NoLegs hissed at the trio again, then turned his attention to Katie. His tail swished, glowing with magic. Katie rose a hoof to shield her eyes as an azure flash of light sparkled brilliantly in front of her, and upon lowering it found four clawed horseshoes floating in the air. "You had them this whole time?" she asked the cat, turning to glance at him as one shoe took to securing itself to her raised appendage. Then, she was lifted into the air by the cat's magic, whereupon the rest of the shoes slipped onto her bare hooves with ease.

As soon as the last shoe had been fitted onto her frame, the hallway's temperature instantly dropped by several degrees. Everyone else shivered, and Chanson and his fellow instrumentalists drew the flaps of their cloaks tighter around their bodies. The shoes shimmered with a pale blue wave of mana, matching the wraith's eyes in color, and soon after a thin layer of frost formed upon the metal and legs that wore them.

Anna glanced at Katie, eyes glinting in askance. Katie mutely nodded. "They're enchanted," she mouthed before turning to Chanson and his colleagues. Her ears stood upright, and she shifted to all fours as the cat's magic gently lowered her to the carpeted floor. Sarah shot a glance at the now-armed changeling and merely shrugged before turning to the cloak-wearing unicorns.

"Your move," Sarah stated simply, holding her halberd vertically before her and shifting her rear legs a bit. Her wings flared wide, eyes narrowing to tiny jade slits as Chanson stepped forward with another shiver.

Chanson eyed NoLegs with a suspicious gaze, then turned to Katie and looked her up and down with a scowl of disgust. His eyes soon fell on Sarah, and a snide grin spread on his muzzle. "I will break your wings and—"

"Stop talking and do it already, you pompous fucktwit!" Sarah cut him off, a firm frown setting into her face. Chanson's grin faded, and he immediately surged forward, swinging his guitar like a crude mace. It connected with the halberd's shaft, bouncing off and creating sparks before floating higher and swinging down. Sarah blocked it again, this time with the axe-blade of her weapon. Chanson made another mighty swing, only for the spear-piece of his enemy's weapon to pierce its bridge, severing the guitar's strings like a knife going through wet noodles.

He withdrew his weapon and jumped back, face paling as he turned to survey the damage done. His visage hardened, and he surged towards Sarah with his somewhat-broken guitar flying behind him. "Do you have any idea how many bits this cost me?!" he bellowed, horn shining with a vibrant light.

"Nope, and I don't care. You're trying—" Sarah paused to deflect the weapon again, almost knocking it out of Chanson's magical grasp. "—to hit me with it. It's your fault that—" She paused again to swat the guitar away a fifth time, "—you're coming at me with it when I have a fucking halberd at my disposal."

"She's right," Anna chirped, summoning an arrow and nocking it into the drawstring as the black-maned mare—the one with the accordion decorated in polka dots—advanced towards her. The wielder of the squeezebox started flexing her instrument, using magic to push on the keys frantically, producing a piece with fast-paced notes that sounded more like it came from a grand organ having a seizure.

Anna paused, as she was entranced not only by the tune, but even more so by how fast the black-maned mare's magic played the instrument. She eyed the keys, watching as each one was pressed with others in rapidly-shifting bunches. "I see you like my performance of one of Vinhorndi's compositions," the white-coated mare remarked.

"Vinhorndi?" Anna parroted, eyes widening as the mare came even closer. She tried to turn to her adversary, yet found herself fixated on her accordion as it continued to play. The squeezebox-player still advanced, until she was mere inches from her bow-clutching opponent. The black-maned mare surged forward in a single bound, closing the distance and raising her accordion to deliver a very early strike.

Katie made her move the instant the accordion ascended, stumbling forward in a frenzied gallop. Propelling her run with her wings, she outstretched a clawed hoof and raked the right foreleg of the white-pelted unicorn. She screamed and backed away, the leg now bleeding from deep gashes for the span of a moment. The wounds took to closing off with a layer of frost that was thicker than that on the shoe that had wounded her.

