The cloaked ponies shared glances, then looked at Starbreaker as her horn continued to crackle with an ominous pyre that distorted the very air around it. She stared back, tail swishing with an eagerness she couldn't hide. Her manic smirk, appearing demonic under her own light, widened as her eyes shifted to a blood red. Her sclera blackened, and her eyes narrowed, issuing an unspoken challenge to the whole lot. Her mane and tail waved wildly in the red glow, despite the lack of a breeze, and the carriage rattled with her power. Besides that, though, she didn't move at all.

The cloaked ponies didn't budge, either. The standoff was tense, one side slowly realizing that the lone unicorn who'd just ripped something out of her skull was not going to back down anytime soon; said lone unicorn grinning unnervingly as she waited for any tell-tale movement that would signal somepony making the first move. Legs shuddered, just barely concealed by black garments; as chills raced from one cloaked pony to the next, that demonic gaze flicked to them, sizing up the opposition. All the while, their opponent's mane and tail seemed to writhe and spark fitfully, before her magic embraced them and made them start glowing with flickering lights that made the long locks look like pale fire itself, something that was unnatural in every sense of the word.

Then, slowly, Starbreaker put just one hoof forward to see what the cloaked weirdos would do. They did not move an inch. She tilted her head a little, ears twitching. Still, the cloaked ponies did not shift in the slightest. Her flames popped and receded, leaving just her red light as the only visible indicator that she was still casting any spells. Finally, one stupid but brave soul charged forward, his horn glowing.

As soon as he'd moved, however, Starbreaker's horn became wreathed in fire—and so did the cloaked pony. He made to scream, but crimson magic rushed over to clamp his clothed muzzle shut, and held him up as he flailed his legs in a desperate hope of putting out the fire. His magic raced around before sputtering, trying in vain to cancel the flames. The garments burnt off, revealing a unicorn who oddly wasn't augmented in any way that she could see, though any augments wouldn't have made much difference at this point. His fur fell off, the flesh beneath blackened as the fires consumed him.

Starbreaker turned to the rest of the cloaked ponies, who all took a step back. "Do you wish to join him? I can arrange that, if you'd like," she offered, smile widening fractionally. His comrades, wincing and choking on the smell of burning flesh, flared their horns and disappeared in flashes of light.

Starbreaker trotted to the lone soul left, staring into his wide and pleading eyes with her own augmented ones. She watched impassively as he burned, waiting for the life to which he clung so desperately to leave his eyes. It didn't take long for them to start glazing over, and with a huff she dropped him on the ground, dimming her aura just enough to let him lash out as he liked. His horn sparked and ceased glowing, and he slumped over with nothing more than a wheeze, legs kicking out in one last feeble attempt to douse the flames. His efforts only granted him more pain, and each breath burned the insides of his body as he inadvertently inhaled the smog his own sizzling flesh produced. He managed to gurgle out, "You… abomination…" with one final surge of adrenaline-fueled strength that made her aura weaken further around his muzzle. It came out in a hoarse voice, before his limbs shuddered haltingly and went stiff.

Only as the unicorn stopped moving entirely did Starbreaker fully release him, lift a hoof to roll him on his back, and study his smouldering remains. She watched as the last of the light left his eyes. She put a hoof to his chest after that, then applied pressure—slowly, to ascertain if he'd been augmented within. The crunching of bones reached her ear once she forced her hoof down far enough, and she pulled back to trot around him, her flames receding away from him entirely, leaving a charred husk behind. "At least those cloaked freaks will leave me alone now," she muttered contemptuously, her mane and tail ceasing movement a second later once her magic fully dissipated from the locks.

The carriage started to rattle again as she went deeper into the woods. Her eyes reverted, and her horn took another moment to dim entirely as she trotted at a brisk pace again. Once she was clear of the burnt carcass, she veered left and once more went to glancing this way and that for anymore signs of trouble. However, nothing came at her now—the forest had seen the warning she issued, it seemed, and so decided to not provoke her anymore.

Which was good for Starbreaker. After the weirdness of the past few hours, she'd needed some time to herself. Although she hated that she had to play driver, everypony else was in the carriage, leaving her to her own thoughts. And now that she could defend herself whenever the need arose, she found it almost… laughable that a tiny rock implanted in her head was what kept her from casting. To be fair, though, she hadn't expected the Corps to even have such rocks in their possession—which made it even more ridiculous.

