Everypony stared scared at the dark spirits. However, the unicorns were more shocked than the earth ponies, except for Starswirl. Yes, they had seen that strange jaguar spirit but she wasn´t as horrifying as the ones that were laying their eyes upon them. Their faces were truly diabolical, with dark eyes except for their bright pupils and skeleton teeth with large fangs. They took notice of Gusty. She slowly dropped her ears in fear. When they roared at her, she closed her eyes. Her companions watched in horror, expecting the worst to happen. Starswirl, however, was looking at their face with determination. As he expected, and to the other unicorns´ surprise, the dark spirits did not attack. Instead, they went to attack the cats, who either ran away, attacked or simply accepted their fate. Knightshade observed the sudden change of target.
“They´re distracted. We can continue!” he told Moochick, as he prepared to run.
“Hold on.” Moochick raised his hoof, ordering him to stop running. “We need to plan this carefully. Otherwise, we might end up like the cats.”
“Definitely.” Magic Star continued. “We must position ourselves strategically.”
“Alas, you´re not wrong.” Alonzo agreed.
Meanwhile, once Gusty noticed nothing holding her or not feeling strange sensations, as well as hearing the cats´ screams, she opened one eye. She gasped in awe as she opened her other eye.
“But how?” she wondered, trying to understand what just happened.
“Because of our magic.” Starswirl answered. “Since they are made of shadow, they are repelled by light, and that includes the light from our horns.”
“And why the circle?” Buttons raised her eyebrows.
Right after she made that question, the same dark spirit tried to attack Gusty again, though this time from behind, finding itself face to face with Buttons, who gasped scared.
“Dark spirits are not stupid.” Starswirl continued his explanation. “If the light isn´t pointing in their direction, they´ll try to attack you from a different angle.”
“But what about them?” Glory looked worried at the earth ponies. “They have no light to protect themselves!”
“Don´t worry! We have these!” Magic Star reassured her as she showed her the silver thistles. “These flowers repel them away as well! Magicians are experts in spirits, since our knowledge allows us to attract the light spirits and protect ourselves against them.”
“Is this why you gave us the flowers for every shield?” Knightshade asked her.
“Exactly!”
“How do we proceed?” Alonzo asked desperate to Moochick.
The elder pony pressed his lips in frustration.
“I´m not so sure. I don´t know if they´ll get tired eventually or won´t leave until they get what they want.”
“Normally, they just want souls.” Magic Star explained. “But this time it seems a bit more complicated.” she turned to Gusty. “They probably won´t leave until they get her.”
“But they are attacking the cats.” she pointed out confused.
“Believe me, they are just snacks. The main course is you.” Starswirl warned her.
Moochick stroke his beard as he thought.
“Or not necessarily…”
Everypony turned to him.
“What do you mean with not necessarily?” Glory made that question with a certain tone of fear in her voice, knowing what Moochick´s intentions were.
“You´re not suggesting that we give her to them, are you?!” Lancer asked angrily.
“Think about it! Katrina knows that Grogar probably wants to kill her himself, so she must have ordered them to bring her alive. So, if she was captured by spirits, she would be fine!”
“That is true, but dark spirits are not to be trusted.” Starswirl told him.
“Exactly!” Buttons agreed smacking her hoof against the ground. “What if they take her away, huh?”
“You might not feel comfortable with the idea of sacrificing your friend, but I don´t see any other choice!” Moochick replicated. “Besides, it seems like you´re struggling to keep that light, am I right?”
They groaned in frustration, due to exhaustion and because Moochick was right. As they were arguing, Gusty looked at the clouds, which gave her an idea.
“The clouds! That´s it!” she exclaimed excited.
Now, she had everypony´s attention.
“Excuse me?” Moochick asked a little blunt, thinking that Gusty simply had got distracted by the clouds.
“The clouds! Dark spirits cannot stand light, so if I were one, I would attack when there´s no light such as night or…”
“In a cloudy day!” Alonzo finished.
“Exactly, because the clouds block the sunlight. But with the help of wind, clouds can move.”
