Author's Notes:

Thanks to Samey90 for proofreading this chapter! :D This one's been on the backburner for a while, due to unfortunate circumstances.

A tremor rocked the building as the door hissed open. Sora halted, ears folding back and brow furrowing as the quake came and went. She craned her neck to Starbreaker, who merely shrugged with a wide-eyed look and an utterance of, "It wasn't me, alright?"

"I know it wasn't. I was going to ask if you felt that, too," Sora replied, frowning as another tremor shook the building. A low, ominous drone sang through the air, soft at first before increasing in volume and pitch. The sound lowered in tone, before rising and falling over and over. Her eyes slowly widened as the noise sang in a constant loop, all the while rising in volume until it was blaring through what she guessed was the whole city. "... Oh no…" she muttered, wings stiffening.

Even as the shaking subsided, the noise didn’t relent. Its looping continued, and there was nothing either mare could do to stop it. It took Sora but a few seconds to understand the meaning of its presence. She sighed ruefully. "Somepony activated the emergency siren…"

Sora sluggishly walked into the room she’d initially planned on visiting. The least she could do was deposit Yukito’s clothes, and it gave her an excuse to shed her own.

"The emergency siren?" Starbreaker parroted, raising her voice so Sora could hear her amidst the droning.

"Yeah! Our ruse worked, but now the Corps is freaking out even more!" Sora shouted back. It took her a minute to trot back into the lounge with only her bell on her neck, wings puffed up all over again. "And now we can't move from here at all, possibly for the next few days, because Yukito came close to overheating!"

Starbreaker frowned and crossed her forelegs. "Overheating?" she repeated.

Sora hastily nodded. "His augments go haywire if he overtaxes himself," she replied. "I had to take his clothes off, so he'd cool off faster. You saw how his legs were done up, didn't you?" At the nod of her charge, she finished, "Yeah, they play absolute hell on the rest of him. He can't trot for… probably much of tomorrow, I'm guessing. His augments aren't built to handle that level of overtaxing, and it would be the same if he fought with his hooves for too long, although the overheating would be slower to manifest in that regard."

"But they didn't look like they were overheating," Starbreaker muttered. "Nor did they feel like it."

"They wouldn't to you; Yukito told me you were fireproof," Sora agreed with a nod. "But trust me, he was overheating." She lifted a hoof and gestured to where a horn would be on her forehead, if she had one. "And he's gonna be having a helluva headache when he wakes up, because his alicorn's likewise going to be on the fucking fritz." She dropped her hoof as the tremors started again, and her tail bristled. "Great, is the whole damn city under attack all of a sudden?!"

Starbreaker gave a shrug, before jumping to her hooves, shucking her patient's gown and throwing it on the coffee table in a motion so swift that some parts of her coat and mane frizzled from the sheer friction. "If the city's under attack, I'm going to eat my own horn!" she exclaimed.

"Not before I hoof in my letter of resignation to the Admiral!" Sora hissed, and quickly trotted to the bedroom to see if the ruckus had, in any way, roused Yukito. The door opened, she poked her head inside, and relaxed a little upon finding that he was still asleep. In fact, Yukito was so far off into dreamland his ears didn't even twitch in response to the shaking of the building and the ongoing emergency siren. She pulled herself back into the lounge and watched the door close, before turning to Starbreaker again.

"I think we should wait for the commotion to die before we work on your fisticuffs. Because if the whole city's undergoing a tectonic upheaval—" The building promptly shook again as Sora said this, with enough force to make the both of them stagger, "—then we'll end up breaking our legs on accident before we know it!"

Starbreaker nodded and sat on her haunches, though she assumed a maniacal grin nonetheless. Her pupils shrank, and her irises gleamed with a power that made their rainbow hue turn very pale, to the point they seemed milky and dead. Sora recognized that look of malice, that anger bubbling within her adversary. She recognized that Starbreaker wanted to channel towards an object that garnered its ire, knowing full well that she herself was that object of ire. "Does this mean I can break your legs when the world stops shaking?" she asked, voice laced with a cruel joy and hooves shaking with anticipation.

