North Star Port was a little crowded today, but Obi-Wan managed to book himself and the horses a spot on the next flight to Temple Range. But, the flight would not be going on for a couple of hours. And, the horses were getting hungry. So, Obi-Wan had them wait in the animal waiting area while he went to get them some chow.
"Look, Lamenta! Toys!" Gabby excaimed, jumping on a big bouncy ball.
Lamenta started to play with some of the pony toys too. Their fathers chuckled as they saw them playing, and then they spotted a pull rope.
"Bet I can beat you at tug of war!" Anakin declared, grabbing one end of the rope.
Carmine grabbed the other end, and he and his twin started tugging at it in a game of Tug of War.
Kara chuckled at the sight of her brothers playing like children. Her nieces seemed pretty content as they were playing too. She only hoped they would make it back to the palace in time to save Padme and Caroline.
Meanwhile, back at the palace, Silvaria and Palpatine just arrived back after sending out the bounty hunters to hunt down their victims.
"Those are the finest bounty hunters in the entire kingdom." Palpatine said. "They will find the horses."
"They'd better. If they fail, then we'll just have to terminate them ourselves." Silvaria said.
Echo, one of Jango's sons, gasped when he overheard this. After he and Crosshair confirmed with Hunter that Padme and Caroline were safe, he went back to the palace to keep tabs on the wannabe killers.
Quickly, he contacted the others on his tablet and let them know that Palpatine and Silvaria hired bounty hunters to hunt down the equines.
"Then we'll have to find them first," said Tech. "I've checked some of the security footage and I believe I may have a clue as to where the royal family may be."
"Can you tell us where?" Padme said.
"Affirmative. Based on what I've found, it appears the crate was accidentally commandeered by a village leader named Obi-Wan Kenobi. He lives with his family in a house on Stewjon Hill in Saleucami. If he's discovered them, he may be bringing them back to the palace as we speak. And if my research is correct, he would most likely bring them to the North Star Port to get them here."
"Then we best split up." Hunter said. "Omega and I will go with Princess Caroline to the village, Boba, Ahsoka, Crosshair, you and Princess Padme begin heading to North Star Port to search for the royal family."
"Can't we just arrest them already?" Boba said. "We all know they wanted to murder the royal family."
"It's not that simple, Boba." Echo said. "If they know we know, they'll alert the bounty hunters, and then we're all dead."
"In that case," said Ahsoka. "What can you tell us about these bounty hunters they've hired?"
Currenly, Echo only knew that they were the finest bounty hunters in the kingdom. So, Tech decided to look into the database of bounty hunters and the most dangerous criminals in the kingdom. And he found the names of all four bounty hunters.
IG-88, Cad Bane, Aurra Sing, and Asaaj Ventress.
"Ventress!" Ahsoka growled.
Ventress was formerly a great fighter among the villages, until the day she was taken under the wing of the Sith, and became a dangerous cold-blooded killer. But she wasn't the only one who had a personal connection to this group.
Boba and his siblings knew about Aurra Sing being a former ally of their parents' until they got pregnant and turned a new leaf to raise their family in a more peaceful life. And let's just say that Aurra did not take kindly to her allies going "goody-goody" as she called it.
"Aurra Sing is no joke," said Boba. "If she finds out we're after them too, we're all dead for sure."
"Then we'll have to be extra cautious during our search," said Padme.
Padme and Caroline each donned a hooded cloak to hide their identities, and the groups split up to go and search for the royal family.
But they didn't know that the bounty hunters were already getting ready to close in on their prey.
Back at the North Star Port...
Obi-Wan brought the royal family some apples and carrots to eat while they waited for their flight to call for them.
"Eat up, little ones." Obi-Wan said, petting Lamenta and Gabby's heads as they munched their snacks. "You'll need your energy."
As the royal horses ate their snacks, the grownups could hear murmurs from the people walking by. And a lot of them were about the travesty that happened in the palace.
"I can't imagine what the twins' wives must be feeling." One man said.
"And poor Gabriella and Lamenta," said the man's wife in tears. "They were so young. The poor dears."
But mourning wasn't the worst thing the royal family was hearing among the rumors.
Word on the street was that the taxes were going to be raised, and the plans the royal family had to build a school and a park in their parents' honor... those were to be changed to build new factories. And to make things worse, to build those factories, they were also going to destroy several villages, forcing many people out of their homes, and Palpatine and Silvaria weren't even planning on building them new places to live.
"The so-called new queen Silvaria," said one girl. "Told my uncle, and I quote, 'Your housing situation is of no concern to me.' It's ridiculous!"
