They are almost ready to go within an hour: decked out in armor and weapons, on Nachos and two fine warnicorns which Star summoned. The ransom sum is packed in a locked coffer on a cart drawn by one of the warnicorns.
It is of course impossible to cut a portal directly into the encampment at the coordinates which Toffee has specified. Tramorfidia is a province of the underworld, and Queen Esmée controls the largest supply of the eponymous portal-blocking crystals in the known multiverse. Hence the horses.
"Is everybody ready?" Jackie asks.
"Wait!" somebody yells.
They all stop and look towards the approaching figure: short, squat, cyclopian. It's Gemini. "Princess Marco, Princess Star! Please, allow me to come along!"
Star looks at Marco. "I vote no," she says.
Marco looks back at Gemini. "I don't know; he does love Heinous. It would be kind of cruel not to."
Star groans and turns in the saddle of her warnicorn. She's riding in front of course; with the treasure. Marco and Jackie are sharing Nachos, and Tammy and Janna have the other warnicorn. "All right, you can sit on the cart," she says. "But if I hear one peep from you, you're walking back."
"Yes, your highness," Gemini says, and despite his short legs, he manges to get up on the rather high cart with ease.
Jackie draws her blades and in a swift motion cuts a very large opening. Then she mounts Nachos behind Marco, and they all spur their respective steeds into motion.
The scenery is lovely: lush grasslands and woods, picturesque cliffs and pure rivers. It's almost eight hundred miles in a beeline from Mewni.
"It's beautiful here," Janna remarks. "Kind of ironic that our enemies are making camp here."
"We should get moving," Star says, and spurs her mount. They begin the hour long trip, and spend most of it in tense silence, vigilant of ambush despite Toffee's supposed promise.
Janna takes to the air and keeps lookout in all directions while Jackie sits backwards on Nachos to watch their rear.
They pass over natural rock bridges over torrential rivers, and steep cliffs down to still lakes. Finally, the camp comes into view.
"If we get killed because of that old hag, I'll haunt her for the rest of eternity," Star grumbles.
It's a war camp, decked out in the banner colors of the Lucitor house. Jackie takes out a pair of binoculars to get a closer look.
"There's probably around 200 soldiers down there; all fiends. They have a big Tramorf crystal somewhere down there. I think they have spotted us but they aren't going to battle stations."
They take that as a good sign, and head towards the camp. A pair of scouts are dispatched on dirt-bike motor cycles, and approach with a roar of engines.
"Halt!" the two big Belialites call out when they reach earshot, and Star reins in her steed. Janna touches down next to her.
"I am Princess Star Butterfly, I have come to pay the ransom for my first cousin once removed; Heinous," Star calls out.
"You are expected," one of the scouts call back. "Please proceed to the camp; we will escort you."
They are escorted right up to the central plaza of the camp. It doesn't help on the tension that they are five kids and one... whatever Gemini is --- against two hundred strong fiends.
"Ah; Star! So good you could come!"
Toffee emerges from the largest tent.
"And Tom Lucitor! I'm sorry to say that your mother couldn't make it. She's busy queening, you know how it is."
"He's a bit jovial, don't you think?" Janna stage whispers to the others.
Toffee claps his hands. "I see you've brought one of Heinous' companions --- that's very thoughtful of you. Yes, I see you there, Tom; you thought I was going to say you had violated our deal; don't worry. I'm not a monster."
He stops and chuckles. "Well, I guess technically I am." He looks around at his captive audience.
Neither Star, Marco, Janna, Jackie or Tammy finds much levity in it.
"All right. You want to be out of here. I get it." He gestures, and two of the fiends emerge from a nearby tent with Heinous. She's unbound --- after all she is but one middle-aged lady; what can she do against the statuesque Belialite soldiers --- and she's cradling the severed arm of the assassin Rasticore in her arms.
"Ah," she says and sneers. "I should have know it would involve Princess Marco somehow."