The mare who now had frost clotting her fresh set of scratchmarks turned to Katie and retracted her accordion. "Oh, you sneaky little blight," she hissed.

"Not my fault you weren't paying attention," Katie retorted, her tone turning ominously cold and angry. Her orbs glinted and her eyes narrowed as she rose a hoof to point it accusingly at her opponent. She jerked her head as the sounds of a pony galloping on carpet came from behind, and she immediately noticed Chanson as he decided to distance himself from Sarah and attack her instead. Katie lashed out with a back leg, wings supporting her weight as she aimed high up and managed to awkwardly slash him in the barrel of his chest.

Chanson, likewise, backed away as he found himself with a fresh bit of ice coating a patch of fur and a newly-opened-and-closed wound. He glanced at the anomaly for a moment, then decided to try his chances with attacking Katie once more. She spun around to face him and reared up on her back legs, flailing her front claws for all it was worth. Chanson, however, sent his guitar crashing into her like a wrecking ball, striking her in the stomach and sending her sprawling to the floor with no effort on his behalf.

He advanced towards his now-prone and foal-sized adversary again as she lay, stunned and recovering from the impact of his attack—only to then stop and scream as something painfully wedged itself into one of his back legs. He turned around, finding that a hissing NoLegs had embedded his blade into his flesh, drawing blood and tugging the weapon down towards the hoof, lengthening the affliction into a sizeable gash. He rose the limb, wincing before trying to shake the feline off, yet no matter how much he moved his leg like a pendulum the cat did not let go of his weapon—or his leg, for that matter.

NoLegs began mewing frantically, driving his blade even deeper into Chanson's rear leg, tail glimmering with a faint red aura that also embraced his opponent's head for a few seconds. "Prissy little pansy. You can't even shake off lil' old me, a voice hissed in his head. Chanson's eyes went red, and he howled as he began prancing up and down in place, bucking his back legs in an attempt to get the blasted cat off of him. This time, NoLegs relented, pulling out his sword before landing on the floor with another hiss as the injured stallion whirled around to look at him.

Chanson limped to the cat, but could not move any more than three paces before an arrow found itself thwacking into his shoulder. He screamed again, turning to Anna as she readied her flute. He made to move, only to find himself unable to as electrical sensations shot through his body again and again, coupled with a blindingly bright yellow overtaking his vision. These sensations assaulted his nerves, quickly forcing him into the floor in a kneeling position.

Sarah scrambled to Katie and helped her up onto her hooves, turning to the black-maned mare as she began playing up her accordion with renewed vigor. "You hurt my son, you unrepentant barbarians!" she cried, her face turning an unhealthy shade of red. "My song will be the last thing you and your beastly cat will hear!"

Anna responded by summoning another arrow, nocking it, and pulling the drawstring taut before firing. The projectile whistled sharply through the air, thudding itself between a cluster of the accordion's keys and rendering at least one of them useless. The squeezebox-holder gaped at the sight of the crystal arrow lodged in her instrument, and she pried it out with a simple bit of magic.

Almost immediately after, the arrow glowed and all of its crystals turned into an icy blue color. A flash of similarly-colored magic exploded in front of the instrument. Three more arrows appeared from that blast of magic and landed on some more keys, damaging some and causing frost to spread on the ones that had escaped unscathed, locking them in place.

This was followed by the sound of a flute being played, and the accordionist tossed her instrument aside as if it had no more sentimental value than a trash can. She turned to Anna, who already started up her piece, the flute faintly shimmering with a green ripple of mana that then turned bright red. Fire exploded around the archer, forming a ring that hovered above the carpet and at her hooves, yet failed to scorch anything.

At first, this fire was red, but then turned a brilliant golden orange as it rapidly expanded, embracing her in a tightly-wound sphere that rippled with emerald sparks. When it faded, Anna leveled a glare at the accordionist with green eyes that turned vibrant red. She lunged forward with a cry, summoning three more crystal arrows whose gems turned scarlet in color and loading them into the drawstring of her bow all at once.

