Nervously, Katrina paced around the garden, most specifically in front of the pond. Despite being arrogant and confident all the time, she was still a creature, so even she wasn´t immune to the sting of anxiety and doubt. If dark spirits took time to bring Gusty to her, that meant that she was not a force to be messed with. But she couldn´t have the power of a spirit, could she? She was just a mortal! Just like the cat. She was aware of that more than ever. Offers to the dark spirits were running out and each time she asked for their help, she got deeper and deeper in debt. Katrina had never been ignorant of the dangers that dealing with dark spirits could bring, yet she still made a deal with them, as unwise as that might be. Everything needed to go according to plan, no matter what.
“Aaargh! What´s taking them so long?!”
She was so focused on waiting that she didn´t notice Fizzy, Posey and Apricot running around the cloister. Apricot was the first to notice her, so he stopped Posey and Fizzy by holding the latter´s foreleg and pointed at Katrina. Fizzy was grateful that she was behind Posey, otherwise, she wouldn´t have noticed Apricot´s warning due to both the stress of the situation and the amazing architecture. It had some elements in common with Grogar´s castle, such as the pointy arches, but with some differences too. For example, Fizzy noticed that inside the arches, there tinier arches and geometric drawings. The garden was impressive as well. Instead of the thorns found in Grogar´s garden, there were orange trees and bushes.
The two ponies and cat hid behind a column.
“Is this where she meets the dark spirits?” Fizzy asked Posey.
The earth pony nodded energetically.
“Yes. I saw her right in the same spot the other day.” she replied.
“Oh my…” Apricot bit his claw while observing Katrina. “I´ve never seen her so worried…”
“Well, she should be. Gusty doesn´t mess around when it comes to her friends. Pretty soon, her reign will be over.” Fizzy was about to smack her hooves, but Posey put her hoof between hers to stop her. The unicorn smiled embarrassed. “Why are you worried about her, anyway?” she asked confused to Apricot. “I thought you didn´t like her.”
“I never did, but it´s just I´m scared of what will happen if I don´t evacuate every cat at time. What if by helping you I bring doom to my kind? I mean, we´ve mistreated you for a really long time! It seems reasonable that afterwards earth ponies want us to be your slaves or executed.”
“To be honest, you had no choice.” Posey said to him. “We both know you are as much of slaves as we are. I mean, most of you were forcefully taken from Abyssinia.”
“Wait, what?” Fizzy turned to Apricot.
“How do you know that?” Apricot asked in shock to Posey.
“Walls have ears.” she shrugged.
“Is Abyssinia where cats come from?” Fizzy asked Apricot.
Apricot nodded.
“Then, how is it that Katrina ended up here?”
The orange cat sighed.
“Pride mostly. You see, Katrina was the second daughter of the queen and king of Abyssinia. As you can guess, she was the second heir to the throne, the first being Seraphina, her older sister. Katrina desired the throne more than anything in the world, which led her to hurt her subjects and her sister. Angered by her behaviour, she was vanished. As demoralizing that event might be for some, it didn´t stop Katrina from wanting to become queen. If she couldn´t inherit her family´s kingdom, she would create hers.”
“And that´s when she made the deal with the dark spirits, right?” Fizzy interrupted Apricot. “Because I assume she was completely on her own when she was vanished.”
“That does explain why she can control them.” Apricot caressed his chin. “I thought it was because of her potion, but it would make sense dark spirits gave her that potion. None of us ever knew how Katrina managed to get dark spirits on her side, you know.” he explained.
“And I suppose she must have used the dark spirits to take cats from Abyssinia. Or even Amina as well.” Posey added.
“I don´t know who is this Amina you´re talking about, but I´ll assume so.”
Suddenly, as they were talking, they were blinded by the sunlight, causing them to cover their eyes.
“Sunlight?” Katrina wondered estranged. Then, she heard the sound of bells, realizing what that meant. “No. No, no, no, NO!” she growled frustrated.
“Your highness!” Rep ran to her. “The Wind Warrior, her comrades and the rebels have entered the city. We believe she´s charging to the castle.”
