To Mend A Broken Star

The group filed back into the hall, their steps drowned out by another groan of the mountain that the guard post called home. This groan made the windows and doors shudder with its passing, and the lights flickered more and more until one of them popped and died. The sludge on the ceiling moved by itself, frost and all, to cover the light that had gone out with a fluidity that should not have been possible given the coldness of the area and the rather strange circumstances surrounding it. It almost seemed sentient, pooling into the busted wiring and pulsing like the beating of a heart.

Starbreaker shrank as the substance continued to writhe, and watched it as it came to a standstill. A horrible chill swept through her augments, ringing in her artificial ear even though she could no longer hear out of it. Her mind screamed, and instinct howled for her to get up and leave, but her body would not heed her frantic commands to move. It wasn't until Mira nudged her with a claw to the withers did she break out into a stumbling gallop, hurtling back towards the entrance as though she had caught fire. The others followed her a minute later, and heard her skidding to a halt with a shriek in moments.

When they reached her and the entrance, they found her on her haunches with a hoof pointing towards the doors, shaking mid-air. Harried gasps left her gaping mouth, and pinprick pupils were poised on what had stolen her attention. The rest of the sextet turned to the doors, and all eyes widened when they saw it suddenly barred shut with more of that sludge coating it. Oddly, this patch of sludge wasn't frosted that much if at all, and what little there was glinted strangely as Yukito came to inspect it. It formed a message in a semi-circle of steel, ringed by more of itself and dripping in rivers that made it seem as though it were written in fresh blood.

"'You cannot go back. Only forward from here,'" he said after a moment, turning to the others. His gut began churning, nagging at him to stay alert, and he twitched and twisted his ears behind his head to see if any other sounds filtered into the now-barred entrance. Once more, he could hear little else but Starbreaker's shuddering breaths. "So, what should we search for, and where?"

"Food," Mira piped up. "Preferably tinned."

Sora jerked her head a little ways behind her to indicate to Omega. "More blankets, maybe medicinal supplies. As for the where… well, hopefully they have the storage facilities marked in this place," she added. Omega jerked his head and tail up, haunches shaking a bit as though somepony were prodding at his fresh scars again.

"A toilet would be really good right now," Omega said, making Sora a little tense as he said that.

Sora shuffled her hooves and started to part from the group. "I'll… uh… find him a latrine…" she muttered, eyes shifting from door to door. She lifted a hoof to her bell and muttered something to it as she pressed, and it rang and spat out two earpieces. She lifted one and tossed it to Yukito, who caught it with his magic as she took the other, sat on her haunches, and fumbled for a moment to attach it to her left ear. As soon as it was secure, she stood up and bolted down the central door without another word.

Yukito sighed and attached his earpiece to his right ear, turning to look at Mira. "I doubt these would get much reception here. The Corps has probably disconnected us from the rest of the network by now," he grumbled. He pushed on it, and received static for a few moments. Then, distantly, he heard the sound of a door being forced open, and it fed into the earpiece, creating a grating noise that made his fur tingle in unpleasant ways.

He turned to Tsih. "You know what to look for, right?" he asked.

Tsih nodded, albeit slowly enough that Yukito thought there was little enthusiasm behind the motion. "Yeah, I know. I'd kill for something fresh, though," she said with a blaise shrug of her shoulders.

Yukito frowned, and turned back to Mira again. "Diomedis Defectus?" he guessed.

Mira nodded. "Unfortunately for you, we've got it too," he said. "Not sure if being out there made it spring up, or if we've always had it but didn't notice until shit hit the fan." He waved a claw at some point past the barred doors, indicating to outside. "But… yeah. The Clash may have made it a lot more common than anypony thought." He trotted over to the quivering Starbreaker and magically lifted her up, slinging her across his back.

"H-h-hey!" Starbreaker squawked, starting to struggle against the magical field that held her.

"Sorry, but we might need you to cook something for the 'herd,' so don't get your tail in a twist," Mira growled, turning to the leftmost doors and trotting to them rather briskly, Tsih shadowing after his steps with a quick gait belied by her small form. This left Yukito alone, and he started to trot to the central door to see if he could find Sora.

