To Mend A Broken Star

Sora clenched her teeth as she passed underneath another dead light that was dripping with the sludge, trying to stave off her wincing as the substance stained her coat and Omega's with its rather small, mist-like sprinkling. The more she walked, the more wrong this abandoned guard post began to feel—not an emotional wrongness per se, but her gut was presently bashing the bars of its cage in an attempt to escape.

It wasn't helped by the fact that Omega was shivering on her back with each step, almost as if he were debating whether or not to make a run for it himself. Yukito sidled closer to them, his body only an inch from closed blades as the frown decorating his face deepened in contemplation and concern. "Forgive me if I become more analytical," Yukito said, his eyes poised forward and darting around every few seconds. "But I can't help but feel that we shouldn't be here."

"You aren't the only one," Sora said, feathers puffing out slightly as a chilly breeze wafted into the hall. She wanted desperately to wrap herself in her blanket, but that could wait until after the others had been found. If the herd was to survive, they needed to be together at the end of each night… as insane as that sounded within these circumstances.

"F'r one, I don't think a cuddle's gonna fix this," Omega piped up, pressing his chin against the back of Sora's neck as he said that. "It's almost like them nightmare stories I heard as a foal." He sucked in a breath through his snout and added through clenched teeth, "Almost like I'm livin' them."

"Don't you mean 'nighttime?'" Yukito asked.

Omega shook his head. "No. My folks hated me enough to give me ripsnorters f'r my bedtime stories. Couldn't sleep much as a foal," he answered.

Sora huffed. "Let me guess: you weren't soldier material," she hissed, the last two words coming through clenched teeth as another cold shiver played a very brief bout of merry hell with her body.

"Yeah. It went way worse when I got my cutie mark," Omega answered, scrunching his nose and turning away to sneeze at a wall as soon as he had finished speaking. "It took th' whole damn lot bein' sent t' die in th' Clash f'r th' abuse to stop."

Yukito turned to glare briefly at a door that hung ajar to his side as they passed it. "Ah, the 'you're of no use to us so we'll make you want to wring your own neck' approach," he hissed, ears pinned back as he spoke. "Just like my brownnosing stepfather…"

Omega turned to him. "You had a stepdad?"

Yukito nodded, keeping his head turned. "He wound up being my first patient after I obtained my cutie mark. Let's just say… there were several things I had botched that day," he grumbled. "On purpose. And in a way that couldn't be traced back to me."

Sora nodded, then shook her head. "Trust me, I got the full spiel when we shared the quarters while he was drunk one night. His stepdad… was a real piece of work," she muttered.

The three rounded a corner, and discovered the lights therein had ceased working. That didn't surprise them any, given the decrepit state of the rest of the place—rather, it was what was standing at the light's edge. A being of sludge, somewhat equine but rather limp of legs and blank of face, was standing there weakly. It seemed to have been staring ahead, though it was hard to tell given the lack of eyes.

"... th' fuck is that?" Omega asked, staring at the sludge pony with his tail twitching. Immediately, the thing lifted its head up slightly, almost as if it had heard him loud and clear.

Sora noticed that the creature, if one could indeed call it that, did not have any defining features—no mane or tail, no wings or horn, no visible augments, with a muzzle dripping enough that she could not tell if it was a mare or stallion. It was as if somepony sculpted it, then left it unfinished to melt. Either that, or it was finished, but in a half-assed way that would have gotten the riot act back at the Corps. Whoever the architect might have been, though, could have had other issues to attend to if that were the case.

Yet that still didn't address the fact that this thing had moved, seemingly of its own volition. She doubted it was built with movement in mind; machine or not, it didn't appear as though it held together very well. She lifted a hoof to take a step forward, but a blue hoof rose up to obstruct her. Turning to Yukito, she found his eyes narrowed and focused on the entity, his head grimly shaking slowly as though he couldn't process what his eyes had relayed to him.

"That…" he said quietly, his voice almost trembling with the word. His raised hoof shuddered, and his ears twitched. "No… we… we can't…"

Before another word could slip past his lips, the sludge pony lunged. Sora and Yukito scrambled out of the way, barreling back down the way they came as the being impacted itself on the wall that was behind where they stood. It ended up splattering messily with enough force to touch both the floor and ceiling. It partially reformed after its mass settled, shifting to stick halfway out of the impact site with only its head, chest, and hips present.

Sora fanned her wings, careful to avoid slicing Omega and Yukito. "What the fu—" she started, only to see Yukito's horn flaring far brighter now. Before she could finish, his magic seized the three of them and whisked them away back to the entrance of the guard post in two flashes of light that left scorch marks where they stood.