Sora shifted her head to crack her neck, wings ruffling once more, aware that Starbreaker was probably envisioning caving her face in. "Not if I stop you from breaking them, but you're welcome to try," she snarked. The ground beneath the building decided to have another tectonic upheaval, but one that was barely little more than a slight jostling at this point. She sat down and waited, patiently, for the earth to stop throwing its tantrum before doing anything else. The tantrum kept on, but only took a few minutes before it all turned into weak jostling from down below that ran its course.

The emergency siren, however, still sang with urgency as it was wont to do. Sora crossed her forelegs and snorted, ears folding back in a futile attempt to drown out the cacophonous droning. "I'm almost expecting a damn—" she began, only to stop when the drone suddenly fell silent as the second, unprecedented sound of nails on a chalkboard wailed, followed immediately by a sharp shudder of static.

A no-nonsense masculine voice, one she recognized, boomed loud enough to echo across the city, "Attention citizens and soldiers of the Umbralium Corps, I have just received word that a slight earthquake has finished its course, so do not panic over it. I have also learned that bodies are spontaneously, insofar as I know, appearing within our streets with strange crystals affixed into their shoulders, and we are looking into that matter as we speak." A snort filled the air, briefly, followed by the stomping of a hoof and the unmistakable clicking, and cocking of a gun.

The voice resumed after the sound of metal landing harshly upon wood flooded the city, as the owner briefly paused to gnash his teeth together no less, "However, I bring grave and most troubling news: a war criminal who possesses a power unlike any other has been turned loose without any formal due processes. Up and literally vanished into thin air; upon further investigation, I have gleaned she'd been teleported out. Unfortunately, we cannot ascertain the location of this criminal at this time. Please inform any and all military personnel of where she was last seen, and remain calm."

The voice went on, taking on a scathing note as the owner continued with his dire warning, "We at the Corps are looking for a gray-teal unicorn with a long pastel-blue mane and rainbow eyes. Broken star and flames as a cutie mark." He paused for a few seconds, sighing ruefully, and with enough malice in the sound to chill Sora to her blades. The speaker who issued the warning continued on after a moment of silence, perhaps to collect himself.

What he said next only confirmed Yukito's worst fears, though only Sora could gawk as the announcement carried on, "We are also on the lookout for two personnel who disregarded orders entirely and are accomplices of this criminal; even going so far as to smuggle this criminal from the premises. The accomplices in question: a lilac pegasus with augmented wings and a long blond mane. Green eyes, and sword-and-shield cutie mark. And a blue unicorn with augmented legs, silver mane. Blue eyes and rod-and-serpents cutie mark. Do not engage any of them; the Corps will take care of them, as all three are highly dangerous." With that, another retort of static filled the air, before silence settled in firmly.

"... announcement at this point," Sora finished weakly, though her brain started replaying the whole of the announcement in her mind. But, she had no chance to ruminate on it, as the static cut in again.

That same no-nonsense voice decided to add in an additional two bits, "By the way… Private Sora Swiftcure and Professor Yukito Swiftcure, if you are still within the city with your sorry tails tucked between your hind legs, I have only this to say to you: you're both fired. Discharged, dishonorably, no due process or recognition whatsoever. As of this day forward, your haunches will be marked as nothing more than targets of the highest priority. And when we come to collect your sorry asses, we'll just put you in front of the firing squad and let them have their way with you."

The owner paused with a malevolent snort, and another cocking of the gun. "And that's assuming I'll be merciful enough for that, to even let you both live for long enough to stare down the barrels of every single rifle I can amass, given what you have just pulled today. Your antics have gone beyond the pale to such an extent that I legitimately wonder how long you two were plotting against the Corps."

