//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Fighting against an ophiotaurus // Story: Gusty the Great book 2- The crusades // by Dianabel //------------------------------// The ophiotaurus roared once again before creeping towards Majesty. “Protect the queen!” Lancer ordered the soldiers after it roared. Not a second had passed and the soldiers had already drawn their swords. From the nerves, Gusty accidentally dropped her sword but quickly grabbed it, exhaling in relief. Some of the soldiers formed a protective circle around Majesty. “What on earth is that?” Buttons asked terrified. “An ophiotaurus.” Glory replied equally as scared. “A what?” Fizzy asked confused. “An ophiotaurus. Half snake, half bull. Part of Grogar´s great bestiary.” Gusty turned her head to the creature, checking it from top to bottom. “Makes sense.” she thought aloud, knowing that Grogar´s monsters were usually made of various creatures, even though she didn´t see all of them. “Is it poisonous?” “Judging from the fangs and eyes… Pretty likely.” The ophiotaurus´ ear twitched when it heard the unicorns´ conversation. It turned its head and widened its eyes when it spotted Gusty. It frowned and turned left to go for Gusty instead, leaving everypony confused. “What the? Where is it going?” Lancer raised his eyebrow. “Um… Is it me or is it coming for us instead?” Fizzy asked As everypony else, Gusty was estranged by that sudden change of target but when she remembered that this creature was one of Grogar´s many creations, she understood everything. “It´s not coming for all of us. It´s coming for me!” she exclaimed horrified. The creature lowered its head to attack Gusty. The unicorn quickly conjured up a force field which, stopped it just when it was about to reach her. While after months of practicing she had already mastered that spell, this was the first time she used it against an enemy, let alone a huge, heavy and strong creature. So, it wasn´t surprising that her force field would start to shake and break in a matter of seconds after the ophiotaurus´ few attempts to break it. She fell to the ground and yelled scared when she saw the ophiotaurus´ head approaching, however Glory, Buttons and Fizzy joined forces and created a force field together. Gusty got up as fast as she could to add her magic to the force field. Meanwhile, the unicorns closer to Majesty observed the scene. “Of course. Grogar must have sent his creatures for Gusty.” Majesty deduced. “Wow. Is he really that scared of her that he sends his monsters to kill her instead of you?” Lancer asked shocked. “It appears.” Lancer looked intrigued at Gusty while raising an eyebrow. “And that´s why we need her alive.” Majesty said as she plucked a sword. In response, the soldiers copied her. The unicorns ran to the ophiotaurus to aid Gusty and her friends, who were struggling to keep the force field. “Why don´t you pick at somepony of your own size and leave us alone?!” Fizzy yelled at the creature, taking a pause everytime it hit their forcefield. “Ugh, I don´t think I can hold on for much longer…” Buttons panted in exhaustion. After the creature hit the force field once again, Buttons fainted from exhaustion. “Ay! Buttons!” Fizzy exclaimed. In reaction to her friend´s faint, she accidentally stopped using her horn. Glory and Gusty stared at her surprised, the latter glaring at her. “Uh oh.” Fizzy muttered when she realized her mistake. Her little mishap allowed the ophiotaurus to finally break the force field. The three standing unicorns fell to the ground, being completely vulnerable to the monster´s attack. Luckily, it didn´t have time to attack, as a sword landed on its tail. The unicorns turned their heads right and saw Majesty smirk. “Wow. Now that´s a great aim.” Gusty commented. “Charge!” the queen yelled. After her scream, she and her soldiers ran to the creature while yelling. They surrounded it and started to attack either by magic or by the sword. At the same time, Buttons opened her eyes. “Hm… What happened?” she said as she massaged her temple. “You ok!” Fizzy hugged Buttons. “Our force field broke but Majesty threw a sword from a long distance and landed on the creature´s tail!” “Wow.” Buttons said in awe. “Yes, but it´s not enough to defeat it.” Glory warned her. “Grogar´s monsters are known for having quite a stamina.” Some unicorns flying away due to being hit by the ophiotaurus´ tail despite being hurt proved Glory´s point. They both clenched their teeth and closed their eyes when the unicorns landed. “Yeah, I can see that.” Gusty said in response. “Keep fighting!” Majesty yelled to the other soldiers, ignoring Gusty´s question in the process. “Fight until the creature yields!” Though confused and shocked about Majesty´s demand, Gusty decided to focus on attacking the creature to weaken it. The unicorns tried to immobilize the ophiotaurus by creating magical bonds, but the task was almost imposible, as it tried biting them several times. Noticing this, Glory talked to Lancer. “I think we should cut its fangs. Otherwise, some of us will end up poisoned.” “On it!” Lancer raised his hoof to his forehead. “But I will need this from you.” he said as he took Glory´s shield. Then, he whistled with his hoof to call the ophiotaurus´ attention. “Hey you snake!” The ophiotaurus turned its head to Lancer and Glory, only to be hit on the face