“Wait, wait. You´re telling me you want to move the clouds? Can you do that?” Knightshade asked.
“I don´t know. But there´s only one way to find out.”
“It might be a crazy idea, but it also might work.” Magic Star said to the earth ponies, who were looking at each other with skepticism.
Everypony waited anxiously for Moochick´s response, who stayed silent as he assessed which decision to make. After a while, he sighed defeated.
“At this point, we have made many wishful decisions, so what matters if your idea sounds impossible or even silly.” he replied.
Despite having insulted her idea, Gusty smiled when Moochick accepted. She nodded, saying without words that he won´t be disappointed.
“Still, we´ll need to organize carefully.” Moochick turned to the earth ponies. “While she´s trying to move the clouds, we´ll need to do a formation in which some kick the gates, and some defend us against the dark spirits.”
“Then, in that case, you´ll need this.” Magic Star said as she took a jar from her bag. After opening it, she spread the content over the backs of the ponies in charge of kicking the door.
“What is that?” Alonzo asked curiously.
“Fennel dust. It is said it drives dark spirits away.”
“But we have the shields. Why are you putting this on us?” a female earth pony asked.
“Well, you´re not gonna use the shield to break the door, huh?”
“That´s a good point.”
“Then why do we need the shields if by putting that on we´re protected?” another male pony asked.
After he asked that, a cat threw himself from the wall in order to escape the dark spirits. She fell in front of the earth ponies, who widened their eyes in shock. They knew cats could survive high falls, but they had never witnessed that phenomenon until now. However, the cat didn´t come out unharmed, as she whimpered in pain.
“Ugh, my legs! I think I broke the four of them!” she yelled.
Not many seconds later, a dark spirit took the poor cat away. The earth ponies widened their eyes in shock.
“That´s why.” Magic Star took advantage of what had happened to reply to her comrade´s question.
Although the cats were the main dark spirits´ target, some of them were still unharmed, as they were protecting themselves with torches and had learnt quickly from their fallen fellow soldiers how to protect themselves. They watched shocked how the dark spirit vanished with their comrade.
“You idiot! I told it wasn´t a good idea to jump!” the captain yelled angry, though not because he thought he was incompetent but because she had put her life in danger.
The black cat realized that soon they would have that same fate when she noticed that their troches´ flame was getting smaller.
“Captain…” she said worried.
“Yes, Odile?”
“The torches will extinguish soon.”
The captain immediately looked at his own torch in response, only to find that Odile was right.
“Oh no..”
“What do we do captain?” a three-color cat asked him.
The grey cat struggled to keep his desperation and fear from showing. He and his comrades were doomed and there was nothing he could do about it. Though he enjoyed bossing them around, he was also worried about their safety, and they all considered each other family, making him hate his job sometimes.
He snapped out of his thoughts by a meow.
“Meow!” a siamese cat called them.
“What, Bandit?” the captain asked.
Bandit meowed as he pointed at the ponies. He wasn´t able to talk, but he was very appreciated in the guard due to being very observant. And thus, he was the first to notice that the ponies weren´t being attacked. The captain narrowed his eyes as he observed the phenomenon, confused at first, but for the cats´ fortune he drew conclusions quickly when he noticed the silver thistles and the circle the unicorns formed, which gave him the solution for what to protect himself and his fellow soldiers.
“I know what to do…” the grey cat smiled both wickedly and mischievously.
While the cats were conspiring, the ponies were too busy organizing themselves to notice their conspiracy.
“There´s something that it´s important to have in mind and we haven´t mentioned.” Lancer said to everypony.
“What is it?” Gusty asked him.
“Can you produce winds with light? Because if you can´t or don´t know, you might be at serious risk.” he pointed out.
Gusty widened her eyes in realization.
“Oh, you´re right.” she put her hoof on her temple.
“How are you going to move the clouds then?” Glory asked her.
Suddenly, without anypony expecting it, Gusty was dragged out of the circle. The unicorns clenched their teeth panicked due to having a spot free of light, which could potentially enable a dark spirit to attack them, but their reflexes were quick enough to close the circle more before something bad happened. After making sure they were safe, they turned to the left, and noticed four shields.