Then again, she hadn't expected her mortal enemy to suddenly run herself ragged, either. Starbreaker shrugged at this, but she still couldn't help but wonder why Sora had gone weird in the head—all she knew was that she could see that weirdness of mind from the very second they met on the Plains all those weeks ago.

Another tree caught her eye, fallen and hollowed out and directly in her path. Starbreaker stopped, snapping out of her stupor; she peered at it, then paused to sniff the air. A scent of rotten wood permeated the air now, and as she stared at the tree, she noticed yet more irregularities with it. No moss, for starters, hollow and yet holding together with a distinct bow along its whole fraying length. Not even one insect was present to skitter along its surface.

She huffed, horn glowing with a dimmed light. Her magic embraced the fallen trunk and hefted it up with laughable ease, though it collapsed in on itself as it was parted from the ground. Slowly, Starbreaker twisted it in on itself from the sides, smirking as the brittle, rotting wood snapped without an iota of resistance. Within the course of thirty seconds, her magic had reduced the trunk to a pile of floating splinters, which she then made vanish in a flash of light. After that, she simply carried on; the air grew colder around her, but thanks to her various fibers and synthetic materials that made her fireproof, Starbreaker didn't even notice the chill at all.

The carriage continued to rattle with her every step, but there wasn't much she could do about it. As she passed another fallen tree and into a second clearing, she turned to the carriage to find Omega peering out at her from in front of the curtains, frantically mouthing something and bashing his snout against the window. Perplexed, Starbreaker stopped, undid the harness, then trotted around to magically open his door. "What?" she asked.

Omega flopped on the floor where he was, twisting to look at her with his hinds scrabbling to lift his bottom up in the air. Starbreaker had to admit, it was sort of amusing to see him do that. "C-can ye help me a bit?" he asked, ears folding back. "Gotta… use th' bathroom…"

Starbreaker rolled her eyes, but nodded and magically yanked him out of the carriage. She trotted to some bushes, magically dragging the carriage behind her as she parked him behind a tree. She turned away, lifting one hoof to her torn ear and covering it as a few… distinct sounds filled the air, broken only by Omega grunting and sighing. When he was done, he banged his head against the tree, just enough that Starbreaker could hear it. She pried her hoof out of her ear and magically lifted him up, but only enough he could stand on his hinds. He moved his augmented fronts… clumsily, for lack of a better word; if not for the crimson aura holding him, he'd have more than likely collapsed straight away.

"Thanks. I… don't think I'll get used t' my new legs…" Omega muttered. Starbreaker nodded, and slowly dragged him back to the carriage, keeping him at ground level and letting him flail his legs everywhere with the grace of wet noodles. He couldn't get his footing; every time he even thought he'd had it, one or both front hooves would slip on the twigs and leaves, which resulted in more flailing. Hell, once he reached the carriage with aid, he ended up slamming the door to his seat open on what Starbreaker presumed had been an accident.

She lifted him up and threw him onto the seat. She stared at his haunch, where of all things a wooden and metal crate rested proudly. "Is that your cutie mark?" she asked.

"Yep," Omega confirmed with a nod. "Talent's toting th' heavy shit… or as heavy as my body could take…" He sighed. "Gon' be a while f're I can do that again." Starbreaker nodded, and made to speak further when the rustling of a bush, followed by frantic stomping, filled the clearing. She tensed immediately afterward, glancing around fitfully as the hairs on her withers stood on end again. "What is it?" Omega asked, frowning as Starbreaker span in place all of a sudden, scanning the forest for any signs of trouble.

But nothing came at them or the carriage. Starbreaker turned to Omega and answered, tail bristling as she spoke, "Cloaked weirdos tried surrounding me earlier. They might come back." With that, she shut the door before Omega could get another word in edgewise, then hopped back into the harness to get it strapped on her. When that was done, she glanced around again—that time, catching a flash of red that, against all logic, shifted bright blue darting off to her right. Immediately, Starbreaker wheeled in that direction, trotting briskly as the blur of color vanished as fast as it had appeared.

Bizarrely, it came and went with that stomping, and oddly enough another rattling and a rustling of… feathers? Fur? Whatever it was, it had just made itself a target—and that flash of red all but announced its presence. Starbreaker started to follow it, her own carriage rattling as she weaved her way between the trees. Her eyes darted to the ground, and she smiled again as she caught distinct tracks in the ground—scraping gashes ending in half-dome shapes, some deep enough to uproot small saplings. They were accompanied by tell-tale wheel ruts that neatly lined the fresh prints—the trail may as well have screamed 'something just went through this way,' and there was simply no way Starbreaker could have missed it unless she'd been blinded first.

