Sora and Yukito ambled to the medical ward the following morning, both dressed yet managing to look worse for the wear; neither bothered to groom their manes or coats extensively, and in the former's case her wings were puffed up to hell despite being closed. Their outfits were also wrinkled a fair margin, only further making them seem as though they'd gotten hastily dressed for the day.

And while the device with the microphone had been planted on Sora's ear again, her frayed mane threatened—and almost did, before she brushed it aside with a hoof—to strangle it. Both had a distinct quiver in their hind legs, and a few smudge marks on their faces, though these things were faint enough that only a very attentive pony could have caught either. Another device of some sort rested at Sora's croup, held there by a holster, and it quaked in tandem with the twitch in her hinds.

Still, they reached Starbreaker's room without incident, and with only the cameras watching their every move. Their brows rose as they entered the room, finding that the bar holding a hoof and a leg had been taken down… with a pebble-sized chunk of the ceiling. Starbreaker herself was out of bed, standing on a wobbly three legs with her broken front hoof raised and a gait favoring her good two legs more than her broken set. The bar and said piece of the ceiling were now resting haphazardly at her side and in a tangled part of her mane. Her tail bristled and her eyes narrowed at the vexed looks she received. Silence held for several long moments before Sora slumped on her haunches and heaved a heavy, exasperated sigh.

Sora grumbled and facehoofed at the same time, "First, that hole in the base, then your attempt on the world, then your horn and leg, then your front hoof and now a fraction of the ceiling." Her hoof dropped, and she leveled an annoyed glare at Starbreaker. "What won't you break?" she asked as another, smaller chunk of the ceiling fell out and bounced off the backside of Starbreaker's bandaged head.

Starbreaker shrugged and glared back. "Well excuse me, but it's part of my talent, thank you very much!" she hissed, scandalized. "And once my horn grows back, I'll wedge it somewhere under your tail and turn up the heat until you explode!"

Yukito stifled a groan. His horn lit up and he magically seized Starbreaker by the bar that had been attached to the ceiling before he untied it from her limbs and hair. "No point keeping you in bed if the ceiling has rejected you…" he grumbled as the rod clattered to the floor, and he trotted over to inspect the walkabout patient carefully. "How… did this happen? Metal shouldn't break like that."

Starbreaker's eyes gravitated to where the rod had been affixed. "I just pulled and pulled, and it gave," she answered with another shrug. "I got really… angry, and wanted to trot so much… next thing I know, everything turned red."

Yukito blinked, but sighed. He turned to Sora, who stood up and cantered over. "Do you think we should… show her around the base, then?" he asked warily.

Sora shook her head. "Not until we can confirm she can actually stand and trot for long enough to make the trip," she replied. "The base is… a bit much, as far as the nickel tour goes."

Yukito nodded, seeing that Sora had a point. "Well, if she can get out of bed despite being tied, I'd wager her prognosis is good," he mused.

"So… I can trot?" Starbreaker asked, assuming a small smirk on her muzzle.

"Not without me you don't," Sora cut in sharply, wings bristling for a second. "And besides, you still need to get your weight back in order first."

Starbreaker's smile fell. "I'm not a foal," she grumbled.

"I know that, but try telling that to the rest of the army," Sora stated in a sharp reprimand. Starbreaker did not deflate at this; if anything, her chest puffed as she sucked in air. Before she could shout, though, Yukito magically clamped her muzzle shut.

"Now, now… calm down," Yukito ordered, his voice firm. Starbreaker snorted and lashed her tail from side to side, eyes narrowing at Yukito as he held her muzzle. "Just because you're recovering doesn't mean you're in the clear yet." He looked pointedly at her raised hoof. "Besides, your progress still needs to be monitored, so you cannot stray too far from either of us." He felt a head bob up and down in his magic, and turned to look at her face again. "I take it you understood?" That garnered him a nod, and his magic relinquished its hold.

Sora's ear twitched as the door opened and somepony trotted inside. A feminine voice she wasn't expecting filled the room, making her wings twitch and her tail hike as the owner spoke, "So… you sissies gonna do anything with the bitch, or do I get to put a bullet through her head when all's said and done?" Two ponies whirled around, and all three sets of eyes gravitated to find Major Trinity in the room, riding crop in hoof and leaning in an upright stance against the wall.

Trinity sized the trio up with her eyes, smirking cruelly. She started tapping the crop against her shoulder expectantly, taking note of Sora and Yukito's rather harried looks as well as the bandages on Starbreaker. "You should consider yourselves lucky," she hissed, her voice cold even as an amused glint shimmered in her orange eyes.

"Lucky? About what?" Yukito queried, the hairs on the back of his neck rising to stand on their ends. At this, Trinity's smirk widened.