“No worries!” Magic Star yelled from inside the shields. “I´m just giving her talismans for protection.”
Everypony sighed in relief, although they were still mad at her for her stunt.
“You could have told us!” Buttons reproached her.
Magic Star rolled her eyes. She was in the company of four more ponies, who were protecting her, and now Gusty as well, with their shields.
“You know they have a point.” Gusty agreed with them.
“Let´s just not talk about that. Besides, you were having trouble figuring out how to protect yourself if you can´t use the light from your horn, right? Well, you´re on luck because I have the solution!” Magic Star said as she opened the jar full of fennel dust and brushed all over Gusty.
“Wait, wait!” the unicorn tried to stop the earth pony. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Some dust entered in her nose, making her sneeze. “Won´t this brush it off with the wind?” she cleared her nose.
“Nah, it doesn´t need to be on your body all the time. Ever heard of pixie dust? Just after being on your skin, you´ll be able to fly for an hour, no need for it to be all the time on your body!”
“Pixie dust?”
“You know the fairy thing…” Magic Star smiled nervously. Seeing that Gusty still had her eyebrow raised in confusion as well as not replying, Magic Star shook her hoof. “Never mind. Earth pony folkore.” she whispered.
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden knock against a shield. It was so strong, that everypony trembled.
“I thought you said that dark spirits didn´t come near the shields with those flowers on.” a female earth pony said to Magic Star.
“They don´t. But perhaps another thing does…” Magic Star said after taking a quick look through the spaces the shields left.
Suddenly, a paw entered between the shields. Gusty and Magic Star hugged each other while they yelped afraid.
“Let me in! Let me in!” yelled the cat frustrated.
“I´m afraid there´s no more space!” Magic Star replied as she kicked the paw.
The cat meowed.
“Ow, me knuckles!” he complained as before being taken away by a dark spirit.
Magic Star and Gusty didn´t notice they were embracing until looked at each other. Both mares looked at each other surprised. Magic Star quicky undid the embrace and hid her forelegs behind her back. Gusty simply blinked. Seconds later, there came another knock from the same place. And then, another from the left, and another from the top.
“What´s going on?” Gusty asked confused.
“Cat ambush!” a male earth pony replied.
“Dang it!” Magic Star cruched her hooves against each other. “They must have figured out why the dark spirits aren´t attacking us and want our shields.”
“We need you to fight, Magic Star.” another earth pony told her.
“In a minute!” Magic Star nodded. She turned to Gusty. “Now that you´re protected, you can carry out your plan.”
Gusty nodded. She put her hoof on her shoulder.
“Good luck.” she told her as she ignited her horn to disappear.
After she poofed, the earth ponies widened their eyes in shock.
“Did you see that?” Magic Star pointed at the spot Gusty was a few seconds ago.
Gusty reappeared in the open field. The first thing she encountered was a dark spirit charging towards her but stopping right in front of her and growling in frustration before going away. Though she knew she was safe, she still got scared when she saw a dark spirit coming towards her. Once she recovered from the fright, she finally became aware of what was going on, opening her mouth and gasping horrified. The situation was worse than she thought. There were lots and lots of cats around the ponies! Meaning that the ponies had to defend against them at the same time they defended from dark spirits and tried to open the gates!
“Oh no! I have to move the clouds as soon as possible!”
Suddenly she noticed a weight on her back. She turned her head back and saw one of the cat soldiers, a siamese cat to be precise, rolling on her back. For being surrounded by spirits, he was surprisingly calm, as if he was completely confident he was not going to be taken away, which was exactly what happened after a spirit came near them. Shocked she stared at him, but the cat did not make any face expression nor noise.
“I suppose he must have smelt the fennel.” she thought, trying to find an explanation as to what happened.
“Meow!” the cat called to his fellow soldiers.
“Not now, Bandit! We´re kind of busy in the moment! We´ll look later!” Odile answered upset to his call as she was fighting Buttons, who took advantage of that tiny distraction to kick on her nose while letting out a war cry.