The accordionist deftly sidestepped the oncoming triad of arrows, briefly smirking as they landed in a marble column behind her. The grin fell as heat rose from behind her, and became a frown as she felt flames lick at her back hooves. She turned around, eyes widening as jagged red crystals grew out of the arrows at an alarming rate, pulsating with mana for one moment and dissipating into fire that exploded in a wave the next. She ran from the crystals and the flames, only to find herself butting straight into Anna.

Anna stumbled back from her adversary, readying another arrow for a sure shot when Chanson forced himself to stand and slammed his guitar into her back with his magic. This caused the archer to stop aiming and lurch a bit, her rear legs buckling for a moment as she steadied herself. The guitar slammed into her again, this time breaking into two different pieces at the neck and sending her to the floor.

"Celestia-damned archers," Chanson hissed between clenched teeth, shooting a glare at Anna as she made to stand up again in a hunched posture. "Mother, father, she's just going to—gah!" His remark morphed into a pained cry as Katie rushed towards him, flew up with a rapid beating of her wings and perched on his back before sinking her front claws into his withers and sending ice water shooting through his veins.

"Celestia-damned changelings!" the black-maned mare shrieked, jumping over Anna and surging towards Chanson with her horn glowing. Katie flapped her wings madly and slid her claws out of his back before catapulting herself off with another mad flapping, landing in front of Anna and extending a clawed hoof.

Anna bumped the armored and frosty hoof with one of her own, before turning to the mother and son. The mare-and-stallion duo found themselves darting away from a halberd as its blade swung into the carpet from behind them. The impact gave way to a fierce blast of wind that radiated from the weapon as it pulsed with mana, forcing the two unicorns further back before fading.

Sarah lifted her weapon with ease, wings still spread wide as she waved it menacingly in front of Chanson and his mother. "You two wanna try something else that's stupid? Be my guest; just don't come crying if you lose a limb later," she warned, and both of them took three steps back with smirks growing on their faces. "What the fuck are you two grinning about?" she asked, scowling when the two Mythonian unicorns failed to answer her.

The bearded stallion, who had sat on the sidelines watching the battle unfold and come to a halt, took a deep and silent breath. He put his mouth on the mouthpiece of his tuba and started playing, magic rippling off of the brass in various spots. Some of the instrument's buttons pressed down, while others went up, though as he played not a sound was made. He played unnoticed as Chanson and his mother lunged at Sarah again, forcing her to wave her halberd in an arcing sweep to keep them back.

The two unicorns summoned another accordion and guitar with their magic, but decided to switch things up a bit: the accordionist went and started using her weapon like a club as Chanson began playing his strings.

The guitar produced a wicked thrum in its owner's magic before descending into a solo, one that sent out waves of pure mana sweeping over the hall-turned-battlefield. These waves of mana congealed around the wounds the two had suffered, bathing them in a soft white light before closing them and removing the accumulated frost that stubbornly lingered.

Anna scowled, putting her flute to her lips in order to play. However, that was when she caught a low sound, barely noticeable even as Cheval's solo ended. Her head began hurting, amplified by a draining feeling that came from her horn. She grabbed her flute with her mouth and rose a wobbly hoof to grab her bow, snatching it out of the air and toppling forward onto the floor again.

NoLegs lunged up in the air, sword pointing down and ready to strike at the accordionist. Mid-leap, he too heard the low sound, and for a moment he stopped himself with magic to glance around in an attempt to find the source. Then his magic fizzed out, accompanied by a draining feeling in his tail, whereupon he fell to the floor. The blade slipped out of his grasp and bounced off his armor harmlessly, sliding away on the carpet out of his reach. The cat hissed in frustration as Chanson used a hoof to kick him towards a weakened Anna, driving him further from his blade.