Trinity was all too happy to answer, "The Admiral's letting you keep that bitch over there alive…" The riding crop stopped tapping and shifted to gesticulate at Starbreaker. "Provided, of course… you lot behave yourselves." At this, Sora gave a wince, and her ears fell back. Trinity picked up on it almost immediately, and her smirk only grew. "You especially, Private. I'd best watch that cutie mark, if I were you. She was yours and yours alone to deal with, if I recall..."

Trinity straightened her posture and walked out of the room on her hinds, her tail lashing as she went. "And I guess the Professor's too, now that he's helping your sorry ass deal with that reprobate! If Sham were here, I'd bet she'd slap you both silly with her front hooves! And then I'd slap her for failing to train your ass properly!" she called as the door closed behind her.

Yukito's eye began to twitch, and his teeth started to grind. "There's a difference between being insane and being a reprobate…" he hissed, ears folding back and legs trembling with restraint. Sora draped a wing over him, more to hold him back in case he decided to bolt, before he took a deep breath and sighed.

"What is with that mare?" Starbreaker piped up. Yukito and Sora turned to her, the latter closing her wing to find that her eyes had shifted to a burning orange hue with another whir.

Yukito shrugged. Sora deflated a little, wings drooping at her sides. "Trinity's… always had it out for me—I don't know what all I did to piss her off in the past, but she just…" Sora trailed off, frowning. Her blades twitched, then landed with a good chunk of her wings upon the floor.

Starbreaker blinked, and with a whir her eyes reverted back to their technicolor hue. "She's wanted to torch you?" she offered.

Sora's head shook. "Wouldn't… quite call it that, but that's one way of putting it," she answered. "I heard she was like that before I came under her scrutiny."

Starbreaker's brows shot up. "From who?" she asked.

Sora's head dropped to hang at her elbows, but not before her eyes grew dull and slanted. "... from my previous military instructor…" she muttered grimly, voice dropping to a small whisper. "She… got a lot of flak from Trinity, too…"

"Well, where is she?" Starbreaker asked, sitting on her haunches with a wince and crossing her front legs. Sora's head shook again, and Starbreaker leaned in close to see what the deal was. However, Sora's mane obscured much of her face, making it difficult for her to gauge her expression. "Why've you gone quiet all of a sudden?"

"... she's… not here anymore…" Sora answered, voice quiet and almost apathetic. But there was something swimming in her apathy that Starbreaker picked up on—its name, however, eluded her. Then… Sora gave a dry, mirthless laugh, one that sounded just the barest bit of hysterical. "She was… almost like a second mother to me, after I'd gotten augmented."

Starbreaker tilted her head as Sora looked up at her, eyes aglow with… regret? She couldn't be sure, for the face that framed those eyes had gone stone cold. Yet… her brow twitched, as did her still-flattened ears, like she wanted to express what was on her mind. But her apathy had won, and so her face barely moved, save for her lips a second after. "But… I don't think she'd have slapped me, were she… here and aware I'd taken you in…" she finished, softly.

Starbreaker frowned at that. "Why wouldn't she slap you?" she queried sincerely.

Sora's gaze averted, briefly. "... that would be an exercise in futility," she answered. "She'd know… that it was my talent to help ponies… to protect them whenever I could." She lifted a hoof and put it on the shoulder of her charge. "Like… like I protected you." The hoof shook, and Sora's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and anger sparked within them for the barest of instants. Her tone took on a scathing, shaky note as she hissed, "And i-if Trinity thinks she can j-just insult my old instructor l-like that… then she'll come to regret it o-one of these days."

Yukito's hoof came to rest on Sora's withers, and he rubbed them in a soothing manner. "Trinity's just trying to get under your coat by insulting her, Sora. There's not a lot you can do about that… unless she acts out of turn," he pointed out. "Even she's not immune to the Admiral's reprimands."

Sora mutely nodded, and lowered her hoof with a deep, shuddering breath. She turned and smiled at Yukito, and her eyes gleamed with fondness. "But that would require she actually trot out of line," she remarked.

Yukito nodded back. "Yes, that's true. But she had you deliver corpses," he replied firmly. "Wouldn't that count as her stepping out of line?"

Sora's eyes went round, and she lifted a hoof to tap her chin, contemplating this for a moment. "I… suppose so," she replied with a shrug. "But only if she killed them, which insofar as I know, she had barely a hoof in."

Yukito nodded, and turned to Starbreaker again, who was now looking at them expectantly. "So… let's begin your preliminaries…" he started, trotting over to the microwave. Sora ambled with him, both sets of eyes trained intently on their charge. "Trot from the end of the bed, to the door and back again."