Despite the suspicion he held about the communications' link between the earpieces, though, he found himself jumping at the very garbled sound of Sora's voice feeding into the earpiece as he stepped into the frame. "Yu—found a—Omeg—sing the la—" was all that could be heard amidst the buzzing of the static.

He held a hoof to the earpiece, hoping the connection could stabilize. "Is it usable?" he asked.

"Ye—" was all that came out. "I'll—ou at the—"

Yukito sighed. "Alright," he said into the earpiece, before turning tail and trotting back to the blocked doors. He waited for minutes on end, and did not budge until he heard the sound of hoofsteps echoing into the room, faint at first but steadily growing louder and louder until they'd stopped. He turned around and found himself face to face with Sora, who had Omega on her back looking rather relieved.

Sora glanced around, noticing the lack of the rest of the 'herd.' "Where'd everypony else go?" she asked as soon as she made eye contact with Yukito again.

Yukito lifted a hoof and gestured to the left door. Without another word between them, they turned to the door in question and started to trot in that direction, side-by-side. Static continued to feed into their ears from the earpieces, but besides that and their hoofsteps and the occasional crunching of that strange substance, it was silent. Omega turned his head every which-way as they traversed down another hall nearly identical to the first, but with already-opened double doors at its end that were caked in gunk.

Sharing a glance, the Swiftcures forged on ahead. Omega decided to pipe up, "So, uh… any ideas about what th' strange black stuff is?"

Sora shook her head as they came upon another hallway that forked up ahead. "Negative," she said.

"It might be decayed blood… though, why would decayed blood be here?" Yukito mused aloud, eyes briefly gravitating upwards to find more overhead lights with the substance generously smeared upon their frames. He looked to Sora, and paused briefly enough to gesture to the sludge. "Did you find out anything about this?"

Sora shook her head again. "It did appear in the base, though," she replied, pausing at the forking paths. She turned to the one that lay straight ahead and scrutinized it; a wall of frost barred the path from floor to ceiling, perfectly clear save the faintest reflection of the overhead lights and herself. She lifted a hoof up to gently touch its seemingly polished surface, and a chill raced up her leg on contact.

Yukito did the same, once he came within reach. A chill went up his leg too. Sora pulled her hoof back, brow furrowing slightly. "They couldn't have gone this way… that would've required Starbreaker to punch a hole through it," she muttered.

Yukito turned to scrutinize the frost, but found something laying on the other side of its spotless surface. He couldn't make it out too well, however, for the area beyond laid in nearly absolute darkness. He turned to Omega. "Should I teleport over there?"

Omega frowned at the suggestion, and would have facehooved if he had figured out how his new legs worked. So he settled on shaking his head with ears turned back. "Not a chance in th' seven hells," he said. "F'r all we know? Th' whole damn side of th' hall's an ice cube."

Yukito sighed, and lit up his horn. His light shone through the ice, but did not penetrate the inky gloom past a few rows of tile. Something writhed within the sable, and that which he had seen but could not discern slunk further out of sight seemingly of its own accord.

"Okay, anypony else got a bad feeling all of a sudden?" Omega asked, glancing between the Swiftcures. Both turned to him, Yukito dimming his horn and Sora clicking her blades together as they contemplated the question. In seconds, though, they turned pale as a horrible wave of dread seeped into their augments. They looked back to the frozen wall barring their path, yet the darkness hadn't stirred once since the horn was lit.

But instinct began to scream. Its silent wailing grew louder and louder until the pair backed away from the frost and shadows, and turned to trot through the other half of the fork. Here, the lights were on, the grunge minimal, and doors lined the right side that further expanded into a T-intersection were neat and closed. At that intersection the three halted again, largely because more frost had blocked them off to the right… and would have done so in front of them, were it not for the hole that had formed through it.

Sora turned to her husband. "Did you hear ice shattering?" she asked.