Without him expecting it, Katrina grabbed Rep by his shirt.
“Did she do that?”
“Do what?”
“THAT!” she said while shaking him. Afterwards, she pointed at the clear sky. “Did she move the clouds?”
Rep gulped, knowing what was coming for him.
“Yes…”
Katrina widened her eyes. She released Rep. The tomcat stared worried at his mistress, since she said no word. Instead, she turned around and walked. She stopped to take a breath while looking at the floor.
“You want me to be a bad kitty? Fine, now I´m a bad kitty.” she said in a gloomy tone and a murderous look.
Rep´s, Apricot´s and Posey´s hearts started beating. Fizzy didn´t know Katrina as well as they did, but from their reactions, she could tell that she was going to be at her most dangerous. All this time she was only playing around. Now, she was serious.
“Capture all the earth pony rebels.” she ordered Rep. “And the Wind Warrior´s companions, if that´s possible.”
“And the Wind Warrior?”
“I´ll deal with her myself!” Katrina replied with a sharp attitude. “Now go!”
Rep fearfully raised his paw to his forehead before running away. Katrina took some time before her next move, leaving Fizzy, Posey and Apricot expecting impatiently. At last, after some tense minutes Katrina sighed.
“I´ll have to use her help. And she had better do well this time. Otherwise, her time here will be less.” she thought aloud as she took out a key from her robes.
This was the sign they waited for. Fizzy turned to Posey and Apricot and nodded.
“I´m afraid that won´t possible.” she said while she left her hideout.
Katrina turned around. She arched her eyebrow, surprised and estranged by the fact she was in her garden and not in behind bars. Fizzy took advantage of that moment of disbelief to take water from the pond, making her lose balance, fall and drop the key. Once she was on the ground, Fizzy tried to get the key with her magic, but Katrina was faster and threw a magical beam at her. Her first instinct was to jump to the right. She thanked herself for trusting her instincts, otherwise she would have been blasted, something she could tell by the mark Katrina left on a column. However, by letting her guard down, she gave Katrina the chance to grab her. She brought her to her face.
“Well well… Look who escaped.” she smiled as she observed how Fizzy was struggling to escape her grasp. “I must say I´m impressed. You´re not as dumb as I thought.”
“I never was.” Fizzy clapped back in determination.
Katrina clicked her tongue.
“Oh, sorry but I disagree. You just gave yourself to me. And this time your destination isn´t a dungeon. It´s the gallows.”
“Oh, but you can´t send me to the gallows directly. You could anger Grogar.” Fizzy pointed out.
Katrina cackled.
“HAHA! Do you really think that Grogar cares about what happens to you? The only thing he wants is the Wind Warrior. He doesn´t care about the rest of you.”
“But knowing him, he´ll want to make an example of us. What would happen if you did it instead of him?”
She grabbed her neck. She squeezed it as hard as she could.
“I´m afraid that sometimes there are some casualties.”
Just when Katrina thought Fizzy wouldn´t laugh anymore, the unicorn draws a cocky smirk on her face. The cat widened her eyes, confused as to why she would be smiling when she was being choked. Noticing the direction of her eyes, she looked at where she had dropped the key, only to find it wasn´t there anymore.
“What the-”
When she looked up, she saw Apricot talking to somepony behind a column.
“I got it. Now run!” he said to Posey.
The earth pony nodded before she and Apricot parted ways, running as fast as they could. Unfortunately, they were noticed before they could get far. Katrina released Fizzy´s neck from the shock. Fizzy coughed and gasped from some air.
“YOU!” she yelled angrily at Apricot and Posey.
She bound the two together. Since it happened so fast, they didn´t realize they could move anymore until they saw a magic tight holding them. They looked in horror as Katrina´s shadow covered them.
“Oh dear… I guess it´s true what they say. It´s always from the ones you least expect.” she snarled and showed her teeth at them, terrifying them more.
Fizzy´s ears dropped, worried about Posey. Luckily, she noticed she was next to the pond.
Katrina sighed in false pity, becoming calm too abruptly. Next, she started conjuring up some magic.