This left Sarah and Katie as the only two otherwordly combatants, and both exchanged glances with one another. Sarah readied her halberd again, but she immediately found it a difficult task to deflect the squeezebox that started pelting her on two accounts. First and foremost, it was smaller than the guitar, and second, it did not expand its bellows—allowing it to keep its compact shape and bypass her rather tragically flimsy defenses with ease.

Chanson used his guitar to bash Katie on the chin from below, sending her flying up to the ceiling, and further upped the ante by hitting her back up into the air whenever she descended down. She tried flying away, but his magic grasped her wings and kept them firmly at her sides, thereby keeping her locked in a twisted game of paddle ball. When he got bored with her a minute later, he sent her careening into a marble pillar with another solid hit from his weapon, watching with a twisted grin as she landed face-first on the column and dropped to the floor almost perfectly still.

Now that Katie had seemingly been incapacitated, he turned his attention to Sarah and the accordionist. "Mother," he said, his gaze falling on the black-maned mare while his remark caused the two mares to stop and look at him. "The mongrel's mine. Mine alone."

"But she hurt you!" the black-maned mare exclaimed.

"No, that was the cat, the archer, and the changeling. Those three have already been taken care of. Let moi address the gryph," he replied with a wicked smirk. His mother smiled at him and backed off, and he rushed in to fill her place eagerly. He caught Sarah off-guard by reaching over her angled halberd with a hoof and clocking her in the nose, causing her to stagger back awkwardly. Chanson followed this up with a jab to the stomach using his guitar, his twisted grin broadening as she kneeled with one claw letting go of the shaft and flying to rest on her gut.

He tsked her three times, shaking his head before turning around and kicking her in the face with his back legs while she'd been left vulnerable. He whirled around again, just before she landed flat on her back, watching her halberd fly out of her grasp as her wings spread wide on the carpet and fresh blood began trickling down the side of her muzzle. He trotted over to her until he stood with his body looming over her, positioning his front hooves on her wings and pressing on the two humerus bones.

Sarah rose her claws up in an attempt to strike him, but his magic grasped them and forced them to the floor above her head. She let off a weak yelp as she felt her left wing bone starting to crack, but stifled the noise before it could become something more as Chanson pushed down on it with all his might. The bone snapped in two, but by no means was the deranged and haggard unicorn finished just yet. He rose the hoof that broke the bone and set about trailing up the wing with it, breaking more bones and eliciting more groans of protest from his hapless victim.

When he did this, though, she stopped making noise and leveled a glare at him. Chanson grabbed some feathers in his hoof and pulled them out, garnering a wince and a gritting of teeth from Sarah. He pulled out more feathers, yet did not get anything more than a pained, indignant grunt. His eyes fell on her halberd, and he picked it up with his magic to study it for a moment. "Now, what did you say about… what was it, lost limbs?" he asked casually, turning to Sarah and meeting her glare with his smirk still in place. "After all, you said yourself—'do it already.' The broken wing's nothing more than the fault of your rapid-fire foul mouth."

"That may be true," Sarah began, clenching her teeth for a second before speaking further, "but that doesn't make what you're doing any less wrong."

"And what if I broke more of your bones as just retribution for having moi jailed?" Chanson asked, an amused glint flickering in his eyes.

Sarah responded by raising her back legs up and jabbing him right in the gonads with her rear hooves. Chanson screamed like a filly and jumped away, hunched over with a front hoof—the same one that had removed some feathers—darting to his junk. "Oh, you little bitch," he hissed as she rolled over onto her good wing and made to stand. She winced as she got on all fours and angled her body, her broken wing now hanging uselessly at her side.

Impressively, Sarah still glared at Chanson, fresh blood still trickling from her nose and her form swaying a bit. She opened her mouth to speak, but froze as the rioters that had disabled themselves earlier got up on their hooves and quickly backed up her adversaries, cutting off all means of escape. All means—save for that of one of her fellow Fantasians, she quickly realized. Her eyes averted to Katie as she staggered to her hooves and shook her head dazedly.