Yukito turned to inspect the edges of the hole, eyes narrowing a bit as he noted the lack of jagged edges that would have suggested brute force being used, and another lack of fresh and dripping water that would have pointed to flame melting it. The ice was neat, pristine, and the hole oddly circular instead of ovular. "I did not even hear the crackle of flame," he said after a moment. "Let's move in tandem; I don't want to find out what this frost could do."

Sora nodded, and moved at the same time as Yukito did. Both stepped through the hole, and stopped to turn upon hearing the shuddering crackling of frost forming. Their eyes widened when they saw the hole closing behind them, inching itself shut piece by piece until it formed a new, more polished surface that let their own reflections stare right back at them.

"Okay, that's freaky," Omega muttered, frowning contemplatively. "I ain't seen ice do that before."

Sora shuddered. She opened her mouth to counter Omega's statement, only to stop as another chill coursed through her blades with enough force to make them rattle against each other briefly. Yukito shuddered as well, and with another flash of his horn he made the earpieces vanish in a burst of light.

They backed away from the ice wall, and turned to what had been concealed beyond it. Sora noticed a few scratch marks going to the left side of the hall, and started to trot in that direction. Yukito followed, a bit slower so he could glance over his shoulder. He picked up his pace when he saw tendrils of frost starting to stretch along the walls, slower than he was treading, but covering everything that much more thoroughly because of its lack of speed.

It wasn't long after Yukito turned back forwards did he notice something horrific and bizarre in equal measure. A pony was ahead of them, blackened grunge around and behind him, seemingly standing upright against a wall without assistance at first before the trio came closer to inspect. Sora winced upon finding that a rifle, split into halves, had been rammed into the stallion's chest with such force as to cave in both his ribcage and dent the wall behind him.

Blood thickened to ice had trickled generously from the wounds, though oddly enough there was not even the tiniest puddle at his hind hooves despite the frozen rivulets pointing downward. Furthermore, his head hadn't been slumped down so much as wrenched at such an angle as to almost come clean off his neck; it was only thanks to the ice and grunge that it could still claim to have an attachment to the rest of the corpse.

She wasn't the least bit surprised to find Yukito at her side in a heartbeat, scrutinizing the sorry bastard critically. "What in the… what did he anger, an augmented earth pony on illegal performance boosters?" Yukito wondered aloud, his gaze seemingly fixed on the dent in the wall and the dent in the carcass.

Sora looked out of the corner of her eye, seeing the tendrils of ice gradually coming closer. "Yukito…" she said in warning.

He didn't budge, much less heard the crackling of frost or his wife's utterance. Instead, he continued to analyze the cadaver in an attempt to piece together what most likely had happened to him.

"Yukito," Sora repeated, slowly turning away from the dead stallion and to the approaching rime.

Yukito didn't even twitch an ear to signal that he heard her. He seemed so transfixed by the strange murder they had stumbled upon that he might as well have been a statue.

"Yukito," Sora said more forcefully, even lifting a hoof up to roughly smack him on the withers. That managed to get his attention, and with a jolt and a hiked tail he turned to look at her.

"What is it?" he asked. Sora mutely pointed to the growing frost and nodded in that direction. He looked at it, frowned, and sighed with a reluctant nod before they finally parted from the corpse to resume trotting through the hall. They hastened their pace though, as by the time they had started anew, the tendrils of cold were mere millimeters behind their hooves, and stranger yet more of those tendrils were becoming overcome by black sludge as they drew near.

"Uh, doc? You okay?" Omega said, ears folding back at the oddly neutral look that held on Yukito's face. They made eye contact, and Omega added, "You've… been zonin' out since we bailed."

Yukito shook his head, and turned to the hallway again. "There's… there's been an awful lot on my mind lately. I'm starting to wonder if anypony else that we find here might have wound up like that stallion…" he muttered.

Sora's stomach attempted to turn itself into a pretzel, but she reigned it back in before it could start another mutiny. Some part of her idly hoped that Mira and the others hadn't strayed too far from them. Hopefully, he had more luck in his hunt than she had with hers.

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Mira could not believe what he was presently seeing.