Starbreaker shrugged. That request sounded almost too laughably easy. But the sooner she got it over with, the sooner she could torch Sora, and so on shaky legs she rose to stand and made the first few steps. Almost immediately, her body tilted, pain once again roared through her leg and hoof, and her knees shook in a threat to give out. She righted herself, though, and pressed on, atrophy and leg fractures be damned! Her legs shook more and more as she neared the door, before finally giving out after she turned and made it halfway back to bed.

With a suffering groan, though, she rose back up with a mighty heave, using her left front knee as further support before she proudly wobbled the rest of the way to the bed. She promptly threw herself on it, shuddering with the effort but smiling at the fact that she had completed the task nonetheless, and without being walked to boot.

"Well then," Yukito chirped, trotting over to Starbreaker, who turned to him to find he now sported a very pleased grin on his face. "It would seem you can manage a small amount of movement. Keep this up, and you'll be spry as a foal in no time at all."

Yukito then stepped aside. "Look at the mirror, please," he instructed. Vexed, Starbreaker turned and did just that, before her eyes went round. Her horn now stood at a good two inches, still flat around the top but with a noticeable case of the shrinks upon that particular plateau. Her good hoof reached up and prodded at it, feeling that—yes!—her eyes did not deceive her. "Fortunately, your horn is still organic, and should finish growing by the end of this month," he chirped. "Which is good; winter's approaching, and you'll need your fire magic to keep warm if we cannot find suitable housing for you."

"As if we'd let her freeze out there," Sora cut in again, a glimmer of amusement in her voice. "I'd take a full round of ammunition from the Admiral's revolver just to keep her in a warm building." Yukito chuckled with a nod, and his magic gripped Starbreaker's cranium before, precariously, it started to unwind the bandages which had been placed there.

"So… how did you manage to survive?" Yukito asked as he continued unwinding the bandages, slowly revealing what lay beneath.

Starbreaker shrugged. "Couldn't use magic… so I had to eat grass and slept in caves," she muttered in reply. Then she stuck her tongue out and made a face, wincing as where her left ear used to be stung once air had touched it. "It tasted terrible."

Yukito and Sora shared a glance at that, then the latter trotted to her charge while the former finished removing the bandages. "You… had to resort to grazing?" Sora queried incredulously.

Starbreaker fervently nodded. "I kept to a forest. There was plenty to go around… and I learned what was and wasn't good to eat," she answered. "And then those cloaked weirdos found me…" Her eyes narrowed, and she winced again as she felt somepony's muzzle come uncomfortably close to the wounded side of her head. "I galloped all day just to get away from them."

"Which… wouldn't be possible, for any normal pony," Yukito cut in, frowning as he saw that the wound was thoroughly stitched shut, although with some bits of pastel-blue mane growing over it. "I take it your augments kicked in?" That garnered him a hasty nod.

"I think that'd explain her atrophy," Sora muttered, waving a hoof at the still-gaunt legs of her charge for emphasis. "She burnt up whatever fat reserves she built quick after grazing for who knows how long, and her muscles just went 'screw this' and shriveled as well." Then, she sat down and crossed her forelegs over her chest. "Had she gone for a full twenty-four hours, she'd have dropped in this state, even if she got away from the cloaked ponies who ganged up on her."

Yukito nodded. "Which I think the augments made possible to occur. But using them like this is… dangerous, even for a flight-or-fight response," he mused. He looked at Sora, frowning. "However, since she is healing, we can safely bet she hasn't pushed herself into the deep red yet."

"She did move very quickly when I ran into her, and then fell asleep on the airship. I'd still wager she needs to take it easy," Sora stated, sighing.

Starbreaker wiggled as a hoof lifted to prod at her healing scars, though she noticed that said scars did not in any way budge. "That still hurts," she groused.

"I know. But it seems the pus that was in the canal has finished draining," Yukito observed with a wry note in his voice, smiling at this. "Now, does it hurt less than it did before the surgery?"

Starbreaker perked up and fervently twitched the remnants of her right ear, lips pursing and eyes going round as she pondered this. She racked her brain for a moment, before shaking her head. "But it doesn't hurt any worse, either," she muttered with a shrug of indifference. "Maybe I'll just torch your ears off, doctor, and a bit of your hooves too, if you keep touching me like this."

Sora and Yukito exchanged matching grins. "I guess that's just how she expresses her gratitude," Sora idly remarked, giggling at the thought.

"Oh well," Yukito chirped with a shrug, "there's a first time for everything." With that, he magically lifted the broken hoof and unwound its bandages, carefully loosening the coils to not agitate the wound anymore. His smile widened as the bandages came off, revealing that the cracks which had littered that hoof had shrunk a considerable margin, and no longer bled. But the fact that the cracks remained was still a cause for concern; they could widen again, for instance, and jeopardize that whole hoof all over again.