Though tense, Starbreaker found herself getting giddy at the prospect of yet more trouble. She wondered what kind of creature could make such tracks, tail swishing eagerly as she gave chase. She cared not for the tracks as she passed them, smudging them with her own hooves, for she knew they would lead her to her newest quarry all the same. They weaved erratically between the trees, sometimes splitting in half whenever a root or two got in the way, with said roots scratched up in the wake of the creature that had passed through.

Starbreaker didn't mind jostling the carriage a little more than was necessary; her adversary was too tired to do much else at the moment, so she picked up her pace in her pursuit. Clouds gathered overhead, causing what little light that was already filtering through the canopy to fade out, and the air only grew colder as she trotted on past a clearing overgrown with weeds as the tracks led her deeper into the woods.

She giggled, the sound carrying through the branches thanks to the wind. Her quarry would have their reckoning soon enough.

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Sora slept lightly but soundly in the carriage, even as it rattled when Starbreaker decided she was going to go on a little hunt. She grumbled, mouth dry and muscles tingling with a fading soreness as her augments went to work healing her wounds, but she knew she had a few more hours yet before she could charge headlong into another fray. Conversely, Yukito slept heavily; he barely stirred at all when the ride got bumpy.

In tranquility, they slept in their embrace. Occasionally, they'd mumble about something or other, and shift around to ease sore muscles, but other than that they barely moved. After a few hours, Sora woke up first—even as the carriage started picking up more speed, and rattling more feverishly as a result. She made to get to the door, only to stop as a pair of half-metallic forelegs wrapped around her flanks and croup.

Yukito nestled into her neck. "Ngh… so… ruffled…" he muttered.

Sora blushed at the remark, but didn't say anything in response to it. Some part of her didn't want to rouse him if he was dreaming, and she smiled as he nuzzled her. She nuzzled back, garnering a sleepy chuckle. She pulled away after a few seconds, wondering if he was waking up, only to find his eyes still shut in a tight but otherwise peaceful expression. She rubbed the wing draped over him against his side, earning another chuckle as her secondary feathers fluffed up thanks to his fur. "S-stop… they're s-so soft…" Yukito muttered, wiggling a little as the feathers continued to caress him. Within seconds, he simply chuckled so much it woke him up, and lazily his eyes blinked open. "Wh-what time… is it?" he asked.

Sora shrugged. "Was going to look, but then realized you were still asleep," she replied, voice raspy as she spoke. Yukito managed a nod, before his brain caught up to the fact that he held her in his legs, and with great reluctance he let go and sat up. Sora sat up with him, slowly and carefully tucking her wings in, angling her blades towards the back window to cause the least damage.

Yukito alighted his horn and used his magic to wrench the door curtains apart, that time without a wince or even the slightest hint of reluctance. It took him a moment to register that his alicorn wasn't shooting daggers through his nerves anymore. "I don't know about… you, but I'm not aching anymore," he chirped. Then, he and Sora peered out of the window to try to look at the sky, only to find a dense canopy of orange leaves and twigs blocking their view. They stared out for twenty minutes, yet no matter how hard and how much they stared, the canopy barely changed. After that twenty minutes, the two engaged in a conversation.

"The forest looked so small from above," Sora muttered, frowning. "Is it seriously bigger on the inside than I gave it credit for?"

"More than likely, considering the amount of healthy trees I'm seeing," Yukito replied in earnest, before hearing the clunk of metal on carpet. He turned to the borrowed gun, which was now jumping in place thanks to the carriage's rattling, and seized it in his magic before making it vanish. "Forgot I left that there…"

Sora turned and smiled at her husband. "At least nopony pulled the trigger while we were asleep… unless you already fired using a different trigger?" she quipped, garnering a hearty laugh as Yukito turned back to her.

"Sora, please... I'm not a somnophiliac," Yukito snorted with an air of exasperation in his tone, trying and failing to contain the starting throes of a chucklefit. Sora laughed and nuzzled him, wings ruffling a little as her chest shook.

"I-I know you're not," she muttered in earnest. "It's just that… I-I couldn't resist."