No amount of alcohol or drugs or insanity could have explained what he found himself watching, even if there were any of the former two items on hoof at present. There was simply not enough of any of those three items presently within this wretched, wicked world of woes and wrath to even attempt to make sense of what was presently playing out before him. No justification could have done it justice, even with the insanity excuse factoring into the bizzaro scene his eyes were glued to.

Yet no matter how much he wanted to look away, he could not muster up the strength to do so. Some part of it still failed to gain admittance into his mental processes. Even Brother remained silent, scratching his nonexistent head over this development. Befuddlement overrode almost all else, and it was by blinking that he confirmed that—yes—his eyes and divided mind were not playing phony parlour pranks upon his poor, present reality.

Starbreaker was shirking away from a hunk of blackened ice, taking two steps for every one that Tsih made her go forward with nothing more than her magic. Oddly, Tsih wore a neutral expression, though Mira could see it in her eyes—the tiniest glimmer that screamed, 'Are you fucking shitting me right now?'

Stranger still, the blackened ice moved with a fluidity that should not have been possible. It rippled and wavered, bounced and warbled, and danced back and forth as Starbreaker kept trying her best to skirt away from it. Weirdest of all, however, was the lack of noise it should have made; it was silent as the grave, despite not being as still as one. In addition to that, it lacked the capacity for reflections whatsoever; it was akin to staring into a moving abyss that couldn't decide what it wanted to do other than stare back.

"We'll go with you, okay? Just chill and the shadows won't eat you," Tsih growled, her glow brightening considerably in her effort to make Starbreaker move forward.

Alas, she was met with a shriek and further resistance; augments whirred, shifted beneath grey-teal fur, and Starbreaker pushed back with equal force. "N-no! I'm not going this way!" she protested, her eyes almost completely white save for the little circles of black that watched the shifting frost with rapt attention. "I'm not having my horn broken again!"

"Just calm down, nora!" Tsih complained, stomping a hoof as she kept trying to shove Starbreaker with little success.

Finally, Mira huffed, trotted over, and put a claw on Tsih's shoulder. When she turned to him, he shook his head. "The ice is fucking moving. So yeah, it's going to eat her. Just stop," he said bluntly.

Tsih wilted, and her glow died. "But aren't the kitchens supposed to be here somewhere?" she pouted.

Starbreaker shimmied back down the hall they were standing in, and Mira followed her with his eyes as she made it to a pair of double doors that had been frozen open. He wordlessly trotted after her, and rotated his ears slightly as he heard the clicking of tiny hooves behind him. When the three reunited at the double doors, they shared a wordless nod between them, and Starbreaker turned to the doors to take point with ears folded back.

Mira glanced back behind him as they started going down the next hallway. For a moment, the rippling black sludge did nothing else but wobble in a way he'd have thought comical if he were strung up on a drug trip. Then the mass took on another shape, spreading across the hall they had left as miniature towers with bridges erected between floor and ceiling. Gradually, those towers and bridges sprouted heads and tails and horns with faceless expressions, and even looking at it made that sharp pain in his mismatched ear start flaring up again.

If it had eyes, he'd have made contact with them. As it was, he couldn't tell whether it was staring at him or past him. A hollow chuckle, distinctly masculine, came from the entity even though its mouth and chest hadn't moved. The others heard it too, and the clicking of hooves on time increased in speed. Mira made his claws move faster, careful to keep the sharp tips up and away from the floor to minimize the noises they would have made otherwise.

Mira glanced ahead, and saw overhead lights flickering as he went beneath them. A cross-intersection stretched before them, various signs pointing in different directions having been wrenched off the walls and smeared in sludge that pulsated with the erratic frequency of a labored heart.

Starbreaker halted at the intersection, glancing left and right as she checked the halls. None of the three in front of her or at her sides were barred with that sludge. But the one ahead and the one to the right sported nonfunctional lights, so thus she trotted down the leftmost hall with as brisk a pace as she could manage with her tail between her hinds. She hustled when the lights began turning off and on intermittently, and Mira and Tsih could only shadow her steps.

