A/N: This is the second fanfiction I've ever written. It was way back in 2017, when I was still in high school. I'm not in this fandom anymore. The crippling degeneracy within was too much for me to take. I'm still proud, somewhat, of the work I've done way back when, however, and so I'm moving my work here for archival purposes. Small edits have been made from the original work. If you're reading for the first time, please enjoy. If you don't, please give my high-school self some advice with a comment. Each one makes my day!

His name was Devon. He was a tall, beige-colored griffon with a black tuft of hair, ground-down talons, and a sour temperament. Since his childbirth, he and his family had been poor and had gotten by mostly on relief funds and begging for money. Griffonstone was, after all, a place of depravity and poor economic conditions, wallowing in poverty and moldy hay.

Devon had gotten into debt early on in his life. To help pay them off, and to get out of Griffonstone, Devon found himself involved in petty crime- swiping a wallet here and there, extortion on behalf of a gang, and he had once knifed another griffon for twenty gold bits. Over the years he had eventually gotten the funds to move to Manehattan and begun a new life there. He had risen through the waves of criminals to become a minor leader in a black market weapons business. Devon had had many nights like the one tonight, working late in the industrial areas of Manehattan.

Devon was overseeing seven of his under-associates loading in several crates into a dim, cobwebby old warehouse on 5th and Hay street owned by one of his crime bosses. Devon himself was standing on a pile of wooden crates piled into one of the warehouse's corners, two or three times higher than the griffons beneath him. It was a dark and stormy night outside; rain lashed continuously at the windows and wind rattled the warehouse's entire skeleton, making it creak with every howl of the storm. The offloading area that the seven griffons were working in was lit only by aging yellow lights.

Looking at his fellow griffons straining under their loads and stacking them in the warehouse, Devon reflected on the circumstances that led him into such a situation. The method of income was...dubious, yes, but it was what he had to do in order to live. And sometimes he wasn't even aware of what his higher ups were telling him. There were some operations where the cargo was labelled TOP SECRET DO NOT OPEN. He was innately curious about it, but he had always decided to restrain his curiosity and not peek inside. That information was for him to find out later.

Two of his fellow griffons were carrying a massive wooden storage crate into its designated space on the shelves.

"Whew!" one of them exclaimed as they set it down. He stretched his feathery arms. "That one was real heavy. They oughta pay us more for that hard labor we do all the time."

"What the Tartarus was even in that thing?" the other one asked. He thumped the crate twice. "It felt like I was carrying all of bleedin' Canterlot in that thing. Whadda ya say, want to find out-"

"No," the other one refused. "The boss is only payin' us to load the crate, not find out what's in it. We don't want to make him angry, you know. The last time you tried to, Glenn, you almost got a knife in your eye."

"But Gilbert-"

"No buts. Don't peek."

Glenn looked at Gilbert strangely, then sighed and went back to work. He trudged over to the cart of crates somepony had brought in anonymously earlier that day and picked up a lighter box. "You know, Gilbert, I can't help but think there's more to all this than they're telling us. They barely tell us anything about all these weapon shipments they keep on making us do."

Gilbert picked at his talons absently. "Well, in order to commit felons, you need weapons, don't you?"

"I know that- everyone knows that. But for the amount of weapon boxes we've had to ship in the last month, you'd think we would launch an all-out war against Equestria. What's with that?"

"Are you so sure that what you've been shipping is actually weapons?" Gilbert asked. "They could be putting other materials in the boxes and mislabeling them on purpose, you know."

Glenn pondered that. "You're right..." he said after a while. He looked at the box he was setting down. "Why don't we find out?" he suggested.

"It's your own head you're risking, Glenn." another griffon said, overhearing the conversation.

"He's right," Gilbert said to Glenn, pointing one talon at him. "Keep your head down and don't question the higher-ups that can have you drowned in the harbor with a twitch of a finger."

Glenn huffed and gave a withering glare at them behind their back.

Devon watched all of this with satisfaction. His compatriots weren't just hard workers, they kept themselves in check- and prevented others from stepping out of their spots. Essential elements in good workers. You worked hard to get where you were in the criminal underworld.

Devon was not terribly ambitious, nor was he particularly cunning or deceiving. All he wanted was enough money to live comfortably. It was the spot he was in now, and he liked it.

Thump thump...