Seeing they weren´t listening, Bandit decided to keep advantage of the fact that he was on Gusty´s back to stretch and accommodate for a nap.
“Hey, you´re not sleeping on my back!” she said to him.
She tried to levitate him off her back, but the cat was too heavy to even move him. Seeing she couldn´t lift him, she pushed him a little, but he came back to where he was. Gusty sighed defeated.
“Fine, do whatever you want I guess.”
Cat or no cat on her back, she still needed to carry out her plan. She looked at the clouds with determination. She ignited her horn and started conjuring the strongest wind she could, sweating and groaning in the process. Though it began soft, it slowly built up to the point of the ponies being pushed. It wasn´t strong enough to send every creature flying away, but if one wanted to be where they wanted to be, they had to hold on to the grass. While it was uncomfortable for everypony, it made the cats unable to grasp on them for long, allowing them all a little rest. Not for the unicorns, though, they still had to keep their horns on light.
“Ugh, hurry up Gusty!” Lancer urged her.
“I don´t think we can take it anymore.” Glory said a little dizzy.
Gusty groaned as well.
“I´m trying!” she replied.
But no matter how hard she tried, the clouds still didn´t move. Starswirl paid attention to how her wind was like. He remembered days with the same amount of wind and the clouds were moving, so Gusty´s wind wasn´t the problem. Then, he looked up to one of the flags standing on the keep, and he noticed that it wasn´t moving. He widened his eyes in realization and quickly turned to Gusty.
“Gusty!” he called her, making her open her eyes and look at him. “I know what your problem is! You´re too low!”
“What?” she said confused.
“Look!” he pointed at the flag.
Gusty narrowed her eyes as she looked at the flag. Starswirl was right, the wind didn´t move the clouds because it didn´t reach them.
“You´re a genius, Starswirl!” she told him.
“But wait.” Buttons raised her hoof. “Can you elevate yourself at the same time you create a wind towards another direction?”
Since she didn´t know the answer to that question, she tried doing so. She created a small tornado to levitate from the ground a little and tried creating another wind. In doing so, she fell. She shook her head. Starswirl scratched his beard, as he thought of another solution.
“What if I levitated you?”
Gusty looked aside while she processed Starswirl´s words.
“That could work but put yourself inside the shields.” she instructed him.
“On it!”
The two made themselves disappear in just a second. Just like when Magic Star pulled Gusty, Lancer, Buttons and Glory had to react quickly to close the circle.
“COULD YOU PLEASE WARN US WHEN YOU DO THAT?!” Lancer yelled angry.
Starswirl and Gusty reappeared next to Sir Moochick, who was struggling to not let the captain of the cat guard push him outside the shields. Both the cat and earth pony jumped backwards.
“What the? How on earth did you do that?!” Moochick asked uneasy.
Starswirl rolled his eyes. He was taught to always respect elders and authority, but he also knew there were exceptions to that statement. The most obvious was Grogar and his coalition, and another could be Moochick, since he was always mistrustful of him, Gusty and their companions. He still followed his orders thouhh, mostly because they needed the earth ponies to rescue Fizzy and because of Gusty, but there have been several times where Moochick almost drove Starswirl out of his patience. Gusty simply sighed frustrated.
“Calm down, it´s a spell.” Gusty explained calmly, yet also at the verge of losing her patience.
“What are you two doing here anyway?” asked Alonzo before kicking a cat on his face.
“We need you to protect Starswirl.” answered Gusty. “He needs to be safe to help me reach the clouds.”
“Great more work for us.” Alonzo whispered to Knighshade´s ear.
“Would you rather stay here forever huh?!” Gusty elevated her tone of voice, surprising Alonzo.
“Don´t you dare talk to him like that!” Knightshade immediately hugged him, leaning his hoof on his shoulder. “He´s sensitive!”
“No, I´m not. You´re the sensitive one.”
“That´s not true.” Knightshade replied with teary eyes.
Alonzo raised his eyebrow while smiling at him and wiping his tears. Though still upset at them, Gusty and Starswirl couldn´t help but chuckle at the couple.