Mira turned to look over his shoulder again as they filed through another door. The sludge started hauling itself up the corners of the intersection, inching ever so slowly onto the ceiling. At the same time, the sludge from the hall they had gotten away from meandered its way to the intersection, seemingly shepherded onwards by the sludge pony that had formed from it. Without moving any of its limbs or neck, instead rotating as if on a pivot, the sludge pony turned to seemingly regard him once again.

The pain in his ear came back, as strong as before. He turned away again, and grimaced as he heard the lights popping one by one. He turned to Tsih and weighed the options. "Tsih?"

She looked back at him. "Yeah?"

Mira glanced over his shoulder again. "Turn invisible… and run," he said in a tone brokering no argument. "We'll try to catch up…"

Tsih frowned, ears pinning back against her head. She sensed an unspoken 'but' in there somewhere. "What else do you want me to do?"

Mira hesitated, and slowed his steps just the slightest bit. He turned back to look at her and kept silent. "Find the Windchime. Get her to summon the carriage. Hide in it with the medic and the other weirdo, even if you hear us screaming—the fucking shadows have lead us all into a giant trap," he mouthed, resignation and dread flickering in his eyes. He lowered his head to nudge her with his snout. "Go."

Tsih nodded sourly, face crumpling as she mouthed, "And if you can't get out?"

For a moment, her silent query went without answer. Mira's scowl deepened as he replied firmly, "They almost always spare us… to make us suffer more. You remember, don't you?" When Tsih nodded, he lifted his head to glance back over his shoulder again. His horn flashed, and in a burst of light a kunai materialized at his side, its blade scratched from what must have been many battles. He charged to the sludge, and Tsih took that as her cue to press a hoof to her encased mana booster with her horn flashing.

She hesitated, looking at Starbreaker, who had started breaking out into a gallop ahead of her. She followed, her power rippling across her body to cloak her in the safety of refracted light. Tsih rounded a corner on the heels of the fleeting Herald, and didn't dare to look over her shoulder even as Mira screamed with a protest of, "We're not going to be your little toy again! We're not going down so easily!"

Tsih felt an aching pain in her heart when she heard that utterance. With its passing came so many horrid memories that she wanted to keep from bubbling to the surface of her thoughts, that tried to claw their way out into the here and now to force her panic into the open. She surged onward, running as fast as Starbreaker as they sprinted through another door.

A loud clatter and screech of steel, followed by a pained howl, filtered in through the flickering shadows behind their heels. Tsih shook her head, trying to avoid glancing over her shoulder, muzzle scrunching as she heard Mira yell, "We're! Not! Going! To be! Your one-steed entertainment parlour! Knock that shit off already!"

Another voice, hollowly baritone, made a retort that had ice crawling up Tsih's hocks and across her spine. "Noshade asked you what you wanted, whorse. Noshade wants a mouthy piece of breeder filth," the unseen owner said scathingly, with just the faintest hint of desire buried within that tone. "Besides… why have you gone gallivanting with our other favorite piece of filth?"

Other favorite? Tsih shuddered, her mind daring to ask who that could have been. She had to force her unwilling mouth shut, lest she break out of her cloak and give herself away. Seeing Starbreaker skid to a halt up ahead, she slowed herself down in a way that didn't make her hooves shriek against the floor.

A T-intersection met them, open and lit on both sides. Starbreaker was glancing between them wildly, lips pursed tightly and eyes dancing about in search of an easy exit. Tsih took a moment to glance as well, weighing her limited options. Starbreaker didn't take as much time to weigh her options; she darted to the leftmost hall, and that was that. Tsih noticed that the lights were dying behind her, and so she darted right with a glance over her shoulder only as she passed under the door frame half a minute after sprinting.

The lights on the hall she had taken didn't explode behind her. The opposite hallway had fully darkened in the time it took her to look. She heard the distant crackle of flame, and saw blues and oranges dancing further along that way, but what the light was reflecting against grew smaller and smaller with the distance.