Sora looked around the room, turning in place to see if anything had changed. Besides the fact that the entrance remained barred with gunk, very little seemed out of place. Her concerns about the scenery were waylaid when she heard a distant, yet eerily familiar, shrieking that echoed from beyond the hall Mira had trotted through earlier. It took her one second to place the emotion of the fading echoes: panic. Her still-flared wings shuddered, blades clacking as she recognized the high pitch that could only belong to a grown, terrified mare.

A jigsaw puzzle assembled itself rapidly in her mind, and taking into account events from the previous month or so enabled Sora to piece together who made that sound and where it was coming from. Her gut stirred again, gently whispering in her ear that there was a chance that whatever caused that panic to rise could very well strike her down, too.

She shared a glance with Yukito, who mutely nodded before turning back down to the hall to signal that he had heard the scream as well. His irises seemed to quiver in his eyes as they shrunk, staring ahead as another shriek danced from beyond a myriad of doors. "That… that couldn't have been…" He shared another glance with Sora, lips shuddering. "Is that… who I think is yelling?"

Sora licked her lips to wet them as they suddenly dried, before haltingly nodding. "The same tone she… she used when I found her that night," she muttered, wings continuing to rattle in alarm. "I… I don't know… what could make her…"

A third cry came echoing down from that path, although this time filled with words that had managed to silence the barely-formed thought that was leaving Sora's mouth. "Get away! I-I'll burn you all to ashes—wh-what are you doing to my horn?!" The utterance was enough to clench the trio's hearts and grip them for three seconds—time enough to keep them from beating before letting them hammer out a frantic tempo that rushed through their veins when they realized what they had just heard.

Sora could not believe her own ears. And yet, they had failed to deceive her. Her legs filled with resolution before her mind did; she galloped onward, Yukito shadowing her steps with his own frantic ones as the screaming continued without interruption. Omega yelped as he nearly slipped off, only to find himself magically planted onto Yukito's back during the stride and held tight. "Wh-what th' hell could make her scream like that?" he asked as the pair veered a corner and raced down another ice-riddled hall.

"I don't know, but I'm not chancing it!" Sora replied, eyes wide with panic as she pressed on. The hall flew by the pair, and then another one partially encased in gunk. A third tried to obstruct them with a wall of ice, but Sora willed her blades to glow and carved a big enough hole in the obstruction that let her and her husband pass through with minimal resistance.

The screaming seemed to bounce from multiple directions as the trio came to a fork in the halls, almost sounding as though it were coming from the damned. The cries of havoc rose higher in pitch as they went on, and echoing everywhere only turned the one-pony orchestra into a hellish chorus that few would hear outside the realms of one's own nightmares. Sora glanced between the available choices; ice on one side, darkness and sludge on the other. Her gut stirred again as Yukito moved to the one shrouded in shadow, his horn flaring up as it conjured light.

She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention before he could stray too far. He turned to her, ears twitching as the orchestra of agony developed new notes of confusion amidst its pain. "What is it?" he asked.

Sora shook her head, a nameless force gripping her heart as she stared at the hall of sable. The longer she stared at it, the more alarm bells went off in her head, ringing louder and louder with each passing second. "I… I don't think we should go that way," she muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

The screams had abruptly cut off as she considered the still-lit hallway, and her stomach formed into knots at the sudden silence. Chills crept up her legs and across her blades, and only increased in tempo when she looked closer at the illuminated path and saw various signs strewn about, all smeared in that strange substance she didn't want to put a name to.

Then, in that hall, the sludge began to move, congregating in the middle and rising into another vague equine shape. It seemed to regard them despite a blank face, almost waiting to see what they would do next. And where there was one on that side of the fork, several more congregated in the other, only visible thanks to Yukito's light.

Sora turned to her husband, confusion etched on her frowning face. "Did… you see these things at the base before we left?" she asked.

Yukito swallowed with a heavy nod. "They kept to the alleys, but… yes," he answered after a moment. "They left before we did, though…"

Sora's wings twitched. She wondered if she could slice the sludge creatures and get away with it, before Yukito grabbed her in his magic and teleported them behind the singular entity and the ice. He proceeded to gallop onwards, as if there were heat-seeking missiles trained on his hide. Sora sighed and galloped after him, daring to look over her shoulder to find that the sludge things started to glide after them across the floor with legs stiff and unmoving. Some impacted the ice, dispersing back into something less equine, and then stretching across the other side as though they had their own ways to get around the obstruction.