The royal family was shocked to hear all of these horrible things that were occurring during the short time that they had been presumed dead.
Kara started to think a lot about about what her parents might say if they knew where their kingdom was at now. They'd been tricked into drinking a potion that turned them into horses by their former advisors, and now they were taking over the royals' power and abusing it.
"I knew something was off about that man from the start," said Kara. "Why did I not convince Father to get rid of him sooner?"
"You saw better than I did, though." Anakin said. "Three days ago, I used to think he would be a good mentor."
"I think what Anakin means is you shouldn't beat yourself up about this." Carmine said. "Once we're home, all will be fine again."
"But what will the people say when they learn we were tricked? I'm the queen. I should have been able to avoid being poisoned, and more importantly been able to protect my family."
Ever since her parents' deaths, Kara had placed this insane amount of pressure on herself to be the perfect queen, the perfect sister, and the perfect mother. Neither she nor her brothers had their mothers anymore, and now their father was gone too. They were all so young when their parents passed.
Kara was only a teen, barely a full grown adult, whereas the twins were still tweens at the time, and Kara was the first on the scene when the news was broken to them. She remembered holding them closely in her arms as they cried on her shoulders, not letting go even when they went to bed that night, not that any of them got much sleep then. And being the loving big sister she was, Kara took it upon herself to be the mother her brothers needed, which meant she had to grow up a little faster than she should have. Sure, they had the adults in the castle staff, but Kara had vowed at her parents' funeral to continue on every responsibility they'd left behind and continue their legacy of caring for the kingdom as a family, starting with their own family.
You can probably imagine it was stressful for Kara. Being only sixteen, having to drop out of school and finish her studies via palace schooling so she could take over ruling duties such as looking over, signing, and stamping important documents, prioritizing projects to place taxes, scheduling and attending peace conferences with leaders from the villages and neighboring kingdoms, all while taking care of the twins. Making sure their grades were good, that they got through school fairly, helping them face teenage dramas of their own, and when they eventually found girlfriends and decided to get married. Even after the twins were all grown up and had children of their own, Kara still felt responsible for them and the little ones.
Kara dreaded losing anymore of her family, and when she realized that there was a large number of orphans in the kingdom, especially after a deadly disease broke out a few years back, and due to safety issues that were overlooked carelessly at various work facilities. That was the whole reason Kara prioritized building charitable facilities for needy children above all else when it came to putting tax money and traded goods to good use.
Whether it was building greenhouses for hospitals and schools to serve healthier food and concoct natural remedies, building and funding new schools for underprivileged and/or special needs students, or putting together a special matchmaking system to help set orphaned children up with just the right loving families to give the children loving homes and people who could not have babies of their own got the children they always wanted, Kara made it her ultimate goal to make sure no child was left abandoned, uneducated, or parent-less. Kara and her brothers were old enough to understand the concept of death and losing a loved one, but there were many children who lost their families when they were too young to understand, some too young to even remember their parents.
Somewhere near the North Star Port, Bane peeked through his binoculars and looked around to see a lot of horses all around. Horses pulling carts, horses giving people rides, even wild horses running in the fields farther away. None of them matched the picture the Palpatine couple gave him... until he looked at the North Star port.
"There you are." Bane said. "Fifty thousand credits for me today."
But he didn't know that another bounty hunter was on the same target.
"You're mine now, you furry carnival rides." Aurra sneered.
Flight A1 to Temple Range boarding now. All passengers please report to Gate 13.
"Sounds like it's time to get going," said Anakin.
Obi-Wan came to the pen and counted all the horses to make sure none were missing, and got them to come with him to the boarding dock. The little ones went in front; since they were smaller, they got to board first. But, just as Obi-Wan and the horses got in line to board the shuttle, a shot was fired, and everyone panicked immediately. Then another shot fired, this time much closer to the fillies.
Anakin and Carmine immediately got their daughters underneath them, and Obi-Wan and Peppermint got their magic or lightsaber for defense.
"All of you, get on the ship now." Obi-Wan said, beginning to deflect more shots.
But with all the people panicking and running, it was difficult for the horses to get anywhere, and if they tried flying, they'd become even bigger targets for whoever was trying to shoot them.
The shots kept coming, each one getting closer to hitting at least one of the horses. And as a result of these shots firing, flights had to take off quicker to get as many people as they could to safety. But in all the commotion, the royal family ended up boarding different ships that all went to different places!