Sora waited until the announcement concluded for good before throwing her forehooves and her muzzle in the air. "Fantastic! At least it means I don't have to hoof in that resignation letter after all!" she exclaimed, flailing her legs for a moment before her brain caught up to the announcement's second piece and did several subsequent double-takes. Slowly, her face drained of its color, and her hooves dropped to the floor with enough force to jostle her wings. She turned to Starbreaker, eyes widening and pupils shrinking as her mind started to cartwheel sideways. Her expression wailed of ten thousand gnomes fighting for dominance, in turn sending her entire thinking processes straight into disarray.

She took a deep breath of air after several long minutes passed, her chest puffing out and the hairs of her coat standing on end. What left her mouth then came in a strangled shriek, "How did that prick find out I was married?!"

"Hold up, you're married?" Starbreaker asked, standing up and rushing to Sora in a blur of motion so swift the discarded patient's gown fluttered off the coffee table in her wake. The two were nose-to-nose in seconds, and Starbreaker's legs were oddly rigid as she came to a standstill. Curiosity burst in her eyes, which shifted yellow, yet the manic grin was still etched on her muzzle. "I thought you were a loner; a freaky mare!"

Hesitantly, with no other option to take now that the cat was out of the shredded bag, Sora nodded. "I-I'm not… a loner. Y-you know… what m-married is?" she asked.

Starbreaker's grin widened to a disconcerting degree. She nodded in return. "It's when a stallion and a mare love each other very, very much, right?" she chirped, her voice dropping to a low, perplexed monotone.

Sora trembled, wings rattling. "Th-that… is… a very simple w-way to s-see marriage…" she muttered. "But… we…" She took a moment to clear her throat; it was bad enough she was being prodded about this, but the fact that Starbreaker of all ponies was doing said prodding with the craziest grin she'd seen yet only made it that much worse. "M-me and Y-Yukito... haven't h-had much time to spend w-with each other… b-because we w-were both working… and h-had to be d-discrete about our relationship for the last th-three bloody years..."

Starbreaker pressed her snout to Sora's, drilling deep into her soul with her gaze. "Maybe I'll just burn you both at the same time, in each other's hooves so you won't die alone," she cooed darkly, then pulled back with her eyes shifting back to their rainbow. "Eventually."

Sora swallowed a forming lump in her throat and took a deep breath. She glanced around the room, and her eyes fell onto her bell. She took several more deep breaths to gather her nerves; it would be bad for her to lose the marbles now, especially in regards to how rapidly downhill everything just flew as far as her and Yukito's military careers were concerned. Then again, she understood a certain level of discipline was demanded of them in that particular field, but even that did not excuse Trinity and the Admiral's antics as of late. "If it can make light… and conjure missiles…" she muttered, mental gears spinning at a mile a minute now.

Starbreaker's grin fell, and her lips twitched at their corners. "You're going weird in the head again, aren't you?" she queried in an accusatory tone, garnering a shake of the head as an answer.

"No… rather... " Sora trailed off, standing up abruptly and cantering to the coffee table, bell still clanging as she went. She set one hoof on it, and the other on her bell, rearing up a little for support. "Light… convert?" she tried. The bell responded, its cry growing more fervent and violent in tandem with its movements before its light embraced the coffee table like the aura of a unicorn's horn would. With a pop and a flash, the table vanished, and Sora whinnied before pulling back and reorienting herself on her hinds, eyes wide and expression one of dumbfounded disbelief.

"Light… return?" she tried again, and at once the bell responded with another violent clang, before it conjured a ray of light that made the coffee table appear right where it was prior to vanishing. She threw her forehooves into the air. "Okay, this is officially strange!" She gave it some thought and sighed. "I never had to do this with my missiles before…" With that, she turned to Starbreaker and asked, "Is this what it was like when you conjured your bombs and tried knocking me out?"

Starbreaker nodded. "Yes, except with my horn," she replied bluntly. "And I think instead of speaking out loud."

Sora reverted to all fours, wings tensing. "Well, now that I know I can pack more than missiles in my bell…" she muttered with a sigh. "Would you be fine with waiting for a bit?"