She turned back ahead, seeing her husband dart down on an approaching hall to her right. She turned that way, cursing under her breath when she saw it had somewhat compacted thanks to forming ice that seemed to be spontaneously growing. She could hear its crackling, and raised her wings halfway from her body just in case she needed to slice through it again. She willed her blades to glow again when she saw encroaching darkness, the only other visible thing therein being the light of Yukito's horn a few feet ahead.

Down another hall Yukito went veering, before a sharp thud rang out from just around the corner. Sora turned that way, frowning as she caught sight of Tsih hopping off the stunned stallion and magically lifted him back to his hooves and Omega onto his back.

"We don't have time! Get the carriage out!" Tsih barked, eyes wide and frantic.

"What for?!" Sora asked, even as a hoof went to her bell.

"We gotta hide!" Tsih replied, paling as she began to prance in place. "Otherwise we're going to have it really bad soon!"

Sora nodded and uttered the command to summon forth the carriage, and her bell rang and spat out light before bringing the vehicle from the ether. The four hopped into the middle compartment, closed the door, and let Tsih work her cloaking abilities to hide it there and then. Yukito dispelled his light, and so did Sora, plunging themselves and the vehicle in perfect, unblemished darkness. The group laid on the floor, their guts churning for not only food, but safety.

Sora opened her mouth to ask where Mira and Starbreaker were, only for Tsih to crawl over and jam a hoof between her teeth to silence her. Tsih mouthed, 'They're having it really bad right now. They'll be alive, but…' She left the rest unsaid with a shudder as she retracted her hoof, eyes still wide as though she had been put under a spotlight for all the world to see.

It didn't ebb Sora's concerns at all. It merely amplified them to morbid degrees, each clamoring in her head without answer.

She had no such closure or mercy—only the darkness to accompany those who had gathered with her.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Starbreaker tried to scream, but something cold enough to bypass her augments held her mouth open, and her throat shut. She had breathing holes for her nostrils, but each inhale sucked in further blasted her insides with cold air that threatened to bring her closer to death. Her legs were immobilized in the same substance, and at her front hooves her horn lay once again broken off of her head.

Her eyes had been forced closed by the same trappings that held her still, but she wasn't sure if that was from mercy or cruelty. She tried shaking her head, but her neck was stiff with cold and could barely move. She knew her heart was beating and her lungs were working, both cranked into overdrive to compensate for her inability to combat the paralysis gripping her.

The sludge creatures had her surrounded, and currently forced her to kneel on her front knees despite the stiffness in her legs. Her chin was parallel with the floor, and an icky hoof had pinned itself on the back of her head to keep it there. The ichor slid down her neck and cheeks, its slimy sojourn sending more chills throughout her body.

"You failed to burn us to cinders the first time, you haughty wretch," one of the sludge creatures hissed in a demonic baritone that had Starbreaker's heart briefly halting its rhythm when she heard it. "And you failed again. How does it feel to be one of the weak and powerless, grovelling for mercy which you yourself had denied unto them?

She tried struggling, but the only parts she could move were her shoulders and haunch. A muffled grunt tried leaving her mouth, but could go no farther than her back molars thanks to the substance keeping her jaws parted. She yelped as a tendril of frost and thorns came crashing down on the middle of her back, scarring her flesh and drawing blood.

"This foalish folly of yours cannot continue, impudent Herald," the sludge-creatures spoke in unison, sounding more like a cluster of accusing demons than anything equine. "We'll have to devise… new punishments to further break you as you had broken others." She could hear the demented grins in the legion of voices, and tried to move again. She was met with another sting of frost and pain dancing on her spine, and yelped once more when it shifted to score her left cutie mark in red.

She ignited her broken horn, but it could only manage feeble sparks now. The cold raced to cover it, and when she made to cast again, it triggered a backlash that ran jolts through her body and caused her to shudder briefly before she had to make herself stop. This brought her close to passing out, but unfortunately for her even that mercy had been denied.

"Fortunately… there is another who needs to be punished alongside you. And who better…" She heard metallic claws being dragged along the ground, and more muffled yelping from a stallion who was equally prevented from speaking. "... than somepony who tried to be your opposite in every way?"

Starbreaker yelped again as somepony with metallic legs and a muffler was thrown bodily onto her, yet the prison didn't break enough to even let her bend her hinds. Another chin rested on her head and was frozen in place, the cold racing across both necks to keep them steady. There was a brief scrambling of metal and clunking, scraping shrilly against the floor before they too were immobilized. She felt metal brushing against her marks, and knew instantly who had been dragged into the same hell she was experiencing.

She struggled one more time, trying once again to scream. That time, the thorns and chill crept along her stomach before thwacking her where it was bound to hurt most, making pain flare up very close to where that ink had been written on her body. Her scream died halfway up her throat as she was struck again and again in that area, choking on itself until it turned into a pained whine sounding closer to a sob.

