"Just run around for a bit in the upper levels, probably there… that seems to be where they normally hide. Instead of a hole in the desert.", Emma sighed at how predictable some of these villains were in terms of their seats of power.
"Sounds like you know from experience.", John chuckled. "Well, not firsthand, but certainly what I've heard.", Emma replied with a shrug and a sheepish smile.
Mufasa nodded, "True. All the same, you feel like you got it in hand for your dragon form, Silver?", and John smiled, "Yeah, I feel different, like good different. I know how to shift by my will now. I'll practice with the sunlight shadows tomorrow to get the hang of it.".
Mufasa grinned, "Good. Any more questions?", looking at John and Emma with a curious expression. "So many… just…", John sighed. "It's more related with you rather than my new powers. I know if it's not something you can either truly talk about or now being the time to say them…". He looked somewhat disheartened to even ask.
Mufasa smiled softly, "Don't worry about it. When I take rest as your tattoo or leave you for your intimate time, I'm able to visit Simba back in Neverland mentally or physically, and it's all thanks to the Space Stone. I'm officially dead, Silver...My body and Simba's body is completely destroyed, so we can't even be brought back to the living world...", with a heavy sigh.
Emma blinked, "Spirits and their bodies can be brought back?", and Mufasa nodded, "When all the Stones are combined with the Soul Stone which is to go to one of your remaining teammates. I do not know who will have the Soul Stone.".
John looked thoughtful, "So, the bodies have to be intact for the spirits to reclaim them in case of that.", and Mufasa nodded, "But it comes with a sacrifice, but I do not know what that sacrifice is supposed to be. Only the Stones knows, and they will tell you once all the Stones are together, whenever that is.".
"Want my opinion? Another life. Trade one for another, that's probably how those things work.", Emma sighed as she knew this was how this sort of magic more than likely worked. "Perhaps, but as I said, I don't know as of this moment.", Mufasa said.
John shrugged lightly, "You and the others can find out in time, Emma. For now, I think this is plenty to remember...I'm getting hungry after all that shifting, and I swear I can smell soup cooking outside from way up high here!".
Emma giggled, "That's only your sense of smell. I believe it happens with shapeshifters including, of course, dragon shapeshifters as well. And yeah, it smells delicious.".
Mufasa smiled, "Alright, then. I shall take my leave then. When you have need of me, you will hear my voice just like earlier this morning.", and John smiled, "Thank you, Mufasa, for everything...".
The general only nodded with a chuckle, and became dust once again, resuming his place as a dragon tattoo, and Emma squeezed John's hand, "Come on, love, let's have some dinner with our friends.".
"I'm starving.", John smirked as the two of them headed back to rejoin the others for their late dinner. They were going to need to be at their full strength if they were going to take on Tremaine's power head on.
The next two days/nights were spent in riding, having breaks for meals, training, and most of all, Silver's practice with the sunlight shadows. Emma, with portals, had practiced for those two weeks back in Castle Malaga when John was recovering, and is essentially an expert now, but for John, having only practiced for two days with the sunlight shadows, is somewhere between beginner and novice.
Still, it was more than enough to be a certain unpleasant surprise for Tremaine when they would finally arrive at her castle, and sure enough, the place looked absolutely intimidating from beyond the hill they were at. It sat perfectly atop a ridge meaning it was a defender's paradise and an attacker's nightmare. Not to mention, it looked to be quite a few layers of walled defensives on the way to the citadel itself.
"Reminds me a lot of Monte Cassino.", Logan sighed as they stopped for a few to observe the imposing structure.
"More like a squishing of the entire Italian campaign into one area... plus the obvious dark land that looks like everything that lives here is almost dead already.", Jason added.
Eilonwy replied, "Don't forget the shield. Even from this far, I can feel it.", and Jasmine nodded, "Me too. It feels like a prison cage three times stronger than anything, and the curses in the shield, truly dark.".
Eilonwy winced, "I knew what my king father has taught me, but he must be horrified of the magnitude of the curses here...Some of them are unfamiliar to me, but the others; there's one curse that boils the blood of intruders, one curse that gives any intruder illusion nightmares, and another that makes deadly spikes, killing intruders on the spot.".
"And on top of that, there's the normal sort of defenses.", Pippa sighed. "Trebuchets, archery posts, fortified earthworks; it's both a traditional fortress as well as a magical one.".
"Meaning either way... a difficult fight.", Haku said. "And a nearly impossible one if any army tries to attack.", Adam feared as they kept looking. "Any sign of her armies, by the way?".
John used his cyborg eye, using dragon sight to boost it, having discovered the surprising advantage yesterday when he was using hide and seek as part of training to increase his situation awareness, and he focused on the citadel that has the alert bell, on the reflection of the bell.