Yukito chuckled again and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "I wouldn't have been able to resist, either, if we were sparring again," he muttered with an air of joyful reminisce; Sora giggled some more, recalling their previous sparring session.

"You… aha, you dweeb," Sora muttered in mock-exasperation.

"But if I'm a dweeb, then what does that make you?" Yukito fired back, amusement glittering in his eyes. The two shared a hearty laugh, and parted to look outside the window again to find a clearing passing them by. They saw just enough of the sky, which was heavily clouded, to determine that there was a chance it could storm tonight. "Hrm… should we seek shelter?"

Sora nodded. "Would need to be big enough to cover the ride, though," she replied. "I'm not sure if the wood has been treated to be waterproof."

"Well, as far as I can tell… these individual seats keep sound in," Yukito muttered with a shrug. "So we don't know what other surprises it has."

Sora nodded again, seeing his point. "True, true," she said. The carriage picked up in speed, rattling with the force of a stampede, and her brow furrowed. "What is Starbreaker doing?"

Yukito frowned and alighted his horn, grasping the curtains of the carriage that hadn't yet been opened. He flung them wide, and turned to look out the front of the carriage, finding Starbreaker harnessed and sent into a maddened gallop. Her head whipped left and right, but only in brief intervals that lasted mere seconds; her long mane made it difficult for them to ascertain her mood. "Just what possessed her all of a sudden?" Yukito muttered.

Sora looked to Omega, who twisted back and mouthed frantically at them in a manner that suggested he was shouting—mouth wide, pupils pinpricks, ears folded back. She studied his flailing gums for several seconds before piecing together what he was saying: "Said something about cloaked weirdos. Don't know what th' hell she harped on about."

"Cloaked…?" Yukito muttered, garnering a nod from Omega. At that point, Sora's mind clicked the pieces together. Had Starbreaker ran into more of them? Was that why she was galloping now? Up ahead, barely in front of their designated carriage-mare, she caught a flash of bright, neon blue that betrayed the faintest hint of red veering right. The carriage tilted to the side as Starbreaker twisted after it, with enough force to knock everypony within to the floor before a red glow forcibly re-oriented it back on its wheels. Sora shrieked as the carriage continued to jostle violently, and she forced herself to stab the floor with her wings just to keep from tumbling into and repeatedly crashing into Yukito.

All that did, however, was send the rest of her jostling up and down with the carriage as it veered and tilted with the force of a boulder. On top of that, even though she was anchored to the floor, she couldn't keep herself from sliding upon it thanks to how ludicrously sharp her blades were. Yukito's horn flared, and his magic raced to keep her and himself on the floor as, for a few seconds on end, the rattling stopped even as the carriage continued to move and gravity tilted inexplicably.

He chanced a glance outside the window and paled upon seeing a blue and orange blur shoot past Starbreaker—smashing what seemed to be a metal-enhanced hoof into her face. Worse, the carriage had been flipped upside-down, and her along with it. "We're being attacked?!" he squawked, eyes widening as Omega landed on his section of the ceiling first. Then, the rest of the carriage landed with a horrible screech as it skid across the forest floor, only stopping when its butt connected solidly with a tree—it was only thanks to his magic that he and Sora didn't collide into a window or the ceiling themselves, but even that could not stop the whiplash that rocked them. Yukito glanced to ascertain the damage with a groan; frowning as he saw a slight crack in the window, but nothing more.

"The glass… is reinforced…" he muttered, before the carriage shook from the front as something crashed into that window. He turned to find Starbreaker now pressed up against it, out of the harness and her back to the glass. In front of her, however, there was a clearing, and a bluish form retreating into the trees, and a large wad of dirt held together with ice at the side of the clearing. Slowly, Starbreaker rose to stand, turning to look into the window as she did so.

Sora gawked upon seeing the stone no longer embedded in her head, but rather the hole where it used to be. On top of that, however, something stuck out from beneath her horn, embedded with enough force to make blood trickle down her face, and a series of nasty, bleeding gashes stretching in three thin lines across her breastbone to end at her left shoulder. Starbreaker lifted a hoof and wrapped her fetlock around the offending object before wrenching it out, revealing two things: one, being a dubious grey area with a suspect metallic gleam where the wounds were, and two, the object in question being some sort of long blade. It had no handle, no fletching, or even protrusions jutting from its sides; it was simply a long, thin, sharp blade ending in a tapered point that had dented.