Even then, the attack didn't cease until she felt blood trickling down her inner thighs and heard it dripping onto the floor, accentuated by cold and frost that further stung the fresh wounds. She felt more pain in that region, but not from the cold—from something warm that she dared not put a name to in the back of her mind. She tried her best to block it out from body and soul, but alas it breached her few defenses and lingered for far longer than she wanted it to.

Mira tried to scream and pull away, only for the sound of feathers being violently ejected from flesh to permeate the room. "For your crimes of trying to ascend to greatness for the sake of empty praise," the sludge-creatures yelled in unison, their voices punctuated by more tearing feathers, "you shall be subject to the punishment of the lowest dregs of the damned, worthy only of anguish and despair!"

The true torture for the both of them began. They repeatedly tried to disengage from each other, but the prison kept them stuck to one another in more unpleasant ways than one. To say they wanted out would be an understatement; both struggled with a vigor matched only by wounded bears, but in the end the attempts to break free meant little to their tormentors.

No, it only prolonged their agony. The cold lashings made them yelp and thrash in limited ways they disagreed with. Particularly prone places were struck repeatedly, making the pair howl and scream as much as their confinement would allow. The beatings persisted, forcing the two to find an off, disagreeable dance to lessen their pain, though to call it a dance was giving it far too much credence. Then, just when it seemed as though it couldn't get any worse, Starbreaker felt an odd warmth emerging in her body from where the worst of the injuries were sustained.

Immediately, she screamed as her mind started to slam the panic buttons and let loose the dogs of havoc. Her struggles tripled, and she tried with all of her might to send Mira off of her as she found herself unable to deny what was happening any longer. Mira tried to aid her, screaming into his confinement as well, only for the cold prison to wrap around both of them entirely, save their nostrils and the small pocket of air between their bodies.

The torment didn't relent with their nearly complete paralysis. Thorns grew within, digging into their flesh and forcing them to move constantly in the limited ways they could, drawing blood repeatedly as they found themselves only adding to each other's anguish. Soon enough, another blossom of unwanted warmth entered the world, and another, until they lost count and drew themselves to exhaustion with their vain attempts to fight their way out.

The cold chipped away at their resolve, the thorns sending needles and pins of pain throughout their bodies, their blood cooling against their wounds and stained coats. The struggles grew feebler and feebler, and one of the few things telling them that they were still alive were the blossoms of heat that, themselves, grew weaker and weaker with every jerk and swing of their bodies. Neither could feel their legs or mouths at this point; it was nothing short of a grievous miracle that they were still breathing, and even then their breaths were short and labored as their augments failed them.

As that exhaustion settled, they both found themselves sobbing, tears streaking their faces even as the prison kept them still. It didn't thaw; it didn't relent. It kept them there as the voices of their tormentors rang in their heads with a clarity that couldn't be ignored, "For your sins, you shall be bound like that overnight, held in an unholy embrace until you fight your punishment no more!"

Save for their crying, silence then permeated the room. Exhaustion eventually forced that to cease as well. Hours passed uncounted, yet neither fell asleep in that unholy embrace. Starbreaker felt that accursed warmth leaving her along with that which breached her defenses, leaving in its place a much preferred void that didn't set her at ease. No sound celebrated its departure; nothing else was there to let her know that she was free of that.

She felt her emotions numbing, followed by the rest of her brain as sleep came to announce its presence. Eyes already closed and body perfectly still save for her breathing, the stage was set for her to simply drop right then and there if the prison allowed it. Visions of fire painted her dreams, but instead of charred corpses and destroyed architecture and screaming ponies, the only thing she noticed around her were black metal and iron grating on one side. She was alone in the blaze, and it ate as much of her flesh as her body would allow.

Shadows on the other side jeered at her, and she raced to the bars to wrap her hooves around them to free herself. "Pitiful failure," one of them hissed in a rasping voice she couldn't place despite it sounding oddly… familiar.

"You were our greatest, Reika," the other snapped, shaking their head visibly. "And you had to throw it away. We could have won the Clash of the Sky. Could have ruled the world. And instead, you had to fuck it all up when you left us to rot in hellfire."

The first grinned, the expression painted with hellfire and malice. "And now look at you; reduced to nothing more than a plaything for our brethren. You're even gallivanting with the enemy, for crying out loud. Now you're suffering the consequences of your failure."

"I—" Starbreaker felt her words dying in her throat as the fire's crackling rose to drown out whatever she could have used to defend herself with.