He paused. What was that sound? It was faint, but it seemed to resonate throughout his entire being for some reason. He looked around for a second, watching for an intruder to come in, an accident about to happen-

Then he realized it was just the beating of his own heart. Devon put his hand to his chest and felt the steady, regular beat of it under his flesh. The heart, an unstoppable organ, the definition of life, the thing your body depended on so much but never failed at. Steady, steady beats. Devon counted its motions, its rhythm, under his talons. Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump, th-

Thump thump...

And his own heart seemed to skip a little. That, right there, wasn't his heartbeat. It was something else. He looked around. Did someone turn on a machine or something? It sounded like it came from the catacombs of the warehouse, deep inside, deep inside...

Devon twiddled his talons nervously. It was nothing to be feared. They were safe. No pony knew this place was being used, and no griffon would sabotage their job. It was being commissioned by the boss, after all, and no one dared cross the boss. It was just the heating system finally kicking in.

Thump thump...

And yet he felt cold, so cold, so bitterly frozen. It came all at once. One instant it was room temperature in the warehouse; the next, it seemed to drop twenty degrees. Devon shivered, and his feathers stood on end. It was probably his imagination. He was paranoid. He was just getting nervous because he was a criminal, after all, because what if Manehattan police found out he was transporting weapons to his higher-ups, what if they found out about his past activities of robbery and petty murder?

But it didn't explain the cold, the permeating cold that infested inside him, that surrounded him, seemed to choke the air out of him in bursts of frozen exhales. He looked around once more, his teeth chattering like loaded dice. There was still nothing there. Nothing to be afraid of. Why should he be afraid of the cold? It was just a feeling, a temperature...

Thump thump...

And then a loud bang.

Devon whirled around to the source of the noise, startled inexplicably. Glenn had dropped a crate on the concrete floor and the box had spilled its contents. Devon cursed under his breath. Not only had he startled him, the contents of the box had attracted attention. The secret contents. A few objects scattered across the ground along with the hay it was being packaged in.

"What in Equestria is that?" Maurice said in surprise. He picked one of the objects off the ground.

Gilbert tilted his head to the side. "It looks like..." He trailed off. "...I don't even know what that looks like."

It looked like a thick black metal capital L that was squared off. It looked innocent enough, but like a weapon of some sort. At the junction of the two sides was a trigger, and the inside of it from the long end was hollow. It was a curious device indeed, and the griffons were fascinated.

"Get away from that!" Devon snarled, and pushed aside the griffons beside him. "That's top secret information! You aren't supposed to know about..." His eyes fell to the strange device. "...whatever that is." He snatched it out of the hands of Maurice and eyed it strangely. The purpose of it eluded him.

Thump thump

In the dim yellow light of the warehouse they were in, Devon examined it. It felt heavy, but easy to point. The trigger meant that it was a release to fire a projectile. That much Devon knew about weapons. He tried to look for the place where the crossbow bolt would be, but there wasn't any. The device was too small to accommodate that anyway. But if it wasn't a long-range weapon, what was it? A club? He tried holding the object from the long end and found that it was too short to be used as an effective club.

Devon looked at the ground near the toppled box and found even more of the strange devices. Capital black Ls, scattered across the ground, like a toddler spilling his learning letters. There were four small wooden boxes next to them, as well. Only one of them had opened. In the boxes were hundreds of oblong brass objects flat at one end and pointed on the other. They were quite small, and were rather pitiful to look at.

"Are those paperweights?" one of the griffons asked. He went forward to try and examine them.

"Get back!" another scowled at him, and grabbed his arm before he could do anything. "I don't know what those are! There's a reason why this is all secret, you know!"

Thump thump

"Guys?" one of the eight griffons asked. "M-maybe we should put those back. I don't want the boss to get mad at us."

"What the boss doesn't know won't hurt him," another griffon snapped. "If you're so much of a pansy that you can't even handle this, maybe you should just get out of here!"

"I-is it just me, or did it get really cold in here all of a sudden?"

"It's not just you. I feel it too."

Devon tried to put the object down, but found that he couldn't. The object was so intriguing that no matter how much he tried to just lay it down and pack up the spilled weapons, he just couldn't. It was too peculiar.

Thump thump...

"Does anyone else hear that?" another griffon asked.

"Hear what?"

"Listen!"

Everyone fell silent. The only sounds that could be heard were the faint winds howling outside like forlorn wolves and the hum of the yellow, aging light bulbs above them. A few of them flickered.

Then they heard it.

Thump thump...

"What is that?" one of them asked.

Glenn's eyes shot all over the warehouse. "It's just the heating kicking in. About time, too. I'm feeling more numb than a dentist's patient."

