The Shadows of the Moon

“Good morning Tara. How's your head?” She shook her head slightly, wincing at the echoing sound of her hair scratching across a pillow.

“Gah...What happened Fi?” She tried to sit up, but felt the metallic hand of her largest friend pressing her down.

Fiona shrugged, her long pink hair rippling down her back, “I don't remember. Riley said you got knocked out, and I must've seen red. I blew it, Tara, I'm sorry.

“Anna, what happened?”

“She blew it up. Every drone in the building went up. The building came down. And y'all know how fragile Fiona is. The dump musta roasted something. Charity didn't see anything wrong with her brain when she took ah peek earlier,” The thick drawl echoed out of the troll's mouth, reverberating around the room. Tara nodded, wincing again. The ground had not been nice to her skull apparently.

“Did we get him? Armor?”

“Yuppers,” the squeaky voice of their other heavily augmented friend came out of nowhere, “Charity's got 'im trussed to a chair. You feeling well enough to go see what your BBBFF has been hiding in that brain of his?”

She struggled to sit up, even with Anna's help, but managed to get to her feet and sort-of stagger to the door, “He can't see that he got me. Let him think I've got some skull augments. He'll love that, the idea that his own sister would willingly cripple her power to add an internal shell,” she laughed a little, wincing once more, before focusing her power through the headache, “Spikey, come.” The drake unfurled itself from a skillfully applied ink pattern on her back, stepping down out of her coat and calmly picking her up on his back.

The drake gained color as he carried her down the hall, and into what her dorm-mates called 'The Dungeon'. It was actually Charity's bedroom, decked out with one bed in the corner, for actually sleeping, and all the various accessories she kept around for when she wanted to 'Play' with the boys in the other dorms. Charity was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning slightly forward to accent her chest, her hair draping over just enough to conceal the fact that she was not wearing anything above the waist.

Armor himself was strapped into some sort of chair that looked incredibly uncomfortable, but Tara knew from experience that it was actually really relaxing. Just enough to get the person seated in it to let down their guard. And based on the drool running down her brother's bare chest, he had really let himself go. She stepped carefully onto the floor, navigating around a small pile of accessories before stopping to look. His pale white chest was laced with tiny red lines, Charity's signature, the boys in the dorm called it. “Aaron, wake up,” she prodded him with her boot, then kicked him in the shin, jolting him awake faster than any bugler.

“What the FUCK! Tara! Get me out of here. Your friends are crazy. Do you KNOW what that bitch has been doing to me all night?”

Tara just smiled. She knew exactly what Charity had done, and she knew he would want to keep his secrets that she needed, “Yeah,” she smirked, “Lady Rarity just loooves to play.” A quick glance at her friend, and she continued, “Did she use the whip yet? I always loved that part.”

His face began to contort, either trying to resist the urge to talk, or to erase the mere thought of his sister doing anything like that. “Oh, don't be such a prude, Aaron. I walked in on you and Cadenza more than once. While she was supposed to be watching me, you know,” she moved around behind him, fingertips sliding along the lines on his back. Scars, claw marks. She had the same ones on her back. Delicately applied runes, the mark of a summoner. Her fingers slid up his neck and gently curled around, dancing across Charity's marks, eyes gleaming with every flinch he made. Her lips brushed his ear, breath blowing his loose blue hair away, “You can make it all stop, you know. Just tell me where your boss is hiding Discord. We'll let you go.”

Charity stood and walked over to them, hair sliding out of the way, revealing her chest, pale white with the exception of a heart-shaped pink scar she had carved into her own skin. In either hand, she held a tool. On the right, a wooden paddle, on the left, a carpentry hammer, on her face, a horrifying Cheshire grin. She knew how to take full advantage of the nano-fiber augments laced into her skin. She could even make her scars fade away completely if she wanted to. Tara's tongue flicked out, licking the edge of his ear, “Alright brother, here's how this particular game works. I ask you a question, you answer it. If the answer is satisfactory, you get a bruise. If the answer is unsatisfactory, you get a break.”

He swallowed, “What's the incentive then?” Charity smiled, then the hammer fell on his hand, crushing the bone at the tip of his pinkie.

“I don't break all two hundred and seven bones in your body. One by one.” Her tongue slid out and made a path across her face, the tip adjusting her false eyelashes before dipping back down, revealing a pair of blood-red streaks along the middle, “And if I do break everything, I assure you, that will not be the end of the pain.” Only partially true. The elven maiden was not entirely heartless, she only acted it, “Now, what will end your pain is your safe word. You know what that is, don't you?”

Tara's tongue flicked at his ear again, “It's the location of Discord. That's all. One little location, and you get to walk away.” She stepped back and allowed Charity to come forward and place the tip of the hammer on the second joint of his pinkie. She pressed down lightly as Tara asked, “Where is Discord?”