“Apricot, I always knew you were a softie but not to the point of being a coward.”
The orange cat was hurt by the comment, but he still gave her a defiant look. Katrina approached her face to Posey.
“As for you my sweet Posey. she shook her head. “Such a pity. You were very useful to me.”
“I hope you tell that to Amina too.”
In just a flash, Katrina wounded Posey´s eye with her claws. Afterwards, she finished her magic spell, which was creating a magical sword. She grabbed it and without any warning, she directed the sword towards Posey´s and Apricot´s necks. Before the blade could touch their skin, Fizzy picked Katrina with water and threw her to the other side of the garden. The impact against an arch made Katrina to release Apricot and Posey.
“GO GO GO!” she told them.
“You want me to come with you?” Apricot asked Posey, seeing the state of her eye.
“Don´t worry. I can handle.” she reassured him.
The orange cat nodded before parting ways.
Katrina grunted as she tried to get up. She snarled with hatred at Fizzy, who was giving her a challenging smirk. The cat stretched her paws before throwing two magical beams at her. Fizzy managed to disappear before they hit her. She ran towards Katrina, but the cat swiftly stepped aside and tripped her, making her fall into the pond. Katrina smirked. Fizzy took her head out of the water. She drew her sword and created a water stream to hold it and approach it to Katrina. Very quickly, the cat conjured up a sword and used it to defend against Fizzy´s attacks. The unicorn´s attacks were so fast that she almost hit Katrina, had she not had her feline reflexes. She took advantage of the cat´s shock to reappear right in front of her. She tried to grab the potion, though for the unicorn´s misfortune, Katrina conjured a forcefield, sending her away.
“My goodness, you´re quite the fighter.” Katrina teased her. “Unfortunately, not the best of the two of us.”
Fizzy huffed, puffed and clenched her teeth. As serious as she may have looked, her next move didn´t seem as much. She created a water octopus. Katrina snorted.
“An octopus, really?”
“Yes, really.”
She used the water tentacles to immobilize Katrina. No matter how hard she tried to free herself, she couldn´t get out of the tentacles. Luckily for her, Rep appeared in the perfect moment. He shot arrow that broke all the octopus´ tentacles. Katrina smiled at him with pride.
“Get away from her!” he yelled at her.
He started shooting arrows at her at the same time that Katrina threw her magical beams. Fizzy was already stressed by her fight against Katrina, but she started panicking the moment Rep entered. He wasn´t as intimidation as Katrina but his presence imposed a menace to her, considering that he was protecting his beloved. Plus, she was outnumbered and had to defend herself from two enemies at the same time. There came a moment when she couldn´t defend herself from one of Katrina´s beams, which pushed her backwards, causing her to strike against a column on her head. As a result, she lost consciousness.
Since Katrina didn´t have time to check if Fizzy was dead, she picked up some of Rep´s arrows Fizzy and put them above Fizzy. She smiled before letting them go. However, her smile would quickly vanish thanks to Rep.
“My dear, are you ok?” he asked concerned.
His voice put her of her stride, causing the arrows to land around Fizzy and not on her, as Katrina originally intended. She growled furious.
“YOU IDIOT! DON´T YOU REALIZE THAT SHE COULD NOT BE DEAD?!” she shouted at him.
“Sorry…” Rep shook in fear.
Katrina sighed.
“It doesn´t matter. That blow will probably affect her magic. I don´t think she´ll have enough strength to destroy her trap.” she turned to Rep. “Have they reached the castle?”
“Not yet, your highness.” he shyly responded.
“Then make sure they don´t. And if you can´t restrain the Wind Warrior, weaken her as much as you can! And capture Posey and Apricot, they´re around the castle.”
“Those two as well? But why?
“DON´T ASK WHY, JUST DO IT!”
Rep ran away terrified. Katrina clenched her teeth as she looked at the clouds.
“Is it me or is the castle farther than before?” asked Buttons.
Everypony looked up only to find that she was correct. The castle did look smaller. Shady sighed.
“It is.” she confirmed in a tone of repentance.