"Or what if it's something else?"

"You and your supernatural crap. Just shut up and get back to work," Devon snarled. He looked at the strange device held in his hand again. It seemed to radiate something...dark. A promise, the promise of death to all it came in contact with. The metal felt a lot colder in his palm that had nothing to do with the rapidly falling temperature.

"Uh, guys?" one of the griffons asked, the one who had talked about 'something else'. The temperature continued to drop. "I don't think it's the heating system."

Thump thump...

"Well then, why don't you have an idea of what it is, then?" a female griffon snarled at him. "If it's not the heating, then what is it?"

KABOOM

All the griffons almost jumped out of their skins. They had all turned themselves to the source of the noise and noticed that the massive double doors to the warehouse had mysteriously been barred shut all by themselves with a loud echo.

They were now alone in the warehouse. The yellowing, ancient lights began to flicker and sputter slightly.

The eight griffons surrounded themselves together in a circle. Devon noticed his hands were slippery with sweat, despite the bitter, bitter cold that nipped at him everywhere. Devon swallowed and said, "Someone go check the doors and get 'em open now!"

The female spread her wings and flew over to the doors and yanked on them. Then yanked again. No luck. She tried one last time before she flew back. "It's barred shut from the outside. But at least we're alone in here," she reported gravely.

Thump thump...

"It sounded closer that time," another griffon observed, nervously pulling out a small knife. He held it in front of him, the blade trembling.

"It sounds like a heartbeat," Glenn said out loud. "But it can't be a heartbeat, it can't be, no heartbeat is that loud..."

They clustered in closer in a circle surrounding the fallen box of mysterious weapons. All of them were pulling out crossbows from off their back, drawing short blades, or picking up blunt instruments. Devon held the mysterious black metal L. It shook slightly in his grip.

Thump thump...

A pause. The bulbs above them flickered and sparkled even more.

And all of a sudden the lights went out like the snap of a finger. Someone screamed and fired their crossbow randomly in the oppressive darkness, prompting a barrage of twangs as even more crossbows were fired in response.

And then, as quickly as they had gone out, the lights came back on again.

The griffons looked breathless, panting desperately, looking around in fear. Arrows littered the ground. Devon looked around, checking to see if anyone was hurt. Nobody was.

But one of them was missing.

Devon's breath caught in his throat. Where had he gone?

"Paul?" Glenn asked, looking around the large space they were in. Paul, wherever he was, gave no response. Glenn's voice rose to an unnatural pitch. "Paul?! Where are you?!"

One of the griffons was hyperventilating. In between breaths, he gasped, "We...we're going to...to die!"

"No one is dying on my watch," Devon said sharply. But he knew it was a promise he couldn't hold to permanently.

Thump thump...

The sound seemed to come from directly in front of him. Gulping, he raised the weapon in the direction of the thumping sound. It was a heartbeat- of some evil abomination of nature, perhaps.

"Everyone, hold hands," a griffon suggested. "That way, if one of us disappears, we'll be able to tell-"

Thump thump

And the lights went out again.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Hold on to her!"

"I can't! She just slipped!"

"Where is she?"

"Victoria! Victoria!"

And suddenly the lights came back on again. Victoria was missing. The griffons were shaking, both from the bitter, bitter cold and the fear struck deep into their hearts by the faceless terror out there.

Devon glared at the two griffons that had been holding to Victoria. "What happened, you dolts? Why didn't you hold on to her?"

"S-sir," one of them shakily stammered, "She- she just slipped out of our grasp, sir. One minute we were holding on to her, and the next, she just slid up!"

Devon fixed him a withering scowl. "Slipped?"

"Like she had been dragged, sir."

And suddenly something splattered onto the ground in their midst that made everyone jump back and scream with terror.

It was Victoria. Her beak was split, her eyes gouged out, her wings visibly broken and her stomach disemboweled. There was a deep, jagged hole in her sternum, and she was covered with runny red blood that was pooling just beneath her.

"Where are you?" Gilbert screamed, his shivering eyes darting in every direction. "Where are you?!"

And there was a thud. An impact as something heavy fell to the floor.

The six griffons left over faced where the noise came from. It was in between an alley of crates directly across from where they were.

Thump thump

The lights went out again and in between the alley of crates, where nothing was before, a pair of hot red eyes burned, searing the image into their heads for all eternity. Red, fiery eyes that radiated the promise of doom.

The griffons all fired their crossbows at the figure, but he blinked and disappeared. The griffons all turned wildly, but he was nowhere to be found.

