were right, it was the Sharp tooth clan, they got a lot bolder now. They may have disregarded stealth all together and just want you dead."
"Disregarding the fact that you can also read minds I believe we still need hard proof that they were the ones to attack us. Otherwise all the other clans will become more hostel. Hugh. I really wish we could just kill them but with the resent famine we may need them anyway to buy from their food stocks." Even the king had to cut back a bit.
"About that, iv been looking over reports and discovered something a bit drastic, possibly evil and a workable solution."
"If you say something is evil then I'm really not going to like this news." The king started to fiddle with his pen in hopes of alleviating some stress. "However, it does not surprise me you already know how to fix the food issue. Our stores were always low so this hit caused some real damage."
"Well a few years ago, a large order came up for bit crops, sugar, herb, cotton and the like. Over the years, the farmers started to see their neighbors get richer from growing and selling these inedible goods and started to grow them themselves. Now we have a lot less people that grow the fruits and vegetables we need for a healthy diet. We had meat but then when the farmers growing the food for the animals started to grow the bit crops, well suddenly we got a loss less meet. This order was also coming at a time of economic prosperity from multiple locations for the nation, a coincidence perhaps but not likely.
"Who placed the order?" The king was astonished that he didn't see it. It was right under his nose the whole time. It seemed strange to go from such an active economy to a famine so quickly.
"What race gets high off sugar? While the purchasing was done by a few companies across the world but all have ties to and are controlled by equestria. I hate saying dreadful thing of my old home, wait I don't Equestrian is ruled by a benevolent dictator that will do literally anything to strengthen equestrian. We can revere the damage but We will need a year to do it." I telekinetically get some folders and moves them in front of the king showing the projections for next year.
"We could supplement our food for the short duration with the dogs and Naga clans. If we don't renew our contract with the equestrian trade guild and instead choose to do it with the other races we can still sell the goods we have left over from the bit crops. We can get the farmers to work more towards farming food if we subsidies taxes on them. They would not afford taxes anyway since the overflow in cotton and those accursed bit crops caused the value of them to drastically go down giving them less money than food would at this point." The king drew up some preliminary plans to reverse the situation. While also making decrease and other bills that would keep it from happening again.
"While I have your attention, I will be performing a ritual in a few days that you might find interesting. I've been doing a bit of research and I finally got shape shifting down. By this time next week, I should be in the body of a griffin." I said smuggle. While you could transfigure objects, make illusions and even make a few additions to your body, no one had ever cracked true shape shifting. The Changelings came close but that was just a heavy illusion. A light-based glamour that covered their bodies that would look and act sloid but would be unable to take to many real hits. His shift would be permanent. He would not be able to fully control the transformation but the results should be fascinating.
The king just looked back wide eyed at my statement trying to wrap his head around that new bombshell. "How is that possible." No unicorn had ever been able to shape shift into a Griffon before. Not believably anyway.
"Well for one my natural state is more malleable than any other living beings. As I told you a week into the job my cells are not fixed like all living beings. Since I could already transform it stands to reason that I could transform into other beings as well. I won't even lose my magic as a griffin while retaining all the biology of your species. I already tried just changing my hand and well look for yourself." This a black glow from two rings the hooves I had before turned into two wicked sharp talons. The transformation was done in parts and would take some time to master each type of body but it could be done. All I needed now was a full body transformation to make it complete. "I have to say, Claws and fingers are far preferable to hooves."
"I will be their then, to see you turn into a griffin is just to dang interesting to pass up. Heck half the guards might show up just to see this." The king put down the plans and let his head rest back a bit. It had only been a week since he had been released from the hospital and his head still beat rather strongly.
"After the transformation, I think I'll take a break and take my daughter to see my parents, then possibly go to the ever stone falls for some fun. Should be fun no?" He lifted his cup back to his lips as a smirk crossed his face.
... .… …. .…
Ritual chamber
I made this ritual changer in the castle as to contain any unwanted side effects of my more powerful spells and experiments. We don't want everyone to start talking in pig Latin or sprouting trees on their backs. So, I built three rooms in the castle. The first being this ritual room since I really don't want to have to deal with angry servants complaining about the mess. Hell, hath no fury like a maid scorned. It not only contained my magic but stopped other magics from interfering from the outside.
The second was a magic pulsation and disruption chamber. It basically disrupts all magic in the city making it much harder to use right and breaking any passive spells. So, illusion and temporary transformation spells would break and any spying spells would just fizzle out. You could throw out a fire ball but after the attempt the average unicorn would be too exhausted to do anything else.
The last room was a signal station. It connected every city in the country for instantaneous communication using codes. Nothing to complex but there is so much of it with new codes every week that listening in would be impossible.