However, he wasn't worried about that in the slightest. As long as the hoof was used minimally, there'd be no damage done, save another accidental collapsing. He set it down, and noticed Starbreaker was eying him warily. "How does the hoof feel?" he queried.

That garnered him a shrug. "Like it's there," Starbreaker answered sincerely. "No worse or better."

"Hrm…" Yukito started unravelling the cast on her back leg. "Well, if you can manage to trot on it, I guess your cast is no longer necessary. I'll need to x-ray you again, though, to make sure it's progress is coming along smoothly," he noted.

Sora flexed her wings, and trotted around the bed before making a beeline for the miniature fridge. "Whaddya want for breakfast?" she asked as she opened the door.

Starbreaker paused, even as the cast was parted from her leg. She thought for a moment. "Something… red, if you have it?" she replied.

"Red… red…" Sora muttered as she eyed the fridge's contents. "Carrots and beets sound good? One of those two is red."

"Sounds good," Starbreaker confirmed with a nod. "And I want it steaming! Maybe I'll torch you even less after." At this, Sora smiled as she pulled out a small plastic-wrapped tray of beets and carrots. At least she could say progress was underway—and maybe she could rub this in Trinity's smug face later for speaking ill of her former instructor. But for now, she had a meal to prepare for her charge.

She had just put it in the microwave after shredding its plastic wrapping to pieces when the door opened again, and in strode Tsukumi. "I just finished my daily rounds. How's she holding up?" he asked, looking pointedly at Starbreaker.

"Splendidly, all things considered," Yukito answered as he heard the microwave beeping. "She's well enough to stand and manage a very small trot." Tsukumi's ears perked up at that.

"To trot? But… isn't that dangerous, given her fractures and breaks?" he asked sincerely.

"Me and Sora watched her, and she didn't get a compound fracture," Yukito replied, waving a hoof dismissively. "Besides, she already took down the bar holding up her injured legs and got out of bed before we even arrived." Tsukumi's jaw dropped, and he turned to the ceiling to find that the bar was no longer where it was supposed to be.

"Mhm. But she's resting now, so we're happy," Sora chimed in, eyes glued to the microwave as she waited for it to ding. She failed to notice Tsukumi slumping in place, almost falling to his haunches in wide-eyed dismay.

"B-but she's…" Tsukumi stammered, struggling to articulate what was on his mind.

"It'll be fine," Sora interjected, snorting as the microwave began beeping again. She deftly opened it and checked the food tray, smiling when she saw a hefty amount of steam rising from its contents. "So long as she does it at our discretion, there's no harm done." With that, she plucked the tray from the microwave with a hoof before trotting on three legs to deliver it to Starbreaker. She set it on the pillow, and retracted to watch as her charge took a whiff of the food.

"It smells… strange," Starbreaker remarked, tilting her head at the beets and carrots that greeted her. She did manage a smile, though, as her request for red food had been met.

"That's just because it's been nuked," Sora replied. "But it tastes good. Try it." Starbreaker obliged, picking up a small beet in her teeth. She dragged it in and chewed, slowly, before a savory-sweet taste greeted her tongue. "Hey, Yukito… would it be alright for me to fly Starbreaker around the base once she's done eating?" she asked, while her charge started digging in eagerly.

Yukito pursed his lips, then shook his head. "Give her another few days, and not after she's eaten. She's not quite gotten the strength needed to hold on," he replied firmly.

"I meant via carriage," Sora replied. Yukito shook his head again.

"And my answer is still no," Yukito replied, still firm. "She's just gotten out of bed, Sora, and the last thing either of us need is to traumatize her some more on top of that." Still, some part of him relented, and he added, "After three weeks. At this rate, she should be back in tip-top shape, more or less."

Sora deflated a little, but nodded in defeat. "Alright." She turned to Tsukumi, who was still very much present, very much wide-eyed, and very much slumped to the point it looked like his back would bow at any minute. "You okay?" she asked. All she got was a faint murmur and a shaking of the head.

Yukito turned to Tsukumi and sighed. "I think we may have traumatized him," he muttered dismally. His horn lit up, and he dragged Tsukumi bodily towards the bed. His eyes fell on Sora, and he smiled. "I think you need to go out and stretch your wings for a while. They're… I dunno, a little bit within the realms of disarray, perhaps?" he suggested.

Sora turned back and grinned. "You mind me going to the Hollowed Gorge for a while?" she replied. At this, Yukito's head shook, and Sora's grin widened. "Oh, good, because I'll need to do something over there." At this, she started to trot out of the room. "Keep me posted about Starbreaker if anything at all happens while I'm out. And if Major Trinity comes back, tell her something came up if I don't return at nightfall."

"Will do," Yukito promised with a nod. "And keep warm if you're going to the Gorge! You don't want icicles on your blades again!" he added.

Sora shot him another fond smile. "That I can manage," she cooed.