Meanwhile, Buttons´, Glory´s and Lancer´s horns started to flicker. Glory was the first to notice, she turned around to see how the rest was doing. Slowly, Lancer´s eyes closed and ended up collapsing, stopping his magic in the process.
“No!” she exclaimed terrified, knowing what was going to happen to him.
She tried to reach him but felt to the ground in her attempt. She weakly opened her eyes. Buttons shook her head.
“Non, non. Guys don´t leave me alone please! I can´t protect you all.”
To their misfortune, two dark spirits noticed Lancer and Glory weren´t protected by their light anymore and took the chance to attack them. Buttons yelped as she threw herself on the two unicorns to protect them just when the dark spirits were at the reach. They ended up getting burnt as a result. Unfortunately, Buttons couldn´t keep up the light and ended up turning it off. She gasped terrified and tried to light it again but couldn´t. To make matters worse, a dark spirit noticed them and charged against them. All Buttons could do was embracing them and closing her eyes. But before anything happened, something strange but positive event happened.
“AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAAIAIAIAAIAIAIAIAIAIHEHEHE!” a female voice screamed and laughed at the end in one breath.
The earth ponies widened their eyes.
“The earth pony scream?” Magic Star wondered aloud. “But who could…”
Every creature stopped attacking or defending themselves turned back to see where the noise came from. Even the dark spirits seemed to be intrigued at what was happening. The scream came from a pink earth pony, who was carrying many things in her back. She was wearing a humble and torn peasant dress. Her mane was tied back and she had facial war paint, probably made with mud.
Buttons opened and narrowed her eyes to get a better view of the newcomer. Although she was near passing out, she completely woke up when she recognized the pony.
“Is that… Shady?!”
“Shady´s here?” Magic Star poked her head out of the shields. “Without any protection?!”
“Hey you! Dumb things! Leave my friends alone!” Shady yelled at the dark spirits.
“Shady! Those are not dumb things. Those are dark spirits!” Magic Star told her.
“I know. They´re exactly the way you described them.”
“THEN WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?!”
“Defending you. Come and get me!”
She took out a knife and cut her hoof, making a small quantity of blood drip. Everypony was disconcerted at what Shady was doing, but Magic Star was the most. She was very scared at well. When she saw her raising her hoof with blood, she covered her mouth with her two hooves.
“Oh, no you didn´t…” she mumbled very scared.
Every creature would understand why Magic Star was so scared. Apparently, after showing the dark spirits blood, all of them charged against her. Shady´s determination disappeared the moment she saw dark spirits coming towards her.
“Oh dear, what have I just done…” she thought aloud.
Buttons knew that no earth pony would be fast enough to reach Shady to help her on time, but a unicorn could. So, in a matter of seconds, she teleported herself in front of Shady to defend her. Without thinking it, she shot one of the spirits, hurting enough for it to go away. Both the spirits and ponies were shocked at the event. The ponies looked at each other and smiled mischievously at the spirits, before Buttons continued shooting them. However, the dark spirits were smart enough to attack where the light wasn´t directing them. Shady noticed one of them coming from the left.
“Buttons look out!” she yelled scared.
Buttons widened her eyes. Then, she got an idea. Instead of shooting them or simply lighting her horn, she instead created a magical forcefield. In that way, she protected every side of her and Shady´s bodies with light. Seeing that they couldn´t do anything, they left them leave. Buttons and Shady shared smiles before running to everypony.
The unicorns were thankful to Shady for appearing, otherwise they wouldn´t have discovered another less energy-consuming way of protecting themselves against the dark spirits. Even the cats were amazed at the ponies´ trick.
“Wow. That was pretty awesome.” said a cat next to Gusty and Starswirl.
Speaking of them, they decided that now the show was over, they could continue with their plan. They both nodded at each other. Carefully, Gusty separated the shields to make way for herself to get out.
“I´m ready.” she informed Starswirl once she was outside.
He inhaled and exhaled before levitating Gusty. His magic aura reached Gusty until the neck, allowing her to conjure magic. At first, he had some trouble, due to the presence of a siamese cat in her back, but there was no time to ask that question. After so much sweat and effort he managed to put her at the level of clouds.