with a rock that he threw, angering it in result. “Put behind me!” he ordered Glory. Angrily, the ophiotaurus showed its teeth and charged against them. Lancer quickly put both shields in front of them. When the ophitaurus was close enough, its teeth surpassed the shields, making Lancer and Glory jump backwards. “Now!” Lancer told Glory. She took her sword and cut the ophiotaurus´ fangs. “My queen! We just cut the creature´s fangs! We won´t have to worry about being poisoned anymore.” Glory told Majesty. “Nicely done, Glory.” Majesty congratulated her and Lancer. “Yeah, well done!” Gusty added. However, she would soon realize that victory wasn´t theirs yet. Glory and Lancer might have taken its fangs away but its snake behaviour still prevailed, as the ophiotaurus enrolled her tail around her and other soldiers and levitated them from the ground. She started zapping at its face, though with great difficulty due to being squished so hard. “A little help here…” she asked for help. “I think it´s very hungry.” “Or maybe he just needs some water.” Fizzy said cockily as she opened her bottle. However, her attitude changed when she couldn´t pick up any water. She shook the bottle downwards to see if it was truly empty. Indeed, not a single drop of water fell. “Where did all the water go?” “Um… to your tummy?” Buttons raised an eyebrow. “We went to pick up water this morning and you finished all in a few minutes.” “Then what am I supposed to do?” “Use your sword and shield like we´ve been learning all these months?” “Yeah, that´s a good plan. Or… I could borrow some canteens!” Fizzy opened Buttons´ canteen, making her complain. “Hey, that´s mine!” Despite the complaints, Fizzy didn´t listen. She opened the canteens and picked up the water inside to slap the creature, making it fall to the ground, releasing Gusty in the process. “You ok?” Buttons asked as she aided her to get up. “Yeah.” Gusty replied as she gasped for some air. Fizzy bonded the ophiotaurus against the ground with water. “Ha!” she laughed victoriously. “What are you going to do now?” Unfortunately, since it was made of water, the creature surpassed the bondage. “Maybe you shouldn´t use water to tie your enemy next time.” Buttons said to Fizzy. “Agreed.” Fizzy said in response. Then, the ophitaurus picked them up as it did with Gusty before. The unicorn gasped and zapped at the creature to release them, but it was too fast and dodged all of her attacks, which was the same problem that all the unicorns had. Slowly, less and less unicorns were standing. Either they were injured or enrolled in the ophioturus´ tail. While observing Gusty, Lancer noticed something very curious, which made him raise his eyebrow confused. “Why don´t you use your wind?!” he called out to her. Gusty bit her lip. “I don´t think I can pull it off…” “You can´t pull it off?!” Lancer replied angrily. “You´re supposed to be Wind Warrior, are you not?! You threw Grogar against the wall for goodness´ sake!” “Yeah, but one thing is Grogar and another is an ophiotaurus!” “I think Grogar is far worse!” “Yeah, but he´s not that big! I don´t think that I have that much strength to push it away! It´s like I asked you to levitate it!” “I think she makes a good point…” Glory agreed with Gusty. “But when you get very nervous, your magic gets all freaky. Shouldn´t be that enough to move the ophiotaurus?” The word `freaky´ made Gusty very upset, as it was a word the foals used when they described her magic. “You want wind magic? Fine, I´ll give you wind magic!” She threw a wind against Lancer, pushing him against a tree. “Hey!” he complained. He lit his horn to fight back but luckily, Majesty stood between them. “ENOUGH!” she yelled. “Both of you! We´re at the brink of being eaten by an ophiotaurus and the last thing we need is you two arguing like brats! What we need to do now is to get rid of that creature.” “But how? It´s too agitated to stop it!” Glory asked worried. “Agitated…” Gusty muttered. She gasped. “That´s it!” she said with a smile. “Well, Lancer, the moment has finally come. I´m going to use my magic.” “But you said that-” “I know I said that before, but now I´ve come up with an idea. Just this: when I say now, you hold the creature against the ground, alright?” The other unicorns shared confused looks, but they nodded. Gusty closed her eyes and lit her horn to conjure up winds. Every unicorn widened their eyes in expectation of something truly powerful and magical. However, Gusty´s winds didn´t turn stronger. Instead, they were soft and rhythmic. They understood what Gusty planned to do when the wind started playing a peaceful melody. “Snake charming? Seriously?” Lancer thought aloud. “More like ophiotaurus charming.” Fizzy added while trying to hold her laughter. Glory nudged them and pointed at the ophiotaurus, to show them that it was falling asleep. The ophiotaurus´ ears perked up. As the music progressed, the ophiotaurus´ muscles untensed, releasing all the soldiers it had on its tail. The ones on the ground picked them up with magic. The ophiotaurus yawned, closed its eyes and slowly enrolled its body and laid its head on it to sleep. Once she made sure that it was completely asleep, she stopped playing music. “How did you do that?” Glory asked her. “Well… When I was little and got so nervous that my wind went out of control, magaga suggested that I