The unicorns grunted. Getting to the castle was mission impossible. They had been spinning around for who knows how much time, but it felt like ages, only to end up in the same spot or further from the castle. To make matters worse, all the streets looked the same. Narrow, brown stone attached houses, and passages with round arches. Something that caught Gusty´s attention was that there were no signs at the houses´ doors. Back in the capital, her and her neighbours´ houses had a sign that indicated which species the pony inhabiting the building was. Her dear and wise magaga explained that this phenomenon was due to the three pony species were present in the capital and lived segregated, so the signs were to recognize who the neighbourhood belonged to.
“I´m so sorry.” Shady apologized as she buried her face in her hooves. “I´m only making things worse.”
“It´s ok, you´re trying your best.” Lancer reassured her, in spite of the frustration he was feeling inside. “At least we dealt with the cats.”
“Yeah. Besides, it´s not like the inhabitants are of much help.” Gusty added, noticing some earth ponies closing the windows in fear of the unicorns.
“Well, at least this time they didn´t throw anything at us.” Glory pointed out sarcastically.
Starswirl looked at Bandit.
“We might not have had luck asking before, but maybe he could be our stroke of luck.” he pointed at him.
Everypony stared at the cat. They were aware of their presence, but they didn´t trust him to guide them to the castle. Plus, he didn´t seem to be awakened by anything, which meant that waking him up would be a tedious and slow task. But right now, they had no other choice.
Gusty sighed before clicking her tongue.
“Tsk tsk kitty kitty.” she called him as she rubbed his nose.
The cat simply frowned and twitched his whiskers. But he didn´t open his eyes. Gusty turned her head to the others and shook his head.
“Well, this can´t get any worse!” Lancer yelled sarcastically.
For their misfortune it could. Not so far from their location, there found the headquarters from the self-proclaimed witch-hunters that the unicorns previously encountered at the inn. After the bell rang, the news of the earth-pony coup spread throughout the whole city like a disease. Some citizens were in their homes, watching from the windows to see if something happened near them or how the events folded out. The witch-hunters were no exception.
“Any news?” the boss asked his partners.
The two other stallions shook their heads. The mare differed, however.
“Guys! Guys!” she shook her hoof rapidly, hitting one of her companions.
“What?” the stallion she was accidentally hitting asked upset.
“Look! The witches!” she pointed at the unicorns. “And the inn´s witch´s friend!”
The boss walked to the window to take a look. He gasped when he noticed them.
“They´ve come to sabotage the rebellion! But we won´t let them.” he said as he left the window. His partners followed him.
Meanwhile, Gusty kept on trying to wake him up, despite the previous failures. Shady and the other unicorns watched closely in expectation.
“Come on little kitty wake up…” Gusty tapped Bandit´s head.
The cat smiled in satisfaction as Gusty tapped his head. In fact, he started purring! She grunted.
“No matter what I do, I seem to relax him more!”
“Of course, because you´re a witch!” a familiar voice reproached her.
Everypony widened their eyes and turned their heads in the direction of the voice. They rolled their eyes or grunted they recognized the witch-hunters.
“Not them again.” Shady massaged her temple.
“Don´t you know cats like witches?” the boss continued speaking.
“We are not witches!” Gusty stomped her hoof against the ground to emphasize her point. “Katrina is!”
“Witchcraft is defined by the usage of black magic. You´re just prejudiced against magic.” Starswirl said in their defence.
“How could we not?” the stallion at the boss´s left replicated. “Magic has only brought us problems. And now that we have the chance to liberate ourselves from it, you come to impede that.”
“Wait, what?” Buttons asked confused.
“Don´t you play fool with us, you´re here because Katrina has recruited you to stop the rebellion.” the witch-hunter mare accused them.
The unicorns and Shady shared glances. Lancer scoffed.
“I´m sorry but I think there´s been a misunderstanding here. We are allies of the earth pony rebels.” Lancer clarified.
“What?” the stallion next to the witch-hunter mare asked.
“Yeah. We have entered the city with them.” claimed Glory.
The witch-hunters raised their eyebrows in a mixture of confusion and estrangement.