“Come on Gusty. I don´t think I´ll be able to hold on for long.” he whispered as he observed her.
Gusty was so close to the clouds that she could touch them. After feeling one with her horn, she smiled because she remembered her husband loved to touch the clouds while flying. As beautiful the idea of going back to the past sounded, now it wasn´t the moment. She closed her eyes to focus.
“Ok. Here we go.” she said to herself before beginning.
She ignited her horn and created a slight wind that slowly turned stronger, as always. She stopped modulating the strength of the wind once she saw the clouds were moving, letting a few rays of sunshine escape.
“It´s working!” she exclaimed happily.
She knew there still was some work left, since she wanted to uncover the whole sun, however the spirits were roaring in pain due to being in contact with the sunlight. Everypony looked in amazement, especially the earth ponies.
“Wow… She wasn´t kidding when she said she was a Wind Warrior.” Magic Star thought aloud.
“Sir, look! She´s doing it.” an earth pony told Moochick as she pointed at Gusty.
Moochik looked up. His vision was limited due to the shields, but he had a tiny space in which he could see Gusty moving the clouds and unblocking the sun. He stared amazed yet also with fear at what a unicorn was capable of. As much as impressive the situation was, he and his soldiers couldn´t keep staring forever. They had gates to open.
“Keep kicking everypony! We almost have it.” he instructed everypony.
Everypony obeyed save Alonzo and Knightshade, who were still captivated by the imagery.
“Alonzo! Knighshade!” Moochick called them.
“Huh? Yes sir!” Alonzo raised his hoof to his forehead.
Before joining Moochick, he poked Knightshade´s shoulder to get his attention and tell him to keep on kicking.
Slowly, after some effort and time, the sun shone freely in all its glory, leaving the dark spirits no choice but to fade away. The earth ponies´ and cats´ jaws were hanging quite open as they undid the shield formation. The unicorns started cheering for Gusty, who smiled tenderly at them. She noticed Starswirl´s magic aura starting to vanish a little, indicating that her friend was tired.
“Don´t worry, Starswirl, you can stop now. I can go back to the ground by myself.” she reassured him.
He sighed relieved once he had the chance to rest from her magic. Once Gusty descended completely, every unicorn, including Lancer hugged her.
“YEAH, YOU DID IT!” Buttons exclaimed with all the air in her lungs.
“You go Gusty!” Glory clapped cheerful.
“Thank goodness you did it! Thank goodness!” Lancer was about to cry, but he managed to hold it in.
Meanwhile, Magic Star ran to Shady. The latter expected a hug, so she opened her arms. But instead, she received a slap in the face, making the earth ponies and the cats gasp. Shady massaged her cheek in pain.
“Oh geeze…” the cat captain clenched his teeth.
“Ouch!” she complained. “What was that for?”
“What were you thinking?!” Magic Star shook her. “Didn´t I tell you that blood attracts dark spirits?!”
“Yes, you did. That´s why I did it.” Shady shrugged.
“Oh don´t you ever do that again.” Magic Star hugged her in the end.
“What made you come here?” Gusty asked Shady.
“You said that you would stay to take care of Magic Star´s house.” Buttons reminded her.
“I did. But then I remembered what you said to me.” Shady said to Gusty. “How I was strong and a fighter and that how you discovered you were those things for somepony. And then I thought about Magic Star and Buttons.” she looked at Magic Star. “I didn´t do much for you to defend you when you were kicked out from the inn, and you were always there for me. I´m sorry, I should have returned the favour.”
“You did, Shady.” Magic Star put her hoof over her shoulder. “You still took care after me. And came to visit and bring me food. That honestly was enough for me. Besides, I wouldn´t have wanted you to have trouble with your father!”
“The moment he did that to you, he was my father no more, I can tell you that.” she turned to Buttons. “As for you, you saved me without caring that I was an earth pony. You even helped me at the inn! I had to do something for you.”
“Chérie, you didn´t need to.” Buttons told her warmly.