He nodded, "No wonder why it's called Stronghold Cadiz. The courtyard is huge enough to hold three armies at once...At least 900 people alone, and that's not counting the guards yet. Okay, I can see the gates and the gate is double secured, huge doors and the metal gate, guarded by six people.".
"Only six?", Zuri asked. "I would've thought at least a whole company's worth of guards would be on those gates. I would've placed at least 50 or 100 to defend that section alone.".
"Might be light on the guards since she's planning on deploying her forces soon.", Jasmine theorized. "The stronghold being stripped bare of its forces to boost her army's numbers.".
"Meaning they'll be on the move soon.", Emma sighed. "So, anyone have some more ideas? It might be easier to attack if she leaves behind only a skeletal force to man the defenses... the only problem is that army will be on the move and attack somewhere. We might end up losing a kingdom that we only just liberated if that happens.".
Jim frowned lightly, "See anything else, Uncle Silver?", and John looked again, "Well, there's some trees in the courtyard, along with some stables and a blacksmith shop.".
Zuri hummed softly, "Since your portals rely on magic, Tremaine could sense them easily enough, but sunlight shadows, if we use the shadows of the trees, we can place the flammable alcohol barrels, and boom, take out some of the armies!".
Jim blinked softly, "There's shadows in the stables too. If I make a ruckus with the horses, some of the armies would be distracted in trying to control the frantic horses.".
"If they're even bright enough to at least check. For all we know, they may be single minded and just move upon her word. Might be the case.", Jason said. "Easier to control a mindless horde than actual thinking forces. Your typical 'throwing hordes and waves at the enemy until overwhelmed', damned the casualties.".
"That's actually the case with quite a few armies. Certainly, was with the ones that took my home.", Jasmine sighed.
Logan squeezed her shoulder softly, "Jafar's dead, Jazz, along with his golem army, remember?", and Jasmine touched his hand with a bitter smile, "Yeah, I know, but it still hurts.", with Rajah nuzzling her hip with a sad moaning purr.
Emma sighed, "Looks like we should put this to a vote. Who thinks we should do it now?". Everyone was quiet for a few moments. All were probably weighing the pros and cons about holding their attack.
"Well, if we knew what the supply schedule was that Tremaine had for Garn, I would argue we follow that to give us a better chance of her dropping the protections. Showing up now, especially if we're way ahead of any schedule might make things more difficult.", Logan said.
"Maybe it's better to observe the army for another night... see if they are indeed more of a hive minded army. Killing Tremaine means severing that connection and then not worrying too much about where they go. That's just my suggestion.", Zuri pointed out.
Emma hummed lightly, "The supply run happens every month...Lord Mortimer said the last time was three weeks ago, but from what you said earlier, the armies would have been going within the next two days if the guards are bare...We have planned to conjure up a golem of Garn. On our orders, he would only tell the guards about us being dead and that the rumors about us being dragons were lies since Tremaine ordered him and his buddies to spy and kill us, that would make Tremaine to be off her guard.".
"But that would mean letting the army go.", John bit his lip. "It's tricky, we can go now if we want, Garn coming early to report our group's death; might be met with skepticism, but I'm sure Tremaine would at least like to talk with him about it in person... which would be too late, we're already in.".
"Your choice, Emma.", Jim said. "I think we've all given our ideas of what we should do.". Emma glanced at the castle, the entire stronghold, and looked back at the team, "Lord Mortimer and the town's counting on us. We have gone too far to stop, and if we kill Tremaine, Andalasia will be finally clean of evil and dark magic.".
Grins and smiles adorned the team, and Emma nodded, "John and Jason, conjure up copies of the barrels for the cart while put the real barrels through the shadows of the trees, with conjured silent bomb timers. Jasmine, you hide in the cart of the barrels while Logan's using the reins, with the second cart of fool's gold jewelry by Haku driving it, with Adam as a side-passenger with Zuri hiding in there, and the golem of Garn, with Jason driving the cart of food in front, and I, and Pippa will be hiding in there. John then will use the shadows of the stables for Jim, Eilonwy, and Rajah to make the distractions with the horses.".
"Going in with the army still there. Bold, but that might be the last thing she'll expect.", Jason smirked as everyone quickly begun to carry out their orders. If they were going to win the day, everything would need to go exactly as planned. If not... they might be returning to the town with fewer people than they left it.
And so, soon, the supply cart train was seen from the watchtowers, and word got spread, with some barrack squires heading into the castle itself to tell Tremaine of the news.
"So far so good, it seems.", John whispered as he stayed close with Emma as much of the group hid amongst the wagons, once they were through the shield, they would begin to spread out.