“Aaah… I see what´s going on here.” the boss smiled confident. “You´ve brainwashed them with your magic mind tricks to convince them you´re helping, but in reality, you´re using our rebellion to steal the throne from Katrina for yourselves!”
“No, no, that´s not it.” Gusty shook her head.
“Shut up witch!” the boss pushed her backwards.
Gusty fell on Bandit, finally waking him up. The cat meowed in pain.
“Oh geeze, sorry.” she apologized. Despite being enemies and having slept on her back without her permission, she felt like he didn´t deserve to be awakened like that. Plus, he never did anything against her.
Gusty wasn´t sure if it was her imagination, but she could swear that the cat smiled at her. She turned to the soldiers. She frowned angrily and brought the boss closer to her with a strong gust of wind. When he was near enough, he grabbed his shirt collar. She stared at him.
“Don’t you ever do that again. Understand?”
The other three earth ponies tried to intervene, but were stopped by Starswirl, Buttons and Lancer. Glory noticed that the cat was free from Gusty. Surprisingly, he wasn´t running away or doing anything to warn his comrades, but she decided to check on him in case he did.
“Ok, ok. We´re sorry. Please don´t hurt us!” the boss begged Gusty for mercy.
“We won´t hurt you if you help us get to the castle.” Gusty told him. “How do we get to the castle?”
“So, you can take over us?”
“How do we get to the castle?” Gusty repeated firmly, raising her voice.
“She´s asking you a question.” Shady supported.
“Shady…” the boss laughed nervously. “I know we haven´t had the best of encounters, but after meeting real witches, we admit that we were wrong about your friend, and we forgive her. If you help us, we´ll tell the whole city that she´s innocent”
“Hm…” Shady looked up in thought. “No.”
“Come on, Shady. Don´t you care about your fellow earth ponies´ safety?”
“Sir, let me make this very easy for you: I could give a horseshoe about your safety! How do we get to the castle?!”
“Ok ok! We´ll take you!” the boss finally agreed.
The unicorns let go of the earth ponies. However, they still needed to have them under control, as they could have lied, so they pointed their swords at their backs.
“Could you a least sheathe your swords?”
“No!” Gusty replied.
Bandit jumped on Gusty´s back and remained seated on there.
After a while, they successfully reached the castle. It had a less terrifying aspect, but it imposed power as well. There were six keep towers connected by walls with pointy arches, except for the one that had the principal door, which a rounded arch; and four passages with rounded arches.
“There it is. The castle. Now let us go, please.” the boss begged scared.
“Thank you.” Gusty said as she and the other unicorns sheathed their swords. “And one more thing. It had better not come to my ears that you burnt somepony inside their house or accuse them of being a witch. Is that clear?” she threatened them with a passive aggressive smile.
The witch-hunters nodded while whimpering in fright.
“Good. You can go now.”
The four earth ponies ran away as fast as they could.
“Wow. I didn´t know you could be that imposing.” Lancer said impressed.
“Need I to remind you that she confronted Grogar alone?” Buttons playfully nudged him. “But you weren´t present there, so I understand your reaction.”
“It kind of comes with being a mother.” said Gusty. She chuckled. “But I never thought I´d see adults more scared of me than my own fillies.”
Everypony giggled. Up in the walls, there were some earth ponies watching over tied up cats. Between them, there were Knightshade and Alonzo. The first was panting anxiously and the latter was panting his back.
“Don´ worry, Knightshade. Now it comes the easiest part.”
“But it´s still not over. The unicorns and Magic Star are yet to come. Do you think they got captured? Or worse, have the cats killed them?”
Alonzo bit his lip, not so sure to respond. But he calmed down when he looked down.
“Let´s not go over-”
“Because in that case, we are doomed!”
“Knightshade.”
“In that case, I´ll tell you that I love you so much, we don´t say that often enough.”
“Knightshade! Look.” he pointed at the unicorns.
Knightshade looked down and saw the unicorns, who waved hello at him. He laughed joyfully.
“There you are! Moochick has already entered the castle.”
“That´s wonderful! But how did you know you were going to invade the castle that fast?” Lancer asked surprised.