“Anyway, I noticed you forgot something important and wanted to bring it to you.” Shady kept on explaining to everypony “And I took that chance to be brave.”
“Honestly, I never intended that you put yourself at risk with those words.” Gusty clarified, feeling somewhat guilty of having put a pony´s life in danger. “But I´m glad you found your inner strength.”
Shady smiled at her. Meanwhile Moochick and the earth ponies managed to open the gates.
“It´s finished. We can enter!” Moochick called.
Right after hearing the news, everypony ran to him. Once Gusty reached them, Alonzo and Knightshade knelt before her, surprising the unicorns as a result.
“Wind Warrior. Thanks for aiding us.” Alonzo said. “We owe you our lives.”
“Oh!” Gusty laughed nervously. She looked at the other unicorns, seeking answers on how to reply. They all raised their hooves, telling her not to ask them without words. “I don´t think I saved your lives. I just made things easier.”
“Well, to be honest, I don´t think we could have survived under the shields for too long.” said Kinghtshade.
“Yeah. Talismen don´t last forever.” Magic Star agreed with them.
Gusty was flattered by their words. However, she couldn´t help but looking at her companions. They were a backbone for her. Without them, she would have been dead. She felt somewhat bad for taking all the credit. They didn´t seem upset, in fact they were smiling happily for her, but she thought that their work should be acknowledged.
“Thank you all for your kind words, but I´m not the only one that helped.” she pointed at Buttons, Glory, Lancer and Starswirl. “This wouldn´t have been possible without them, you know?”
All the unicorns noticed a sudden shift in the earth ponies´ attitudes towards them. They were not looking at them suspiciously anymore, instead they had friendly and accepting smiles in their faces. Unfortunately, it wasn´t the same case for Moochick. He walked towards Gusty, with his head held high. The unicorn felt intimated, despite knowing that she had more advantage than him.
“You´re quite powerful. Make sure you use it for the right purposes.” he said in a serious tone before turning around. “We´re going in!” he said to everypony.
Despite being somewhat shocked by his `gratitude display´, the earth ponies simply obeyed without replicating. All the unicorns, except Gusty, glared upset at Moochick. Gusty simply lowered her ears, wondering worried if Moochick considered her a threat instead of an ally.
Glory opened her mouth to talk, but before she could say anything, the cats talked over them.
“Where do you think you´re going?!” the captain said after he and every other cat jumped in front of everypony, blocking their way with his spear.
“Seriously? After sending dark spirits, being very aware of the possibility of them taking you away, you´re still defending her?” Lancer asked.
“Actually, we don´t care about her.” Odile spat.
The captain nudged her.
“Ouch! I mean, yeah we are!” she put her paws up.
Everypony could tell that the cats didn´t want to work for Katrina anymore, as evidenced by their facial expressions. However, the captain persisted on his duty, so they had no choice but to stick to his side, which meant that they weren´t up for negotiation. Everypony prepared to fight, but for their luck, Shady had a quicker and easier solution.
“Hey, Magic Star. Do you want to know what you left at your house?” Shady said to Magic Star.
“What?”
Shady took a small bag and showed it to the cats, who after smelling it, their pupils dilated and were kind of hypnotized by the substance.
“You want this?” she asked the cats with a smirk on her face.
The cats nodded.
“Go get it!” she said as she kicked it away.
The cats chased the small bag, running away and leaving the ponies alone. Everypony turned to Shady, Magic Star having a big grin in her face.
“Catnip. It was catnip.” she said to her friend.
Taking advantage of the fact that the cats were distracted, everypony ventured into Bridlengton. The cat captain was the first one to reach the bag. He hissed at several cats that tried to take it away from him, having to fight if necessary. As he did so, he noticed the ponies entering the doors. He left out a huge gasp.
“They´re getting into the city!” he growled. “This was a trap!” he threw the bag to the ground. “All of you, get up!” he ordered every cat as he pushed them aside the bag.
“Honestly, after this dark spirit stunt, I don´t want to defend her anymore.” Odile said while sitting down and crossing her forelegs. “I never liked her anyway.”
Every cat nodded in agreement.