Starbreaker shrugged and crossed her forelegs, the manic smirk once more making a comeback on her muzzle. "I've been waiting to break your bones for the past month, and grazing for almost two years now after you stopped me the first time. What's a few more hours to me?" she retorted. She cracked her neck. "It'll be nice to have a fight. I need to do more with my hooves anyway."

Sora agreed with a nod. "And you'll be venting your anger, too. Productively at that," she muttered, eyes gravitating to the myriad of papers that dotted the walls.

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

Yukito slept for a good long, sixteen whole hours before he awoke to the sound of blades clattering and hooves madly stomping about, interspersed by mares shouting at each other. His ears twitched, and he winced as a massive headache pounded about his noggin with the force of ten hooves to the face. It ached and throbbed in tandem with a horrible heat that made his very coat feel as if the room itself were sweltering, and his alicorn feel like molten magma. On top of that, the heat and pain somehow spread to his legs and made them far stiffer than he'd have liked, drilling right into his bones and playing his very nerves and augments like a xylophone. Each little twitch hurt something fierce, but forcing himself to be still was even worse, as that only ensured he did nothing to abate his agony.

He opted to snuggle deeper into the pillow his head was on, when his eyes lazily blinked open and spotted a piece of paper with something scrawled upon its surface crudely taped on the wall in front of him. Strangely, the paper was affixed where the nightstand and photo frame used to be. He stared blankly at it, brain sluggishly registering what it meant, before his hooves twitched. A tired groan left his mouth, dry and raspy as a creaking hinge, as he struggled to read what the paper had bore, which turned muzzy as his vision struggled to focus. It took him some minutes to clear the fog just enough to make out the scrawling.

"Found my bell could convert things to and from a thaumic state, and the Admiral's decided our cutie marks are now big red targets. I packed everything that wasn't nailed down except the bed using the bell, including all of the gauze in our medicine cabinet, my rifle and your research papers so the Admiral doesn't get his hooves on them. Will spar with Starbreaker for a few hours and see how that works out.

-Sora"

Yukito's mental gears spurned with a protest that sent electric shocks of pain and goosebumps skipping across his body, in turn amplifying his already-massive headache. Despite that, he made to sit up, wincing and gritting his teeth to keep himself from crying out. Blades clattered again, and this time he heard Starbreaker shriek, her voice muffled, "Hey! Hooves do not go around my neck!"

Well, at least she wasn't destroying anything, if the stomping of hooves and repeated clattering of blades were an indicator. He flopped back down on the bed, completely exhausted despite having just woken up, lazily listening to the ongoing commotion, waiting for it to calm down. It took another two hours before the stomping and clattering and hollering stopped, and his smile widened when it did. He heard soft hoofbeats as soon as the commotion hushed. The hooves paused when a door hissed open, and then more hoofbeats filled in the void as somepony who was panting with exertion marched right up to him.

Sora swam into view, her coat ruffled and glistening with a heavy sheen of sweat that highlighted a few bruises on her barrel and shoulders. Her bell jingled a little as she came to a stop, and her wings were puffed and haggard. Her mane and tail were frazzled, with some parts sticking out on their ends in a few places. "How… was the sparring?" Yukito asked, shifting to look at her face.

Sora smiled back. "S-swell. Starbreaker's f-fisticuffs need a l-little more polish," she replied. "But she's getting the h-hang of it, and caught me off g-guard a few times." As if on cue, the door hissed open again, and a second beating of hooves filled in the room. Starbreaker trotted into view before halting, next to Sora as she took in some deep breaths to collect herself, her cheeks and legs sporting a myriad of cuts that had scabbed over on top of a few hoof-shaped bruises.

Yukito paused to process the note he had to read at a distance, and the more he absorbed its words and their meaning, the more his smile started to falter. He waited for Sora to finish taking in deep breaths of air and steady herself before his mouth opened and the first thing that came to mind rolled off his tongue. "So… the great dickbag himself has branded us traitors?" he asked. Sora's smile fell, and both she and Starbreaker gave grim nods. At this, Yukito sighed. "I'd expected as much. This will probably… be the greatest bout of insubordination history has seen yet."