“Remember the cats chasing us? Well, we used them as hostages. Turns out that they care more about each other than we thought.”
“That´s clever.” Lancer muttered under his breath.
“Do you know if he has reached the golden room?” Gusty asked him.
“We´re not sure. It´s a big castle, with lots of staircases. Reaching any room would take a lot of time.” answered Alonzo.
“Go, quick! Things could change in seconds.” Knightshade ordered anxious.
“Wait. Is Magic Star with them?” Shady asked them.
“We haven´t see her entering.”
“Then I´ll stay with them and wait for them.” she told the unicorns.
They nodded and ran through the gates.
Posey ran through the marble aisles as fast as she could. She was feeling so many things, no matter how contradictory. She was scared that Katrina would get her but at the same time, she was full of hope, as she had noticed the troops of earth ponies entering the castle. Though she never met the rebels, Posey supported them to death, but kept it a secret from her master.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hoofsteps. She widened her eyes when she saw who were making that noise: five unicorns.
“Gusty!” Posey called the unicorn after gasping.
Gusty´s ears perked up. She heard her name, but it wasn´t Fizzy. But who else could know her name?
“Gusty!” Posey called her again while running downstairs.
“How do you know my name?” she asked Posey.
“Fizzy told me.” Posey replied.
Buttons gasped dramatically.
“Fizzy! Is she ok?”
“I´m not sure. She stayed fighting with Katrina in the garden.”
“Aah!” she exclaimed horrified. “Why did you leave her alone?!” she shook her.
“Because I need to liberate a spirit! She´s in danger.” Posey said in her defence.
“A spirit?” Starswirl asked intrigued.
“It´s kind of a long story.”
“If you are dealing with a spirit, then let me come with you.” offered Starswirl. “I have studied magic and spirits. Maybe I could help you. If that is ok with you.” he asked his comrades for permission.
“I think it would be safer for you.” Gusty patted his shoulder.
“Yeah, and he could help you with the blind field of vision.” Glory pointed at her eye.
“That could come in handy.” Posey accepted.
Bandit meowed at Posey.
“Bandit! You´re with them?” she asked surprised.
Bandit meowed once again.
“Apricot? Well, he´s with us too. We parted ways but he went to the right.”
Bandit thanked her by meowing. Before getting separated from everypony, he rubbed himself on Gusty´s forelegs.
“Good luck to you as well, I guess.” she waved goodbye at him. She turned to her comrades. “Why didn´t he do anything to us?”
“Who cares? We´ll think of it later!” Buttons redirected the conversation. “Right now, we have to get Fizzy! Where´s the garden?”
“All to the right.”
“Thank you!” she said while parting ways.
“Katrina!” Rep called his master while opening the throne room. “They have entered the castle!”
“What?! I told you that only the Wind Warrior could do that!” she scolded him.
“But they were threatening our partners.” Rep replicated. “We never leave each other´s side.”
“You fools!” she electrocuted Rep. “Your number one priority should be me! ME!”
She was so furious that she didn´t realize that she was applying too much potential. Rep ended up motionless. He was whimpering, struggling to breathe. Katrina walked to him. Rep stared at her, hurt and confused by her betrayal.
“But… I loved you…” he told her.
She electrocuted him again, finishing the job without any remorse.
“It´s clear that if you want things well done you have to do them yourself.”
Her ear twitched when he heard pawsteps. She leaned her head out and saw Apricot helping his fellow soldiers to get out from the window.
“Remember to land on the trees!” he reminded them.
After getting the last cat out, he started climbing the window but was stopped by a blade submerging into the flesh near his heart. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Katrina looked at him in disdain while removing the blade.
“Pathetic.” she scornfully clenched her teeth before disappearing.
Bandit was nearby. He gasped when he saw Apricot. He ran to him and put him face up.
“Bandit….” he smiled at him. “Glad to see you, my friend.”
Bandit stared terrified at Apricot´s wound.
“She..” he grunted. “She stabbed me.” he looked around. “Where are the others?”
Bandit didn´t meow. He was too busy pressing his wound to avoid more blood coming out.