“Well, neither do I, but if she falls down, the earth ponies will punish us with prison, torture, or worse, they´ll execute us!”
“Huh!” Odile laughed. “Those fates sound better to me than working for Katrina for the rest of my life.” she turned to the right. “Right, Bandit?”
She widened her eyes when she realized the siamese cat wasn´t by her side. She looked for him everywhere, hoping to find in the cat multitude.
“Where´s Bandit?” she asked scared.
If Odile knew Bandit´s state, she wouldn´t be so worried about him. He stretched calmly on Gusty´s back as he yawned and went back to sleeping peacefully, despite bumping constantly due to Gusty´s running. Glory widened her eyes, surprised for not having noticed the cat when he was clearly visible.
“Um.. Why is there a cat on yer back?” she asked Gusty while raising her eyebrow.
Gusty turned her head to Bandit, narrowing her eyes at him with contempt. She rolled her eyes as she redirected her look back to Glory.
“Don´t ask.” she simply replied.
The earth ponies on the streets had witnessed everything, from their arrival to the wall to their fight against the dark spirits. Some cheered at them for their arrival while some stared in shock, especially when they saw the unicorns. Not only the earth ponies watched everything, the cat guards did as well. In fact, a tri-color cat was whistling peacefully until he noticed the crowd of ponies coming towards him. His fur pointed up and he stretched his legs as he jumped to a roof to save himself from being trampled.
“What the?” she asked confused.
Seconds later, the captain and the other cats reached her.
“We need to ring the bell, quickly!” the captain shook her.
The tri-color cat led the captain to the bell tower. Inside a room, there were two female cats talking. One was white and had her rear legs on top a table while filing claws. She seemed to be telling a younger brown tabby cat something, who was crying while holding the other´s cat door. They were so focused on their conversation that they didn´t notice the captain and the tri-color cat.
“Bianca, ring the bell!” the tri-color cat told her.
“He took your frying pan? Preciosa, honey, I don´t think he´s coming back.” Packard said to the other cat.
“Bianca!” the captain and the tricolor cat yelled on chorus.
“We´ll talk later.” she calmly put her rear legs on the floor and left the claw file.
“But-” the other cat said after sobbing.
“Don´t worry, I´ll remember.” she said while holding the bell rope.
After she pulled the rope, the bell started sounding throughout all the town. Moochick, the earth ponies and Lancer widened their eyes.
“Uh oh.” Lancer muttered.
“What do you mean with uh oh?” Buttons asked a bit panicked.
She got her answer when she noticed a multitude of furious growiling cats pursuing them. She whimpered as she sped up.
“We need to divide!” Moochick said to everypony. “We´ll all reunite at the castle´s golden room!”
“But how do we get to the golden room? Or better question, how do we even get to the castle?!” a full of stress Buttons asked him
“Don´t worry, Shady will show you the way!” Moochick said in response.
“Me?” Shady asked surprised. “But-”
Despite her reaction, nopony listened to her, in fact she was interrupted.
“I´ll separate from all of you to distract the cats, if that is ok with you.” Magic Star suggested to the elder earth pony.
“Thank you, that will make things easier.” Moochick nodded. “We´ll divide in three groups! Us to the left, you on the centre, and you to the right. Alright? Go go go!”
“I´ll take this, if that’s ok with you.” she said to Shady as she took the catnip from her and spread it throughout her body.
After doing so, most of the cats smelt the catnip and followed Magic Star instead, who was somewhat regretting her decision. This gave the chance to the ponies to separate safely as well as a chance to defend themselves, since there were more of them than there were cats. Though the plan seemed flawless, Shady didn´t seem to think so.
“Is everything alright?” Glory asked her.
“Not really. You see, I haven´t been here since… Ages! I don´t quite remember the city and how to get everywhere.”
“Oh goodness...” Lancer massaged his forehead.
“But it cannot be that hard to the get to the castle, right?” Shady smiled nervously.
The ponies looked at the route ahead of them. The castle was at the top of a hill, and to make matters worse, they only saw houses everywhere above them, without a single sign on which path to take.
“Or maybe it is.”