Tsih turned ahead again, in time to spot a pair of closed double doors up ahead. With a swift, almost imperceptible flash of her horn she wrenched the doors open and sprinted through them. She halted, almost skidding before catching herself, as she found a room large enough to have been a mess hall for at least hundreds of ponies. Tables and chairs were all strewn around, some upright and others laying on their backs and sides with at least two legs stuck in the air, and so haphazardly she couldn't see a clear path to whatever might have been on the other side.

She glanced back again, as soon as the sound of a bulb exploding reached her ears. At the end of the first hall she had parted from Starbreaker, she spied the faintest shower of glittering glass descending to the floor. Forming just behind the fragments stood another sludge pony, seemingly looking right at her despite her cloak. A voice boomed from that hall, shuddering the next and the tables and chairs of the room in which she stood as it said, "You cannot hope to hide, little filly. You failed to hide before. You'll fail again."

Without moving its legs, it started heading down the hallway as though pulled onwards by some unseen force, trailing more gunk in its wake. Each light it passed under ceased functioning, cascading downwards in more showers of glittering glass that didn't phase it even slightly.

Tsih turned back ahead, paling beneath her cloak as she started to look for any chinks in the mess before her that she could crawl through. To either side, though, the tables and chairs were piled just high enough that she was fairly certain she'd kick one aside accidentally if she were to attempt scaling them. In front of her, between two tables, lay a single chair on its side, its legs positioned between the gaps, askew just enough for her to wriggle through them. She seized her chance and dove, ducking beneath the raised legs and crawling along to the other side of the gap. As she pulled her hooves under her, though, she slipped and kicked the chair behind her, causing it to rattle slightly enough to bang itself upon both tables.

She flinched when doing that caused the rest of the mess behind her to creak and tilt dangerously onto itself, coming close to crashing down but not quite. She looked around, finding a dead end on the left and a path carved through the furniture to her right. Tsih sprinted onwards to the right, shuddering as the cacophony of bulbs breaking grew louder and nearer. With it came the crackle of frost, the pitter-patter of liquid that had not been present before each amplying each other and the shower of fragmented shards that clinked and clacked against metal flooring.

She stumbled when she heard a distant mare screaming in anguish, a long and drawn-out shriek that shuddered furniture and lights alike before abruptly cutting off. The horrible sound was more than enough to drive spikes of fear into Tsih's heart, stirring up the adrenaline that took any and all possible detours to her legs. Even as she took a few attempts to right herself, she realized that cry could have very well belonged to the Herald.

And if what she was fleeing from had reduced the Star-Blasting Light, of all the ponies it could have grasped, to wailing like that, Tsih pondered with no small amount of dread… than what had they done to her to elicit such a reaction? What would they do to her if she were cornered? What would they do to the Windchime if she were caught?

Resolve burned in Tsih's cloaked eyes. The Windchime had to know just what she had set hoof into, before it was too late to act—before she could learn the hard way. Nopony, not even her, was deserving of such a fate. Yet as she considered the thought of warning her, her chest began to burn where the wires had sank into her flesh—the pain rapidly reaching levels comparable to a knife plunging into her heart. She stumbled again, rounding a bend to correct her gallop and course.

Sweet gods of old, the tables and chairs were piled even higher here, and tightly together to the point they seemed to have become walls that almost reached the ceiling. Light could not filter from the sides, casting instead long shadows that caused her cloak to ripple erratically as she passed under them. The path twisted sharply to the right, then left, meandering in a zigzag pattern that Tsih idly hoped would lead to the other side of the room.

The cacophony of breaking glass increased in frequency and volume. Now, the rattling of chairs and tables joined it, drumming against the floor almost like a frantic stampede as repeated crashes filled the room, some of them intact and some of them breaking off into smaller noises that rattled without rhyme or reason. Her pace hastened, her little hooves barely muted by the chorus of syncopated pandemonium that closed in on her heels.

Tsih resisted the urge to scream, even as the adrenaline began to blur the muted colors of the room.