“Hey hey.” he stroked his cheek. “Don´t worry about me. Just warn the others, ok?”
Bandit shook his head. He tore the cloth from his uniform and tied around Apricot´s wound. He pushed him up but Apricot quickly felt. Bandit started pushing him, which slowed him down.
“Bandit.” he called the siamese cat.
Bandit turned to him in tears.
“It´s okay.” he reassured him.
Bandit sniffed. He pointed at his own shoulder.
“Don´t worry, I´ll press the wound. I can handle it on my own.”
Bamdit hugged Apricot very tightly before going away. Apricot weakly smiled at him while he observed him vanish.
“Hold on, hold on. She offered spirits to the dark spirits?” Starswirl asked, recapping everything that Posey told him while going downstairs in a dark alley.
“Hmh.” Posey confirmed.
“So that´s why the spirits disappeared. And you´re certain your friend down here?”
“She must be. Her crying sounds like it comes from underground. I suppose she´s at the lowest level.”
“And what makes you think she´s trapped?”
“Katrina mentioned that she serves her. She forbids me to get out of the castle and only lets me in official visits to spy for her. I suppose it must be the same for Amina.”
Due to her limited sight caused by Katrina´s scratch in the eye, Posey didn´t notice some steps, so she placed her hoof wrongly and almost fell. Thankfully, Starswirl grabbed her before she got hurt. She thanked him with a smile.
“If that is the case, then she must have used some sort of an anti-spirit spell in the door.” Starswirl continued their conversation.
“Which one you think?”
“There´s only one way to find out.”
Since they were busy talking to each other, they weren´t aware that there were no more stairs. They found two big gates.
“Amina?” Posey called the spirit.
Behind the gates, Amina was pacing around. Normally, she would be lying around all day, whether looking down or crying. But after Fizzy talked to her, she developed a desire to get out so she could make amends, but she was still figuring out how. It sounded stupid, but a part of her would miss the castle. Not because of Katrina of course, but because of a singing voice that calmed her down during the night. Speaking of which, she thought she had heard it just now. Despite the fact it was talking and not singing, it sounded exactly the same.
She widened her eyes and lifted her head.
“Singing voice?” she replied .
Starswirl raised his eyebrow confused. Posey, on the contrary, smiled in joy. She was finally having a conversation with the mysterious voice that cried.
“Yes, yes, it´s me. The singing voice. I´m a friend of Fizzy. I came here with one of her friends to liberate you.”
“Liberate me?” Amina asked confused.
“Yeah! You´re in grave danger. Katrina wants to offer you to the dark spirits. I know you are guardian spirit and thus, you fight against them, but I´m afraid that she might weaken you so the dark spirits can take you.”
There was a moment of silence. Posey bit her lip, fearing that whatever Katrina must have ordered her to do damaged her self-esteem that she wouldn´t care what happened to her, or even felt that she deserved it. Starswirl was nervous as well.
“Ok, thank you.” Amina finally responded.
Posey and Starswirl sighed in relief.
“Is there any magic surrounding the gates that impede you from getting out?” Starswirl asked her.
“Yes, every time that I tried to escape, something pulls me backwards.” Amina replied. “She must have asked the dark spirits to grant her a spell to keep me in.”
Suddenly, Posey´s and Amina´s ear twitched. They widened their eyes and froze in fear due to the sound they heard.
“What? What is it?” Starswirl asked her, scared of her reaction.
“Me.” Katrina responded behind their bacs.
Before they could react, Katrina held them both and opened the gates to throw them with Amina. The spirit growled and pounced her.
“Leave them alone, Katrina! It´s over.”
“Easy, easy.” Katrina said somewhat scared. “Otherwise, I won´t help you find your cubs.”
“Oh, you´ll tell me right now. Where are they?!”
“Well, let´s just say I made a little gift to the dark spirits.”
Amina widened her eyes.
“What?” she asked shocked.
From the shock, she loosed her grip on Katrina, allowing her to push her backwards with a zap. Then, she created dark magic tentacles that grasped Amina´s entire body from the ground, taking the light out of her.
“Amina!” Posey cried worried.