"Announced as much to the whole fucking city, fired us both from his office and on top of that, somehow found out we're married," Sora stated bluntly, lifting one hoof and waving it erratically about at some point past the wall before dropping it and pawing at the floor. "I'm not sure if we should leave as soon as you can trot, or stick around and venture back to the base to figure out the how." Her lips twisted into a fast-deepening frown. "I'd take a look, but the city's basically on lockdown until the Admiral and the rest of his lackeys ascertain our location."

Yukito's eyes went wide, and with a wince and a groan he sat up again. "Y-you're kidding, right?" he stammered, fear edging into his voice. That garnered him another glum shaking of the head. "Th-the prick found out?" Two nods replied in mute tandem that time.

"How, I have no clue," Sora replied, wings drooping a little. "And that's what worries me. Sh-Sham made sure to hide the evidence when she was still around, and s-so did we…" She kept pawing at the floor, ears folding back and wings coming close to dropping their blades upon the floor again. "Either we missed something, or somepony went to the nearest mayor and dug through the catalogs thoroughly. Regardless, unless we do something sometime this week, we're pretty much fucked."

Yukito pursed his lips, mental gears kicking into overdrive in spite of his headache. Great. Fantastic. Just what he needed to start his day. Truly, things could only continue to get better before the sun set, if it wasn't setting already! Reluctantly, he shifted his hooves beneath him and made to roll off the bed with a grunt of exertion, almost falling rather ungracefully off of it before catching himself in time. One by one, his hooves shakily took their hold on the floor, and he hauled himself up upon wobbly legs that didn't want to cooperate. He swayed in place for a moment, almost collapsing into Starbreaker, but seized control of his aching muscles in time and forced himself to straighten his posture. Sora carefully draped a wing over him to keep him steady, and through the tarantella playing hell on his nerves, he managed to smile at her. "We sh-should move… wh-when I can gallop," he muttered.

Sora nodded, and turned to Starbreaker, who merely canted her head. "Where?" she replied bluntly.

Sora sighed, realizing her charge had a solid point. It took her several minutes to come up with an answer, but not before she mentally sifted through ways with which to piece together that answer in something Starbreaker could hopefully understand. "Our best chance would be Aeverafree," she sighed, wings finally dropping and letting her blades clatter at those prospects, though she was careful enough to keep one set of blades from cutting Yukito on their way down. "Of course, we'd at least have to trek the Crested Plains and head past the Hollowed Gorge, that much I know… past that, though, we're pretty much lost ducklings." She shivered. "And the area around the Gorge is flat, snow-capped, and empty for miles and miles… shelter's going to be a bitch to find…"

Yukito's smile fell again, and was quickly replaced by a frown. His legs wobbled, and one of his hooves started pawing as he was seeing what she was getting at. "And we'd h-have to remove… the chip for us to have a-any chance of living, i-if… the Corps disables y-your flight somehow..." he groused, eyes gravitating to Starbreaker again. "O-of course…" he trailed off, letting Sora register his unspoken meaning.

"If they do," Sora agreed with a nod. She promptly turned to Starbreaker and donned the sternest, and stoniest glare she could possibly muster. Then she leaned a little, just to let her charge know she was being stared at. Starbreaker turned to stare back, assuming her manic expression in turn. For some impressive ten minutes after, the two merely stared in mute tandem, one turning cold and the other deliberately trying to unnerve her opponent. The room could have turned absolutely frigid on one side and hellishly smouldering on the other; as far as this staring contest was concerned, neither was giving the other any quarter whatsoever.

Yukito was about to open his mouth to call for a halt when, hesitantly at first, Starbreaker fell to her haunches with her ears turning back. Her grin twitched, and her pupils shrank to pinpricks, struggling to hold onto any shred of intimidation, as all the while Sora's face barely shifted in the slightest. Still, the staring contest persisted, but only for another two minutes after that before Starbreaker blinked.