The furniture-built labyrinthine confines she found herself running in continued to stretch on and on, twisting and turning at random. Soon enough, she was losing count of how many times she swerved and jerked—as well as the precious seconds ticking by, the ones that she had left to contemplate her lot in life. The room began to shake, adding another note to the terrible orchestra that started making her head hurt with its sour notes of despair and anguish.

The frequency of danger continued to taunt her even as it swelled towards its gradual, inevitable crescendo. The shadows lengthened, some of them forking off into weaker halves that overlapped as the lights continued to die behind her. Some part of her was screaming that she should not have come to this deserted guard post—that she should have left when the front gates were still open. That she had none but herself to blame for her plight.

The sprint lengthened, too, thanks to the rat's maze she was trying to navigate as swiftly as possible. She could have self-levitated over it, of course, but that would have risked knocking something aside and giving her position away all at once. As far as she knew, Mira was still doing his best to distract the terror that had set its sights upon her small and tender frame. The Herald may have started fighting, but if so… she did that at the last possible minute, when they exhausted the other options.

A turn had a scream try to tear itself out of her throat before she reigned it back in. The sludge was starting to ooze through whatever gaps in the furniture it could, spreading tendrils of ice with each splash of liquid against the floor. Behind the chairs and such rained a shower of glass, each individual shard amplified to the loudness of gunfire with every impact upon the ground.

Tsih moved with the sharp left turn, almost spinning on her hocks as she charged. There was good news to be had; the double doors were in sight… but she could only make out the tops of their frames amidst the wreckage of the room. At least one pile of furniture barred her path, forcing her to stop as soon as she reached it.

She glanced back. Lights were still dying explosively. The sludge spread across the walls, ceiling, and floor. The frost only harkened to its own promises of suffering. She looked at the obstruction and lit her horn. She reached for the highest, weakest link in the chain; a chair sitting between a table and the door frame itself, askew at an angle that left its front legs hanging. A few tugs, and the chair came loose with a snap that broke its back legs.

Whirling around, she threw the chair towards the maze. It bounced a few times on impact, then skid and rolled after in a rapid pirouette, coming to a stop at the last turn she had rounded. She span again, and set to work removing the next three tables that were beneath that chair. One popped loose with no issue, and was promptly cast aside to join the chair that had flown before it. The second required a bit of jimmying, but as soon as its legs were free of the clutter it was sent flying. The third, however, caused the whole pile to tilt to one side with each tug.

The baritone voice returned, echoing ceaselessly across the room as it pounded itself into Tsih's ears with its cacophony, "Look at you… trapped like the little insignificant rat you are. Not even the Star-Blasting Light could hope to dispel my darkness. And that wannabe hero you've been carvoting with didn't stand a chance then or now. What hope do you have?"

Tsih pulled the stubborn table loose, but in doing so caused half the pile to landslide on one side; the tumbling pieces all crashed and bounced into each other with the shriek of metal on metal. They rolled onto themselves, each other, then the other tables and chairs separate from the pile. While this cleared up more of the door, it still left a sizable portion to be dealt with—and Tsih didn't have the time or luxury to do this the neat and tidy way. The silence had all but left her, and even now, her cloak continued to falter with each precious second that she spent dallying.

"Clock is ticking, you little brat," the unseen speaker hissed, malice and demented joy warring for dominance within the tone that sent horrible shivers skipping across her augments. "I am already tired of this game. And the longer I wait… the longer your suffering will be. You don't want me to bring my friends over, do you?"

Tsih pulled aside more furniture hastily, throwing them over her head as she struggled to unblock the door. She might have dented the mass somewhat, but it wasn't even close to what she so desperately needed right now. The chorus behind her continued to grow and sing with new, twisted notes that started to grate against the wires within her body, sending dread skipping along both metal and organic arteries with the brutal equality of an awaiting executioner's blade.

The shadows continued to stretch, rising up the walls as she worked. The lights continued to dim as their number decreased slowly and steadily.

It was well past time for her to leave. She should have left when the front gates were open.