played a melody to see if I felt better. And it always made me feel more relaxed and also served me as a reminder that not everything I do is a failure. So I figured that if it helped me maybe, it could help the ophiotaurus too. And apparently it did.” she smiled at the sleeping ophiotaurus. “So does that mean that we can go now?” Buttons asked Majesty. “Not yet. I think we should kill it first.” “But it´s already unconscious. We can go now.” Gusty replicated. “Yes, but we don´t know if it will come for you again when it wakes up.” “Yeah, I guess that´s true.” “Want to do the honours?” “Oh! I thought you were going to do it.” “Well, I wouldn´t want to steal your first slay, Wind Warrior.” “Oh. Right.” Gusty walked to the creature. She inhaled and exhaled. She elevated the sword to tear the ohiotaurus´ flesh. But before she could lower the sword, the ophiotaurus disappeared for a second and was replaced instead by a troggle wielding a sword in front of a scared pegasus. A pegasus she knew very well. In the background, a female voice full of pain begged for mercy. “NO PLEASE NO!” When that image came to her mind Gusty paralyzed. Luckily it stopped before the worst part came. But the image played over, and over again in her mind. This caused Gusty to conceal from the real world, where the other unicorns stared at her estranged. “What´s taking her so long?” some soldiers whispered to themselves. “Gusty! Why did you stop?” Majesty called her. But Gusty did not answer. She was still focused on that image in her mind. So much, that she didn´t keep track of her breath, and most importantly her wind. “Uh oh…” Fizzy mumbled when she noticed the breezes. “Gusty, sweetie… It´s a bit windy here…” Buttons told her. “Gusty! Answer me!” Majesty insisted. As always, the winds slowly turned stronger and stronger to the point that the ponies floated around her. The ophiotaurus awakened, but luckily did no harm, as the tornado Gusty formed scared it, making it creep away. Not so far away from them, a whole appeared on the ground, and out of it, there were three dogs. “Do you see anything?” one of them asked. “Nope, nothing!” another of them replied. “Ugh, this is pointless!” the third one yelled frustrated. “We´ve been days looking over the outskirts and we haven´t seen any sign of Majesty and her soldiers!” “Don´t forget the one!” the second dog reminded him. “Which one?” “You know, the one! The one´s that´s so important because I don´t remember the reason.” “You mean the one who has wind?” “Yes! What was her name?” “The Wind Saviour!” “You idiots!” the first one kicked their heads with his fists. “Her name is the Wind Warrior, and she is of interest because Crunch wants her so he can give her to Grogar!” “Aaah…” the second and third dog said in chorus. “And do you remember how she looks like?” the second one asked. “Of course! She was uh…” “You don´t remember, don´t you?” the dog raised her eyebrow. “Of course I do! It´s just I have so many things to do that sometimes it´s difficult to remember, but I do remember!” “Yeah right.” As the two dogs were arguing, the third one saw something in the distance that caught his attention. “Hey, what´s that?” he pointed at the horizon. The two dogs frowned to get a better view. The second took a spyglass. “Looks like a tornado. But it´s not coming towards us. And it looks like there are ponies around!” she turned her head to her friends as she smirked. “You know what this means, right?” the first dog asked. The three dogs giggled maliciously. “Looks like our search has finally born its fruits. Cavall, spread the news.” “Yes, Gaueko.” Cavall lifted his paw. The three dogs immersed underground again. “Gusty! Stop! You´re pushing us around!” Majesty commanded. “Oh, I think I´m gonna be sick!” Buttons covered her mouth. “I´d hold your hair back but I´ll have to hold mine first!” Fizzy replied. “She can´t hear us!” Glory said. “No, but I know how we can make her notice us.” Lancer said before lighting her horn. “Lancer, what are you doing?!” Glory said scared. “Payback.” he replied. Lancer zapped at Gusty, which made her come back to reality. After her horn stopped glowing, the winds stopped abruptly, making everypony fall. Gusty panted heavily. “What happened?” Majesty asked her. Gusty shook her head. “I couldn´t… I couldn´t. I was reliving it all over again.” “What were you reliving all over?” “My husband´s death…” Majesty closed her eyes as she exhaled. “Look, I understand that-” Lancer said. “No, you don´t understand!” Gusty yelled at him. “You weren´t there when it happened!” her eyes filled with tears. “I saw it with my own eyes, not you! Ever since I got here you´ve only been disdaining me for something I had no control over, so don´t you ever tell me that you understand!” Lancer had seen Gusty sad and nervous. But this was the first time he saw her angry. He saw her as a mare with repressed rage and pain. He bit his lip in regret. “You know what? I think we had had enough for the day.” Glory said to break the tension. “I think we should camp in the forest and continue tomorrow. Maybe you could go to look for some water, Gusty. Maybe it helps to clear your mind.” Gusty nodded. Fizzy patted her back before the two left with the rest. Behind them, the same three dogs that had seen them before poked their heads out of a hole. They giggled evilly as they observed them.