"Heinous!" Gemini says and hops down from the cart. He runs up to her. "Oh, goodness, I am so glad to see you are unscathed!"
"I am. And the sooner I am out of here, the better," she replies.
Toffee looks back at Star. "So; payment?"
Star jabs a thumb at the coin coffer on the cart, and Toffee gestures for another two soldiers to take it. A third, fiend with lithe build and entirely black skin checks the contents at a single glance, and nods to Toffee.
"All seems to be in order," Toffee says. "Heinous, you are free to go with the Princess."
With no small amount of disdain, she takes a seat on the cart, and Gemini beside her.
"Safe travels," Toffee says. "Bring my regards to your mother."
Much of the tension evaporates when the camp is out of sight --- although everyone is still wary of any sort of trap.
"You didn't tell me you're my mother's cousin," Star says.
"I don't like to think of myself as part of your insane family," Heinous bites back.
Star keeps her eyes focused on her warnicorn's ears.
"And," Heinous continues. "Princess Marco, you're the reason I got kidnapped in the first place! I hope you're ashamed of yourself."
Marco rolls her eyes.
"Ugh, why couldn't you have brought some pillows for this cart--- it's too hard on my old hip bones---"
"Oh would you shut up!" Janna yells from up above. "Or I swear I'll gag and hogtie you!"
Heinous huffs and glances at Marco.
"She'll do it, you know," Marco says.
It's at the halfway point that things go sideways.
"I'm sorry," Gemini says. "Could we perhaps take a break? I'm sorry to be such an inconvenience, but I have a sudden need to, uh, relieve myself."
Heinous rolls her eyes.
Star reins in her warnicorn and turns in the saddle. "Be quick about it."
Gemini hops down, and trots over towards a nearby mass of bushes, while everyone else --- all ladies present --- turn to look out over the cliff with the still lake at the bottom.
Then, they hear an unusual sound: a small impact, like a body against dirt. Heinous is the first to look, and she gives a gasp and hops down from the cart as well. "Gemini!"
Janna touches down. "What happened?"
"I think Gemini fainted?" Jackie says.
"Cyclopses don't faint," Star says. "Is he sick? Hey! Heinous! Is Gemini okay?"
There's a pause. "He's--- He's not breathing!" she calls back, slightly panicked.
Jackie is the first to hop down from Nachos. She has, after all, an entirely unreasonable collection of first-aid gear in her suitcase.
Marco is a close second.
Tammy takes a look around. "Janna, I need you up top on the lookout," she says.
"Why?" Star asks.
"This smells like the other foot dropping to me," Tammy says.
Marco catches up to Jackie at a light trot. And within a few seconds they reach Gemini's supine form and Heinous kneeling over him, clutching Rasticore's arm to her chest.
Jackie kneels down and opens her suitcase, finding nitrile rubber gloves, a breathing mask, and a portable defibrillator. "Does Gemini have a heart?" she asks.
"What?" Heinous asks.
"Does he have a heart inside his chest which pumps blood?"
"Yes," Heinous replies.
Jackie rips open Gemini's jacket, revealing his purple, scarred chest and abdomen --- his abdomen in particular is bloated.
"He's usually so thin," Heinous remarks. "What has he been eating?"
Then, something moves under the skin of Gemini's bloated abdomen, and Jackie recoils.
Then, Marco senses the pulse of dark power. "Run!" Jackie's gone in a Step, as is her suitcase; she appears back on Nacho's. Heinous barely comprehends what's going on as Marco shoves her several yards aside.
Just in time for Gemini to bodily explode.
Something emerges; so big and so fast and so formless it's difficult to even keep your eyes on it. It makes a beeline for the horses and Nachos. Somewhere out of the chaos, Marco is flung like a rag-doll, bouncing once before going over the cliff.
Her severed arm lands just short of the cliff --- a bloody pulped piece of meat.