Sora donned a very tiny, very pleased smirk. "If we remove your chip, will you promise to not blast us straight into hell the moment we do?" she asked, voice laced with a rather defensive edge about it as she reached for her bell. "Because, frankly, you've been branded and are already on the same prioritized shitlist me and Yukito have managed to land on. Last thing all of us need is for them to see the smoke and come to douse out the fire."

Starbreaker's smile dropped, her lips contorting into a grimace. She understood, fully well, of what was being asked of her. However, that request conflicted with her still-strong desire to torch Sora and Yukito where they stood. She weighed it as carefully as she could, considering that were she to do said torching the moment the magic-soaking stone in her head was removed, the Corps could just find her almost immediately after and kill her the instant they saw the fire. This ended up making her head hurt within thirty seconds, and all she did was mull it over. Sora's steely gaze did not falter still, which made her growing ache a little more unbearable.

Something within those unblinking green pools shifted, that much she could ascertain, but what it was exactly had been something she couldn't put her hoof on. Sweat started beading her brow as she tried with all of her might to stare back, though Starbreaker found the effort slowly but surely crumbling to dust. She remembered that cold glare, and its familiarity was something she hoped she did not have to sense again. Alas, she eventually nodded, ruefully and begrudgingly conceding Sora's point. "Fine, I won't summon the Crimson Light on your hides, nor will I burn you… just yet," she muttered in defeat, with as much sincerity as she could muster.

Sora nodded and blinked a few times. She sighed, her closed wing drooping again. "This is weirder than that time I confronted a pony spouting about how two ponies in the Clash got screwed up," she muttered.

Yukito turned to Sora, a brow climbing his forehead. "One l-lost her body, th-the other his m-mind?" he asked. Sora nodded.

"I can only hope that pony and the other… they mentioned got their bodies back and their minds together," Sora sighed, ears folding back. "If… they survived the Clash."

"A pretty big if… at this rate," Yukito groused, his own ears folding back, "but currently, neither here nor there." He heaved out a deep exhale, and took in an equally-deep breath of air immediately after with a wince. "Gha… the mana drain is r-really going to town…"

Sora lifted and then rubbed his withers with her wing, careful to avoid cutting him with her blades. "Just don't push yourself," she muttered, and made to speak further when a particularly cataclysmic retort shook the ground and building, in turn causing the trio to stagger. Sora hastily retracted her wing, raising it just high enough to avoid slicing anypony as they all fell onto their barrels. As this new quake shook everything around them with enough force to make the bed jump and rattle, the emergency siren went off again.

"What i-in the world?!" Yukito cried, hooves shifting to cover his ears as his headache amplified into an all-out migraine. The shaking lasted for but a good thirty seconds, yet it felt as though it stretched to an eternity before everything fell still. He grit his teeth as the distinct sound of radio static hummed through the air once again, only to fizz out in a matter of seconds.

The Admiral's garbled voice echoed throughout the city again, this time with a distinct note of urgency, and he was repeatedly cutting out throughout his frantic tirade, "Attention everypony! The co—site has just deto—for reasons yet u—! A thick smog has—and I want all the ci—k shelter immediately! I assure y—ill deal with—as soon as we can! I repeat, the compost—ust deto—and all citizens are advised—ter immediately!"

"Th-the compost site?" Sora stammered, eyes widening.

Yukito frowned and was the first to rise onto his shaky legs. "I-I hope… it w-wasn't the compost s-site. I-if it was, I-I hope Omega m-made it out a-alright," he muttered.

Starbreaker rose onto her hooves next, followed by Sora. They exchanged glances, both frowning deeply as they struggled to process what this new announcement meant. All the while, the emergency siren continued blaring throughout the city, its pitch rising and falling without stopping its shrieking. Silence gripped the trio, firmly, and it took several minutes before anypony could voice what was going through their heads.

"How much… borrowed time do we have, before the Corps starts hunting for us again? How s-soon can we fly out of here...?" Sora muttered, pupils dilating as the question rolled off her tongue. Neither Starbreaker nor Yukito made an attempt to answer, for they had no answer to give or create.