Afterwards, Katrina picked her up.
“Give me the keys, you traitor!”
Posey struggled to release from her grasp.
“Let her go!” Starswirl ordered as he lit his horn.
“Oh no sir!” Katrina zapped at him, throwing him against a wall, giving herself enough time to get the keys. Afterwards, she dropped Posey and walked to the door.
“NO, NO!” Posey yelled at her as she ran towards the door.
By the time she got to the door, it was too late. Katrina had already locked the door.
“YOU CAN´T DO THIS! LET US GO!” Posey yelled as she knocked violently on the door.
“You can feast now. Just dispose of them forever.” Katrina talked to the dark spirits via the potion.
“KATRINA! KATRINA!” Posey screamed desperate.
The unicorns arrived at the garden. They gasped when they saw Fizzy surrounded by arrows.
“Fizzy!” Buttons yelled as she and the others run.
Between everypony, they removed the arrows around Fizzy. Buttons held her body.
“Fizzy! Fizzy!” she called her name. “Oh, she doesn´t respond.” she said worried.
“Don´t worry. Maybe with a few agitations she wakes up.” Glory suggested.
Lancer started clapping in front of her face.
“Time to wake up, ok?” he tapped Fizzy´s shoulder. “Hello? Can you hear me? Wake up Fizzyyyy…” he started shaking her violently, entering more in panic. “Fizzy wake uuuuup! I don´t like this, Fizzy wake uuuup!”
Lancer´s violent shake-ups were successful. Fizzy opened her eyes. They were darting everywhere.
“Whoah, whoah! Lancer, you´re making me feel dizzy!” she complained, as if she had been with Lancer the whole time. Then realization hit. She yelled excited. “Guys! I knew you´d come for me!”
They all gave her a big hug.
“You´re alive!” Gusty cried tears of joy.
“Are you ok? Did she hurt you?” Buttons asked her.
“Just a scratch. Nothing grave.” Fizzy caressed her cheek. “Where´s Starswirl?”
“He went with a yellow earth pony.” Glory explained. “She said that she needed to free a spirit.”
“Yeah! Katrina wants to offer her to dark spirits in exchange of their help. I hope she got there safely. Same for Apricot.”
“Apricot?” Lancer raised an eyebrow.
“An orange cat. He´s on our side.”
“Another one!” Gusty exclaimed. “You know, a siamese cat has been sleeping on my back this entire time. I wonder why they are supporting us.”
“Apricot explained that most of them were brought here by force by Katrina, so they don´t like her that much. However, they are also afraid of what the earth ponies might do to them if Katrina is defeated. They think their best chance is aiding us, so they´re merciful, or running away.”
“Oh dear, I didn´t think that…” Gusty put her hoof on her temple. “Well, hopefully, we can appeal Moochick to be merciful.”
“Be merciful for what?” Moochick asked curiously from underneath some arches with his troops.
“Sir Moochick!” Gusty exclaimed surprised. Gusty, Buttons, Lancer and Glory bowed. Fizzy imitated them despite her shock.
“You came along the earth pony rebels?” she murmured to Buttons. “How did you get them on your side?”
“You have no idea what we´ve gone through to get to you.” Buttons murmured back.
“I don´t mean to be rude, but didn´t you say to meet at the golden room?” Lancer asked him.
“This is the golden room.” Moochick looked up the ceiling.
The unicorns helped Fizzy to get up before going back with Moochick and the earth ponies. When they approached him, they got a quick glimpse of the room, understanding why it was called the golden room. Gold was the material the entire room was made of! It was even decorating the arches. As much as he wanted to admire all the details, Lancer knew they had an evil cat sorceress to fight.
“Where´s our next stop?” he asked Moochick.
“The throne room. I think it´s upstairs.”
“It is but going up there won´t be necessary.”
Everypony widened their eyes. They turned to the direction of the voice that had just joined the conversation. They saw a pair of green eyes shining in the shadows. Everypony quickly realized who they belonged to. The earth ponies drew their swords and put them and their swords in defence position. Gusty frowned determined.
“Katrina.” she called the eyes.