"Whatever paltry words you could say have no power here, Reika. You're as weak and feeble as you were before your augmentation. We thought we had stamped out your capacity for weakness. It seems we were wrong." The shadows turned away and shouted into the darkness, "Do with her as you will!"

The flames blackened, cold air and hot air meshing together into an unholy bond that had her screaming all over again. Ichor and frost formed and melted and formed again, racing up her legs to encase her against the bars of her prison, trapping her into another hell that had her screaming at nothing in particular.

But it didn't end there—it never did. She was thrown to the floor, the constantly-melting ichor and ice failing to shatter as burning shadows descended onto her with darkened grins promising nothing but cruelty, one using its icky hooves to forcibly seize her face and redirect it to a far wall. She kicked her legs out, only for sludge to grab them and pin them to the floor, rendering them immobile. She inhaled smoke and rot and ash as one of the burning shadows forced itself to compress into a form small enough to traverse her nostrils. Fire erupted within her, glowing white-hot as agony danced in places where her augments failed to protect her.

At the same time, another shadow was forcing itself to shrink to do something unspeakably vile, burning sensitive regions and making her stomach glow with the same smouldering agony that her lungs were presently experiencing. Though unlike her ribs, this burning was actually potent enough to be visible beneath modified skin and fur, shining horribly and brilliantly as she was assaulted. Her throat burned, glowing, and she screamed as more scorching and suffocating shades descended on her to amplify her suffering.

Again, and again, and again, they forced themselves upon, and then into, her. She felt her organs liquefying, her bones crumbling, her augments collapsing onto themselves. Each new speck of ash, each new mote of ember, accounted for nothing less than complete annihilation. Through it all, though, death's icy hooves never dared touch her, nor came to deliver her from this hell.

Crimson light built within, growing exponentially as her suffering continued. Her eyes, ears, throat and mouth burned in a red aura that spilled out, as did more unfortunate areas of her body. She still screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but nothing—nothing—could save her from this torment. She felt her own body withering, drying, desiccating to ash.

Ashes swirled around her, seeking easy entry. They followed the crimson glow, and her body began to swell with its uncontrolled power. Her stomach bloated, and her chest plates groaned and snapped alongside her ribs as they were forced aside to make room for the burgeoning aura. Her head hurt, and her skull fractured along with its plates as it, too, grew in mass. Her legs flexed, bulged, writhed like worms as augments snapped and went the way the rest of her body was going.

Anypony looking in at that moment would have retched at the grotesque sight. The swelling continued, and so did the howling, the glow forcing her body to expand to fill the prison interior from wall to wall and corner to corner. The furnace glowed red-white, though it held firm even as scorching flesh and augments tried forcing itself out through the bars of its cage.

Only when she felt her brain smouldering to ash did the light burst within her and overtake her swollen form, reminiscent of a supernova that sent pieces of her body flying everywhere in explosive, burning vitriol that was unrivaled by anything the Clash could have ever produced. Suns and stars and planets came out, each spiraling into a vortex reminiscent of a black hole. Through it all, Starbreaker remained conscious, barely keeping her mental state together even as she processed what was happening. The black hole swallowed everything but the prison, and the various pieces of her body now painting its interior in scorched scarlet.

The fires died, and her body pulled itself back together, and her grievous wounds healed. There she lay, wide-eyed and gasping as the ichor solidified around her legs again. How had death not come for her yet? That should have done her in multiple times over! She lifted her head, warily glancing around.

All was suspiciously quiet. Not a peep was to be heard in the darkness.

She inhaled deeply, and began to scream again.

And there she was, for several hours uncounted, screaming at the void of shadows continuously for somepony—anypony—to get her out. And none answered back, for there was none but herself in that void.

At least, until the burning shadows came to start the gruesome process all over again. And again, and again. It went on until she, worn out from her constant attempts to get help, finally stopped screaming sometime later.

Then, only then, had she been allowed to wake up, numb, gibbering, and wrapped in a blanket and Sora's wings and forelegs. She hadn't known how much time had passed, nor did she care. She didn't protest as Sora and the rest of the herd escorted her and Mira to the carriage, instead mindlessly blabbering with mangled words that didn't make sense. She didn't stop as she was laid into the seat and had her wounds tended to by Yukito.

She wanted to tell them what had happened, but her lips were moving too fast and her tongue was bastardizing its repeated attempts at language. She kept going on until she ran out of breath with which to speak. Through it all, they looked at her in concern, unable to voice their thoughts on the matter as they tended to her and Mira, who'd been laid next to her.

For a while after that, none spoke. None could.

Starbreaker wasn't sure if she preferred the uncomfortable silence, or the half-crazed mangling of words her own mouth had produced.