I brought the jar of ecto plasma into a decagon. The decagon had a feature of a griffin on each side. Feathers, claws, tail and other such traits surrounded the decagon as well as the decagon being a white color. While I didn't need it per say, it would focus my transformation and help me without making a mistake and had failsafe's in case something went wrong. Trust me when I say you don't want to be distracted when doing a new transformation. That's how you end up with permanent scales on your back.
Ecto plasm is not easy to come by here espesially since no one knows what it is. I must find it myself in the hardest to reach caves. But the mere fact that it exists here means that this place is connected to a part of the ghost zone. Probably not one I know of since the ghost zone might as well be infinite. If you ever want a real adventure, then put on a hazmat suit with plenty of air and jump in.
With the last symbol made I jumped on into the middle of the decagon and looked around at all the faces. My daughter in the front row looking exited to see her daddy's experiment. The king was next to her ready to hold her back should she think that something is wrong. Feather quill was next to him taking notes of the experiment. For if it worked on me then there were other applications. Behind them were guards that came to see the show. While they each had to perform a screening prosses to attend.
"Well this is it, I shall see you all soon in a new light." I smiled a lit up my horn. Gradually every symbol on the decagon began to glow with a soft green light. The ectoplasm began to vibrate Intune with my power as it slowly crept onto me, into me. My feet were the first to be covered followed by my torso. The plasma stung at first but it reseeded. Every now and then a pain would shoot out before I could submerge my head into the green goo.
It was an odd experience. Having my whole being changed from one to another. The first time this happened was when I first transformed into Lord Plasmius. Now that had been an exhausting experience. As if every cell in my body had used all its energy and was just exhausted. I slept for days dealing with it back then.
At least now I would have friends to watch over me once the transformation is complete. I wonder what I will look like. The spell would turn me into a gryffinn as if I was born one. So I had no idea how this was going to go.
After what seemed like hours but was in fact half an hour the ectoplasmic shell started to crack. It creaked and it groaned as I struggled to get out in my new body. My legs felt longer and I no longer had a snout but a beak instead. It felt odd to have wings and my eyes sight was supercharged causing a blurry focus.
I shook my head clear from the residual effects and swooned a bit. Yep that was an exhausting affair. Like running a marathon all over again. I looked around and found everyone stating at me with wide eagle eyes. "Mirror please." My voice it seemed also changed quite a bit. I regained my old soothing and gentle tone that I had in my thirties. My childish hoarse voice now gone for good. And boy did I hate that voice I had.
"Daddy?" My daughter walked up to me with wide wonder filled eyes. She was now even smaller and cuter then before. That made all this just about worth it. I noticed I could now count every clevis on every feather she had where before it was just a blur of browns. I also noticed that I was now significantly taller. Before I was just under eye level with the king. Still tall for a pony but not for a Gryphon. Now I was a full head taller than the king. A giant among giants.
"Yes Daughter, how do I look?" Silver struck a pose that he thought was heroic.
"Wow, daddy is so big, and white." She jumped up onto my back and huddled against my new wings. They were in fact white and vast stretching out a good five feet in every direction. Everything else seemed to be white as well.
A mirror was dragged in and I looked at my new reflection. Ok, no bad. I was a pure white Gryphon, little wisps of black covered my chest feathers like steam out of a tea cup. My eyes and beak being the only other real color on my, my beak was an obsidian black and gleamed in the light while my eyes were a ruby red color giving off a sinister look. All In all, I looked dignified, ravishing and just a tad imposing.
I took my first few tentative steps as a gryphon and after making sure I wasn't going to fall or trip walked over to the king with a small bow. "Well it worked, welcome to the griffin species, how do you feel?"
"Powerful, graceful, a little unbalanced thanks to the wings and the strange desire to play with a ball of yarn?" I joked back and was celebrated for the rest of the day. We drank mead and ate meat and partied for the rest of the day. It was nice and even Anita got a new friend called Gilda. They started off rocky but my little Anita knows how to hit back and soon they went from wrestling like dogs to laughing while tossing each other around. So we both got something today.
…
Stone Park.
Stone Park is an amazing place full of waterfalls and giant redwood trees. These trees are so old and so strong that a full-sized dragon would be hard pressed to move one. The regular animal denizens were all the small cuddly kind that were meant to look cute rather than eat. The waterfalls were no slouches ether each ranging from small ponds to being as tall as a skyscraper. I was currently in one of the offshoot pools that had a natural whirlpool effect. I was on an inflatable innertube ready to just laze the day away.
SWISH. I was knocked over from the tube into the water and spat out the water that was quickly filling my lungs. "HAhAHA" Two pairs of laughter were heard behind me as Anita and Gilda both were holding my innertube ready to make a break for it. "You do realize this means war?" I smirk and launch myself at the two of them as I swoop in and toss the tow of them over my shoulder and into the water. A small shot of water hit the back of my head as they threw more water at me.
We played and picnicked and overall had a lot of fun. Life was good and these peaceful moments were what Vlad/silver strived for.