The bounty hunters tried to get to the horses, but Obi-Wan fought Bane as he started to catch up to Anakin, and Padme and her group arrived just in time for Ahsoka to fend off Aurra Sing with help from Crosshair shooting the bounty hunters with stun darts while Boba and Padme rushed through the crowd to find the horses, and as luck would have it, both of them happened to see at least one of the different ships.
Crosshair and Ahsoka managed to get cuffs onto the bounty hunters and covertly called the authorities to arrest them.
Obi-Wan and Peppermint were both very shaken up by the time the bounty hunters were taken care of, but otherwise unharmed.
"Are you okay, Mr. Kenobi?" Ahsoka asked.
"I'm fine, thank you." Obi-Wan said. "But now all the horses are gone."
"You mean the royal family is gone?"
"How did you-?"
"My little twin siblings learned about the plot from the start." Crosshair explained.
Just then, Boba and Padme arrived.
"You knew about the royal family all this time?" said Peppermint.
"Yes." Boba said shamefully.
The youngest boy explained to Obi-Wan and his horse that he and Omega had overheard Palpatine and Silvaria's plan to poison the royal family, and they realized they had to do something to save them. They knew if they went to the guards or told the royal family, it would likely alert the villains and they might try a worse method of killing them. So, they did the only other thing they could think of: turn the poison into something else.
"So, we tried to turn it into a potion that would give them the strength and speed of horses... but I kinda put too much horseradish into it, and that turned them into actual horses."
"Tech and his parents are working on an antidote now," said Padme. "But we have to get them back to the palace, and that won't be easy with bounty hunters after them."
"We already know that they hired four bounty hunters, and we captured two of them already." Ahsoka said. "But we didn't see where the horses went."
"Well, on that note, me and Princess Padme saw which way they went, and we got good news and bad news." Boba said.
"The bad news is all the horses got onto different shuttles, all going to different places," said Padme. "but the good news is we got a good look at the ships and the security footage too, and we managed to find out where all those shuttles were scheduled to go."
"If we hurry, we may be able to catch them and get them back to the palace." Obi-Wan said. "Where were all those shuttles set to go?"
Elsewhere, on a shuttle...
Carmine held onto Gabby in his mouth to make sure he didn't lose her since she was so small. They had no idea where they were going, and they were scared.
"Uncle Carmine? I'm scared." Gabby whimpered.
"Don't worry, Gabby. It's gonna be okay." Carmine said. "We'll get home soon. We just need to wait until we land... wherever we're going."
Carmine tapped another passenger's shoulder and asked them if they could tell him where the shuttle went.
"It goes to Shili," said the passenger.
"In that case, I think we know someone who can help us." Carmine said.
On another shuttle...
"Excuse me," said Anakin, carefully moving across the shuttle to ask the pilot a question. "Pardon me."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Lamenta said.
"Well, the sooner we figure out what direction we're going, the better our chances of getting home without getting lost again and finding the others."
Anakin soon got to the pilot's quarters.
"Excuse me, Miss Pilot?" said Anakin. "I was wondering if you could tell me where this shuttle is scheduled to land?"
"You didn't look at where you were going before getting a ticket?"
"No, we got on the wrong shuttle in that panic at the port."
"Well, if you must know, we are headed to Stewjon. So, hopefully you are not too far from where you might have been trying to go."
"Actually... I think we know exactly how to get where we were headed."
And one more...
Kara, unfortunately, got the roughest ride. A big storm was hitting the shuttle's path, and causing major turbulence and causing everything on it to move all around. Luckily, this shuttle was just a cargo ship with a droid pilot, but it was dangerous for Kara nonetheless.
The ship shook around so much as the thunder and lightning hit, and a large crate hit an emergency drop lever and opened the ship!
"Oh no!" Kara found herself slipping on the floor until she fell right off the ship.
Kara quickly found herself falling down, down, down to the ground from who knows how high! But luckily, she was able to spread out her wings and soar before she hit the ground. But, that didn't stop her from crashing into the muddy, grassy grounds of some place deep within the woods.
Rain was falling hard and drenching poor Kara. She looked all around; no sign of civilization, a path, or even a living being in sight.
And here we are, right where we started. The beautiful pegasus lost in the woods, all alone. No idea where her family is, where she is, or how she'll ever get home or back to her family.
"Will you give it a rest already?" said Kara to the narration. "They know the story."
Kara just started sobbing. At that moment, it didn't matter to her whether she got back to the palace if she didn't have her family with her.
"I'm sorry Mom and Dad. I'm so sorry!" Kara sobbed. "I should've been able to protect my brothers and now they and the kids are even more lost than before!"
The poor queen turned pegasus lay down with her face hidden in her forelegs and she cried as the rain continued to fall on her.