Then, Starbreaker's horn alighted, and her magic seized the carriage before lifting it and flipping it right-side up, sending Omega back to the floor in the process. When that was done, she trotted to the second door and threw it open, having sensed two pairs of eyes on her. "What the hell happened?" Yukito muttered, eyes gravitating to the mysterious blade that had tried and failed to make Starbreaker's skull its new home.

Starbreaker responded by lifting Sora in her magic and yanking her out, then parking her at the side of the carriage. "I found weirdos hauling something," Starbreaker replied, nostrils flaring. "Two of them. I tried following them, and they threw… that thing at me." She lifted a hoof and gestured to the frozen mound of dirt for emphasis, then took hold of the single blade in her magic to wave it erratically. "And this hit me a second later."

Sora's brow furrowed. "So that's why the carriage… flipped?" she asked.

Starbreaker nodded. She trotted to the front, and Sora followed her to find that the harness, miraculously, made it out of the ordeal intact. They looked to the top of the carriage, which was a bit scratched up but otherwise looking alright. Starbreaker turned to the harness, evidently to get herself strapped in it again, only to be stopped by a bladed wing. "I had to, alright?" she muttered.

"It wasn't that… although you could have woken me up to tell me you were going to remove the stone, unless you were attacked and had to wait until after," Sora started, frowning deeply at this turn of events. "Which, as far as I can tell, is what I'll assume to have happened. I was about to ask… what did your attackers look like?"

Starbreaker glowered at the question, ears turning back. "I found a few cloaked weirdos, but they left me alone. These… ponies, I think, weren't like them at all; they moved too fast without teleporting—all I can say is both had horns, one was short, and one had strange metal legs," she answered.

"Like what Omega has?" Sora asked, garnering a nod.

"Yes, but with claws…" Starbreaker replied, alighting her horn and willing her magic to put the straps back on. "And the metal only went up to here, on all legs," she added, using the stray blade to gesture at an elbow and gaskin for emphasis. Sora's expression darkened at what little had been relayed to her, but she had to admit some intel on the assailants was better than none.

"So… what do you want me to do?" Sora asked, donning her mask of apathy again.

Starbreaker turned and smiled at her, just finishing strapping herself in for another go. "Just help me watch for the bastards in case they need to be burned. You can fly, remember?" she stated rhetorically. Sora internally facehoofed, but spread her wings and flapped a few times to alight on the roof of the carriage. She caught a glimpse of blue magic shutting the opened door, and then a burst of light shining from a window before another flash had her shutting her eyes briefly.

When she opened her eyes, Yukito sat on the roof with her, borrowed rifle in hoof. He moved to climb on Sora's back, and with a sigh of reluctance she drooped her wings to allow him onboard. Once he finished jostling into position, he turned to Starbreaker. "Very well, we'll cover you from above. But don't charge headlong into danger like that again; we still have to treat Omega when the threat passes," he grumbled.

Starbreaker heard his comment and nodded. "Can do," she replied simply, before making her borrowed blade vanish in a flash of crimson light. Sora flapped and started to fly above the carriage, groaning in tandem with her husband at the prospect of yet more trouble. A few miles ahead, they noticed, was a blurred, fast-fading figure racing to the nearest of the mountains that separated the Crested Plains from the Hollowed Gorge.

"They're going straight ahead, whoever they are," Sora barked, donning a no-nonsense tone. "May as well start charging!" Starbreaker reared up for a bit before she started charging through the forest in a mad gallop, and with a bit of reluctance Sora flew after her, making sure to keep her speed roughly matched with her nemesis so as to not go ahead nor too far behind her.

Distantly, she and Yukito heard a stallion shouting. "Damnit, Tsih, we're going as fast as we can! Yes, we know we gotta lose the damned Star-Blasting Light! Just keep your fucking frogs still!" he yelled with enough volume to echo across the forest, even through the sound of beating hooves and flapping wings. Whoever he was, she had to give credit where it was due: that stallion had one good set of lungs to be able to manage that feat.

"Tsih…?" Sora muttered, frowning as she realized the name sounded… off. It wasn't one she was even the least bit familiar with, though she could've sworn she'd heard it somewhere before. The where, when, and how eluded her, however—that section of memory where it should have been relegated to had simply gone blank. "Who in the hell would name their foal Tsih?"