Chanson, however, turned to Katie as well, and proceeded to smash his guitar into her once more, this time striking at her hind quarters. She returned onto the floor sprawled out again, this time letting off a weak groan. "Ah, ah, ah, you're not going anywhere," he hissed in a pained tone. Chanson then turned back toSarah and asked, "Where are the rest of the foul Fantasians, hrrrm? Have they gone home already?"

"Why don't you take your daddy's dick and shove it up your ass, Chanson Cheval?" Sarah growled, eyes narrowing for a second. "How would you feel if I took that horn of yours, tore it off, and shoved it up your cockhole before breaking it?"

"Pardon moi?" Chanson snarled, dropping the halberd and taking a moment to process the gryph's response.

"Ignore her crass remarks, my son," the bearded stallion spoke up, trotting up to stand at Cheval's side with an unreadable look on his face. "She's just as beastly as that changeling and the cat. Mayhaps I should shut that trap of hers." He put his mouth to his instrument, horn glowing as he began to play for a moment.

It was a moment he didn't have to spare, as the sound of many hooves hitting the carpet and the mobsters shouting in protest behind him caused him to turn around to see what the new and abrupt ruckus was about. Chanson turned around as well, not noticing his father's sudden halt with whatever tune he had just started striking up.

One by one, the rioters were hefted in magic and shoved aside, until a path had been formed that cut the mob clean in two. The split between the mob, to their resulting visages that morphed to convey nothing short of wide-eyed expressions of pure horror, revealed one Shining Armor and a large plethora of guards as they trotted down the path. The guards flanked the captain in two rows behind him, leaving space for a third row of beings whose members were not royal guards.

With the guards and Shining were the rest of the Fantasians, who shoved through one row of armored ponies before darting ahead and galloped around them. They stopped upon seeing Cheval and his parents, taking in the scene and finding out just how bad in shape their companions were. "What the fuck happened here?" Lance barked, his eyes falling on Sarah first.

"Chanson happened. He stirred shit up," Anna answered for Sarah as she made to stand, this time on her back legs, her eyes reverting from crimson to their regular emerald hue. Her bow rested in one hoof, and her flute was held by the other.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the dungeons?" Shining asked, turning to Chanson with an icy glare and a gleam in his eyes.

"There was a bail, and me and his mother paid the necessary sum of bits for our son to be free again," the bearded stallion replied simply. He flinched as Shining turned his glare onto him.

"There was no bail, last I checked. He'd been found guilty of his crimes and sentenced to one life term," Shining hissed, cantering over to the stallion with the tuba and staring into his eyes. He turned to some of the assembled guards and barked, "Guards! Arrest Chanson and his parents immediately! It seems we had a breach in the dungeons while we were rounding up the rioters; we cannot let this happen again!"

"Sir, yes sir!" the guards replied in earnest as a few armored unicorns already lunged forward and summoned manacles with their magic. Chanson and his mother found themselves shackled, and tried summoning up retaliatory magic, only to snarl like animals as silver bands with runes slipped on their horns and cut off their mana flow as soon as contact was made.

The father quickly began playing his tuba again, and the guards who conjured magic heard a low hum before their mana flow inexplicably cut off. He kept playing, until Fenrir rushed through with Maria clutched tightly in one paw and tackled him to the ground, shoving the other paw into the mouth of the instrument and drastically contorting it through that act alone. "I will tolerate no disrupting of magic against the authorities of this castle, you cur," he snarled lowly.

"Mana disruption? Really?" Armin groaned sarcastically, cantering over to look at the bearded pony straight in the eyes. "How much dumber can you get? Like, where'd your brain go? Is it in a jar somewhere?" he asked, a grin forming on his face.

"That's the lowest form of cheating, if I've ever heard of it," Alexander added, mimicking Armin and glaring at the tuba-player coldly. "What on Mythos drove you to do this, especially knowing that there are non-unicorns present who can easily hold you down… like, right now?"