There was a swishing noise as something was fired through the air at them. Gilbert stiffened, then slowly keeled over on the ground. The back of him was riddled with strange long objects that shimmered as he fell face down, the life bleeding out of him through the impacts. Blood oozed out of his wounds, between the long metal objects embedded deep into his back.

They were feathers. Metallic, sharpened feathers.

The four remaining started to turn around wildly, hoping to catch some glimpse of their attacker, but they could see nothing, only a flash of darkness as whoever it was flew in the rafters high above them. They all fired their crossbows at the figure sprinting through the rafters above, but the arrows sailed through the dark, hitting nothing.

A loud staccato reverberated throughout the room, at the speed of a snare drum, but as loud as thunder. A yellow burst of light shone in the oppressive darkness, and another griffon spurted blood from his body out of dozens of wounds that suddenly appeared all over him. He stumbled backwards as the wounds appeared, then collapsed onto the ground in a pool of blood that soon merged with the blood oozing from Victoria's corpse.

Glenn screamed in horror and ran to the griffon's side while the last remaining griffons fired their crossbows at the light's origin. But there was nothing there.

Glenn held the griffon's body, shaking as he felt the dead weight in his hands. Glenn was on the verge of tears. "How?" he whispered. "Wh-wh-why?"

Devon had no answer.

The last remaining griffons were circling about wildly, their faces plastered with one of panic. The strange thumping sound had stopped. There was an eerie silence present in the spacious warehouse, broken only by the wails of Glenn over his dead compatriot.

BOOM

And suddenly there was an explosion, a hard sound that rocked the ground beneath them, a flash of orange color in the midst of the survivors. They disappeared in the blooming flame. One came running out, engulfed in fire. Glenn and Devon had been on the edge of the eruption and had been thrown back by the force of it, hitting the ground with a hard thud. Devon struggled up weakly in time to see the burning, screaming griffon stumble away.

A bang, and he spurted blood from his front, and the screaming stopped. The burning, bleeding griffon fell down onto the cold concrete floor and moved no more. As he fell, Glenn and Devon could see who had killed him, standing behind him.

He was silhouetted against the tall forest of fire behind him, his image distorted by the heat waves. They could see nothing of his dark figure, other than that he was a pony who was standing upright, pointing something at the burning corpse. Glenn and Devon felt like they were in a nightmare, a terrible nightmare where all of your friends died and this was Tartarus, a special kind of Tartarus.

Glenn screamed in fear as the upright pony looked at him with baleful eyes and pointed his hoof at him. He tried to scramble away from him, but the nightmare simply aimed at him and a loud bang filled the air, loud as thunder. Glenn stumbled, bleeding from a wound in his thigh. He gripped it and more blood spurted out, crying aloud in pain. He pushed himself a few more inches with his hand, weeping and screaming.

Two more bangs ripped through the air, and two more wounds appeared in Glenn's back and shoulder. He fell to the ground, and one more deafening bang echoed in the vast warehouse. A hole appeared in the back of his head, and he went still.

Devon felt like he was going to throw up. His shaking fingers clutched the handle of the black capital L, wondering why he hadn't fired it before. He drew it up so it was pointing it at the head of the deathly pony, and pulled the trigger with all of his strength.

Click

The sound made his insides drop. Of course. Nopony ships loaded weapons. The device was empty. Devon had forgotten to load it.

The pony stood there for a second, clearly amused. Devon hurriedly threw the device away to the side, put his hands up, and exclaimed, "I surrender! I surrender, d'you hear?"

For a while, there was only the sound of the crackling, snapping flames.

Then a soft voice came through, barely distinguishable over the snapping, angry fire.

"Don't you understand?" the voice spoke so calmly, so quietly. "I'm not accepting surrenders." He slowly walked to the side, still silhouetted by the fire. "You are a criminal. A liar, a murderer, a creature of vileness and filth. You've abused the privilege to live."

And the silhouette pointed his hoof at Devon. Devon was paralyzed by fear. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything except pray in his head for mercy.

"And when privileges are abused..." The voice was so calm, so soft, so quiet, "...They get taken away."

A bang.

The pain was unbearable, the pain was like an inferno burning in his insides as a wound opened in his gut. He toppled to the ground, crying aloud and leaking. As he bled his life out and his eyesight failed him, all he could see was the orange blur of the flame. And all he could hear was the weak beat of his failing heart.

Thump thump

Thump thump

Thump thump

Thump...