"If they don't buy this, we'll have to get away in a hurry for sure.", she said as he held her hand tight. "It'll work, I'm sure of it. She'll probably think we're still taking our time and might have another few weeks to prepare. I hope to see the look on her face when it happens right front of her.", John grinned.
Emma grinned softly, "Luckily, we have the signal for Jason to tell us when we're in.", whispering quietly.
John nodded, relieved that the carts have a secret hatch hideout, and opens under the carts. True, it was tight between him and Emma, but luckily, there is tiny holes in the hatch on every side to breathe air so they couldn't suffocate.
After a few more minutes of moving, the convoy came to a complete stop before the sounds of footsteps came close. Are they inspecting the carts? Emma wondered; if they did, there was a good chance they would find their illicit cargo and the whole plan would go up in smoke before it could even really begin.
"I'm telling you; she'll want to hear what I have to say!" Garn's voice could be heard shouting, coming from the front as the golem was doing its job. All it had to do was just make sure to get in and have the magical field lowered long enough for everyone to get in.
John looked at Emma with a gesture of his head toward the front, and Emma shook her head, gesturing with her hands to wait for the signal. A moment later, the convoy was moving again, and the sound of the doors closing after the last cart was heard, and then Jason thumped his fist three times to say that all the carts are all in.
Emma grinned at John and gave a signal with her fist back to do the bomb barrels, and under a split second, the explosions at several trees occurred at the same time as the sound of the stables breaking out with the frantic horses, no longer in their sections, with the stables becoming on fire, with the distinguishable sound of a tiger roaring as it chased the horses, killing soldiers left and right.
"Now?", John grinned, and Emma nodded, "Now.", and instantly, both of them shifted into dragons, destroying the cart immediately, giving out rumbling roars to give the signal to the others to emerge out and fight. Luckily, Jason was off already, killing off more soldiers with his weapons, partially conjured or made by Haku.
"What in the-", Tremaine was quietly meditating in her room when the commotion began. Once the blasts started off, she quickly ran to the balcony where she could overlook pretty much all of the fortress and was finding many fires and explosions coming from within the citadel itself. She was in complete shock. Nothing could've got through her shield; certainly not an attacking army and said army couldn't have made it this far into the fortress's defenses without a fight already. Several of the outer walls were all fine as if nothing was out of the ordinary, but the citadel had all hell breaking loose.
Pippa and Logan heard the roars and shifted as well to join into the fighting while the normal ones of the team took up weapons with a few hitching free rides on a few horses to give them the advantage. Jim is using archery while Eilonwy went to search for the source of the shield, figuring that with the shield down, Tremaine's power would be decreased, and realized that the shield is made with ward stones. Even if one is cracked or broken, the shield would get weaker. That's what she did back at Castle Malaga and Auglire Castle with the smaller shields and all.
The fighting was brutal. The good news for the Talons was at least the army was fairly spread out amongst the fortress; the typical attack points such as the gates were purposely shown to be weak as to lull in attackers while many more were hiding amongst the walls and courtyards to quickly respond to any breaches or attacks on the outer walls. However, because the Talons avoided so much of those defenses; the armies were almost completely trapped on the wrong sides of walls: especially if the citadel gate could be reached and locked, preventing any reinforcements from joining the fighting and tipping the odds back into the Talons favor.
With Logan being the smallest yet fastest dragon of all, he took upon a high position, firing at enemy soldiers while Pippa guarded the gates, firing and clawing at any enemy soldier away, and Emma and Silver themselves used their paws to squish and their tails to hit the enemy soldiers hard into the walls/ground.
And amazingly, under 15 minutes, 2/3 of all the armies are dead, vanquished into dust, with the rest greatly injured. Apparently, most of the armies were golems while the rest are real.
Tremaine was furious and glanced at Lucifer, her cat, with a wicked glare, "It's time, dear Lucifer.", and Lucifer purred deviously, and Tremaine fired up her green magic, "Give them hell for me.", flying at Lucifer, and under a split second, Lucifer appeared in the courtyard, but not the same for he's now a huge monster as big as Emma and Silver.
He barely resembles his old self, with bat-like green wings, venom dripping from his fangs, and his eyes toxic red. (Imagine Rothbart's Great Animal appearance from the Swan Princess, but similar to him.)
What an ugly cat that is, John thought to himself as he looked over to Emma to see she had the same idea in mind; engage the mutated cat; the others could handle themselves but if this thing was allowed to roam through the fighting, there would be serious trouble. Both of them moved fast across the courtyard and try to keep Lucifer distracted while the others kept on fighting.
Lucifer growled at them, judging Emma and Silver's dragon forms as they stood before him, and leaped towards them as Emma dodged, planning to attack from the side while John uses his fire to blast at Lucifer, deterring his flashing venom fangs with John's cyborg parts, knowing that venom won't touch metal, but yet will touch skin and scales.