"Mayhaps you'll learn a valuable lesson this night. And when you do leave the dungeons as a free stallion, I implore that you do not do something this brazenly foolish in your remaining days," Fenrir snarled, eyes narrowing as he pushed harder on the instrument, crushing it into a heap. The bearded stallion went wide-eyed and frantically nodded. "Have I made myself perfectly clear?" he asked, and the stallion whimpered with another nod before the Captain spoke up.

"Well said. Guards, take him away!" Shining barked, his voice echoing into the hall. The guards rushed over and manually clamped the stallion in chains and slipped unto his horn a silver ring before he had been parted from his now-consigned-to-scrap instrument. The trio of troublemakers were dragged off by their new manacles, and some more guards took to showing the remaining rioters out of the hall without input from their captain.

Shining then turned to Sarah and noticed her dangling wing, as well as a few scattered feathers that surrounded her, littering the red carpet with greens and browns. "He did another number on you?" he asked.

"Every damn bone in my wing's busted thanks to him. He also did a number on Katie," Sarah answered with a slow nod.

"I'm still conscious," Katie grumbled as she stood up again, this time with her back legs sagging a bit. "Ow, my hips."

NoLegs let off a mew as Matt trotted up to him and scooped up his armored form with a furry foreleg. The cat found himself held up to the stallion's face, and he licked the end of his muzzle with a soft purr. "Did you kick some ass?" he asked, chuckling as the feline mewed again.

"He kicked plenty," Anna answered, her horn starting to glow again as the draining feeling finally faded. She grasped her bow and flute with her magic and, with a flash of light, made them vanish before falling to all fours. She turned to the fallen halberd and did the same with it, just as Katie waddled her way to Shining.

Shining studied Katie's slightly stilted form and sighed when he noticed her shoes, seeing a ripple of blue mana radiate on the weaponized garments before their layer of frost melted off. He felt a fluctuation in the hall's temperature, and frowned as it rose in tandem with the ice melting away. "Are you a frost wraith?" he asked, using a hoof to gesture to the shoes.

"Frost wraith?" Lance parroted, turning to Shining before noticing whom he was staring at and going wide-eyed.

"Only with these shoes on, I am," Katie answered, sitting on her rump and wincing again. "That's it: Chanson's family is paying for the painkillers I need to take."

"Eh, they won't be able to. Besides, I can fix you up in a jiffy," Natalie interjected, tottering over with her horn glowing a soft white. She lowered her head until the tip of her appendage pointed at the wraith, and started channeling some mana into a spell. A white glow bathed Katie for a moment before it faded, and the changeling stood up without a wince. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like I haven't been bashed with a guitar over and over. Thanks," Katie chirped in a pleased tone.

"No problem," Natalie replied before turning her attention to Shining. "Captain Armor, is it alright if we left Canterlot… I dunno, sometime tonight? I have a strong feeling that if we stay in this city any longer, the ponies here will just find something else to blame us for."

Shining assumed a hard, though unreadable, look on his visage. He turned over the request of his foreign guest for a bit, briefly turning to the remaining guards who exchanged glances amongst themselves before nodding to their captain. "Prepare the chariots, except for you," he answered, raising a hoof to point at a unicorn medic guard amidst the bunch.

"Yes sir," the guards replied, and they bounded off—except for the medic guard Shining pointed at.

"What do I do, sir?" the last guard asked with a slight frown on his face.

"What else? Tend to the wounded hippogryph," Shining answered, noticing that this guard hesitated for a moment, fidgeting in place without otherwise moving. "Now," he emphasized, and the guard nodded before rushing over to Sarah and opening his saddlebag with some magic.

He held the broken wing up with simple levitation, earning a gasp from Sarah. "Please don't prod too much. It hurts like a motherfucker," she groaned, and the medic replied with a mute nod as he pulled out a roll of gauze from his saddlebag.