Panic and dread began screaming in her brain, spiking the pain in her chest which continued, even now, to amplify itself. Tears began stinging her eyes, further blurring her vision. With the agony coursing her body, her magic faltered, and finally her cloak faltered fully, revealing her in the few remaining lights that were left—and the terror etched on her wide-eyed, blanched face. Her grasp on the furniture before her, however, didn't yield even slightly; too much was at stake here.

More chairs and tables snapped, in halves and quarters as she dislodged them and cast their fragments aside. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the door was unblocked more and more as the pile loosened; the process was nowhere near fast enough for Tsih's liking. But it was either this… or fall prey to that which had most likely subdued Mira by now.

The horrible memories tried to surface again. In her mind's eye, she caught a glimpse of Mira bent at something of a painful angle, front claws held awkwardly above his tied wings and hinds splayed and suspended over stone with forced, unnatural flexibility that left him all but exposed to the world. She shook her head to regain her focus, and started pushing the pile aside with more force as soon as she caught the first dent down the center of the mass.

Twin cries pierced the chorus, only briefly. Tsih could recognize Mira's voice in one, and before it was cut short it reached a mare-like pitch she would not have thought possible with his current body. The other could have only belonged to Starbreaker; such was the inevitable conclusion, with few living souls present within this accursed place. What hell she was presently seeing…

Tsih could only imagine, and shudder, at what her mind could paint. And horrible things it procured; her innocence long gone, as distant as the memory of Alte's death.

The tears stung her eyes again as she remembered Alte, even when she started pushing her magic harder to compensate for her lack of progress. Hope dared spike in her heart, causing it to flutter as the pile finally began to part from the center upwards. The whole mass must've weighed as much as a boulder, but then again it was currently both the least and greatest of her woes. It had to be moved; there were no ifs, ands or buts about it.

The crackle of frost, and the pitter-patter of that foul substance drew closer still. She could feel their crackles and ripples reaching the very tip of her tail hairs.

Maybe this was why Alte went for the stars, Tsih bitterly reflected as she pushed the mass of furniture further and further apart—so she would not join them in inflicting suffering upon others. If that were the case… then who was she to fault her, when the only other choice was to lose what made her a pony in life?

Her magic faltered again when that damnable voice called out, booming and yet brushing up against her ears as if the owner was right behind her, "Every single friend and foe you've met was weak. Everypony you idolized, just the same—even that stupid whorse who went and self-destructed in battle, when she could have faced the price of failure head-on. What. Hope. Do you. Have here?"

Tsih scrunched her eyes tight, bracing for the inevitable when something in her snapped. She wasn't sure what it was that had sprung loose; all she knew was that she felt a surge of power pulsing across her body, screaming for release. As one of her only two outlets was her horn, the power sparked from there and launched every ounce of itself at the stubborn obstacle before her with enough force to completely scatter it to the sides of the doors.

Then her eyes opened, and hope rose even as she saw a horned shadow looming high over her own. Smoke lined the doors, and broken furniture was spilled all before her, but now it was unblocked! With another flash of her horn she levitated herself there in a heartbeat, pushing the doors aside with her hooves to go down the next hall. Darkness permeated, and so some of the power that came from within manifested itself as a brilliant light at the tip of her horn, throwing into stark relief what lay beyond.

Ponies were strewn about, in pieces, frozen, their blood decidedly not spilt where their carcasses lay. There was no time to question it; she simply self-levitated over the menagerie of bodies, her heart beating as fast as it could go now.

She hoped she could find the Windchime, and soon. She had no idea what she had stumbled into, that lucky bitch; Tsih could only wonder how she would react if she had somehow gotten word beforehoof. Mira was right, she reflected; they all were led right into a trap, and the fact that only now was it so glaringly obvious, she decided she was going to kick herself over this when the danger had passed and the herd had reunited. She had to warn the Windchime before she could be caught, too.

The choice between the Sableshrouds, the shadows, the Windchime and the Corps was never before clearer to her. Tsih wouldn't have had to pick any of them in normal circumstances, but these were hardly normal circumstances; she had to concede that the Windchime was currently her best bet at living for another day.

She just had to find her first, before the shadows could descend onto her head. The alternative was far worse than even she would have liked to admit.