"Do the medics know basic healing magic?" Natalie asked, turning to Shining with an incredulous brow raised.

"Yes, but that one's a trainee," Shining replied, gesturing to the sole medic guard for emphasis. "He has to—"

Natalie cut Shining off with a groan, a hoof rising up and connecting with her face. "I'll go help him on the spell front, then," she sighed, setting her hoof down before trotting over just as the guard bent the broken wing in the wrong way by accident. This wound up making Sarah shriek in pain, the noise nothing short of an ear-splitting keen. Her horn began glowing again, and her magic grasped the wing and gently stretched it as wide as it could go.

A white glow bathed the injured wing, and as the mana weaved around it and set to work, Sarah relaxed little by little. She started purring as the medic wrapped her wing in the gauze, wincing as the cloth bunched up some of her feathers and made others stick out of place. The glow receded, and more bandages were wrapped around both the limb and the midsection to which it was attached before the wing had been closed.

Sarah shuddered as the medic summoned what looked like an oversized cast laden with straps via his magic and affixed it to her wing and midsection, being mindful of how damaged it was. He also tenderly ensured that the cast had no chance of sliding out of place and enabling the wing to dangle again, tightening the straps as he saw fit. Once satisfied, he nodded and rose a hoof to pat his patient on the withers.

"How do you feel?" Natalie asked, concern flickering in her eyes.

"I still feel like my wing got crushed by an airship's engine, but some of the pain's gone away," Sarah replied before she returned to softly purring.

"Don't move that wing for a few weeks, unless you need to preen it and change the wrappings," the medic warned, cantering to Shining only after his most recent patient nodded in understanding. "The wounded has been tended to, sir."

"Excellent," Shining replied with a nod and a small, satisfied grin emerging on his face. "Now, could you go find Sergeant Riverwater and have him report to me immediately?"

"Yes, sir," the medic replied before he gallopped away. Shining watched him scramble down the hall until he vanished around a corner, then turned to Lance and addressed him, "Would you rather use your airship, Fantasian general?"

"No. I'd rather trot through all of Equestria's other towns discreetly, and incognito," Lance replied with a huff. "I don't want to find myself the target of another Godcat-damned mob, and if I find myself in that situation again, then I'd want to get out while minimizing damage to all parties involved. If we took my airship, that would be the opposite of discreetly, and not to mention mana-consuming."

"'Mana-consuming?' Care to elaborate?" Shining asked, a brow rising.

"Me, Natalie, and Anna power that damn thing with our own horns. Every single time the airship is used, we sacrifice a lot of mana just so the engine runs," Matt answered, turning to the Captain with NoLegs still in his foreleg. "Put it like this: we're reduced to basic summoning spells and levitation at most after charging the engine."

"And the whole insanity that's happened this night drained a lot of our energy. I mean both physically, and magically," Natalie added, garnering a look from Anna.

"Wait, you guys had to fight off droves of grouchy unicorns too?" Anna incredulously asked, a puzzled frown on her face.

"Yes, it was very hectic. They kept throwing furniture—I sincerely wished they'd just stuck with rotten tomatoes," Alexander groaned, a frown on his beak.

"They tried pelting me with forks and spoons, but they didn't succeed because I just brushed them off," Armin added, the grin on his fanged maw taking on a sly cast.

"By the dozen," Matt replied, turning to the green-maned unicorn with a sigh. He turned to Fenrir as he waltzed over on two legs, holding a snoozing Maria in one of his front paws. "Is she okay?" he asked, setting the cat down and gesturing to the filly.

"Yes, she has gone through tonight's dilemma unscathed, and is slumbering quietly," Fenrir answered with a curt nod. "Though, something troubles me."

"And that is…?" Anna implored, looking at Fenrir with her frown becoming more pronounced.

"Just who in Canterlot, exactly, decided to pin the blame on the supposedly-bizarre weather on us?" Fenrir replied, eyes narrowing slightly as he spoke.