The distant roars kept on howling, almost like a warning siren that had a different tempo. Sora tensed and dropped her hoof, ears straining in an attempt to catch for anything else that wasn't in the immediate radius of the cavern. Starbreaker groaned and ground a hoof against the floor, tail twitching with anticipation. "This is worse," Starbreaker spat, averting her gaze to Sora briefly, "than having all of my bombs destroyed at once thanks to your stupid shield."

"We'll continue this discussion later," Sora muttered, still straining to catch anything else she could hear. Unfortunately, all she could get beyond the crackle of the fire was that distant roaring. Each echo, each reverb, each repeat of that horrible sound started driving needles of dread directly into her augments—small, thin needles that slowly but surely started to pile up. Needles that had enough numbers to halt her own body several times over if she allowed them to. For minutes, she didn't dare count how many, that terrible sound continued without end.

She shook herself, trying to cast the invisible needles off. But that distant, repeating noise only brought them right back. She wouldn't dare admit it with Starbreaker right next to her, but… she knew things were wrong. Worse, half of those things beyond the intangible just didn't make sense—she couldn't work out the how, much less the why. And with those needles of dread sinking into her heart of hearts, she felt the first courses of primal fear running through her nerves.

Now, of all times, was not an ideal situation to let that primal fear take control. So she put on her mask of apathy—only now, Starbreaker was looking at her intently. Sora returned the look, and noticed something off about her charge straight away. Her jaw was oddly set, and for a fleeting moment, there wasn't any sort of malice to be seen in her prismic eyes. Not one shred. Not one spark, nothing so much as an atom's worth of ill will. It was as though they stood on equal footing—of and for what, though, she could not glean.

But she could tell that Starbreaker knew that her mask had already cracked—her expression alone told Sora that much. Truth be told, she'd much rather welcome this uncomfortable spotlight than the primal fear that surpassed even her own augments. "You're not alright… not at all," Starbreaker muttered slowly, almost too carefully at that. Her words came with an unusual air of acute awareness that could not have come from a madmare, much less one whose talent was destruction—yet did.

Sora slowly nodded, though she'd expected to hear something like that come out of Yukito's mouth. "What," Starbreaker began, tail lashing, "is making you weird in the head?"

Sora sat on her haunches, seizing just enough motor control to avoid slipping. She did not seize enough, however, to keep her mask from breaking further. "... a lot of things," Sora answered uneasily, her voice cracking ever so slightly. She winced a second later, as if her own words were hot coals whose burn registered far too late. Still, she held her nerves, even under the onslaught of the needles of dread and her charge's very flat expression.

"If you really are an ultimate weapon as we suspect—and, let's face it, you have the makings of one in your body—" Yukito briefly shut his mouth when that unusually stoic stare came his way, considering earlier what he'd said that day, "—then why would you willingly come with us? You could have burned us, after all, and then go about doing laps around the Corps once we were ash." That caused Starbreaker's expression to falter, and a very dour frown formed on her muzzle, and her eyes shifted once again to that deep blue. She considered it for a moment, and her ears pinned back.

Starbreaker opened her mouth to answer, only to close it a second later. She maintained eye contact with Yukito for a few minutes after, then averted her gaze to the entrance of the cavern. Sora straightened her posture with pupils shrinking; she'd expected another dark promise to come from her charge instead of this. Whatever the case, that one gesture she didn't see coming was telling—and it was one she almost didn't want to believe herself. Her eyes didn't change back to their standard prismic, either—itself another sign that didn't go unnoticed.

She turned to the fire and trotted over before rearing up and repeatedly bringing her front hooves down onto the now-ashen tinder, scattering motes of still-burning embers as she worked with a suspect amount of haste to put out her own fire. Yukito lit up his horn to cast light, watching the disconcerting display with his own eyes widening. He tried his best to gauge whatever turmoil lay in her eyes; he found traces of sanity and dread glimmering within, almost as though she were afraid of what she had done.

Something was wrong with Starbreaker. Very, very wrong. He turned to Sora and mouthed, "Look outside and see if they're coming." Sora nodded, and got up to trot to the entrance to gauge the situation, internally praying to the old gods that this unusual behavior would be the last she'd see from her charge—her dark promises were worrying enough! She dropped her blades again and trudged up to the overhang, keeping a low profile to avoid the stalactites on her way. By the time she'd reached the entrance, the snow had piled up thick enough to easily brush up against her barrel, worsened still by the pine tree that just kept shedding branchfuls of the stuff.

Past this, however, she saw dark forms and distant glimmers going in circles up above, right under the dark clouds that kept making snow. Lightning danced for brief intervals, revealing massive turbines and flapping...

Sora pulled her head back in and went down the slope before either of those two things could detect her. She was not going to stick around for that nonsense, nor was she going to fly into it and paint an even bigger target on her cutie mark. But she noted sourly that there were few options left… unless…

Her mental gears started to turn as she delved into that darkness of the cavern, finding those shadows oddly comforting—perhaps due to the company she now kept. When she caught sight of a familiar light and the cessation of stomping hooves, she trotted faster to meet up with the group. Sora's brows rose when she returned to the cavern, as she stumbled upon a sight she wasn't sure whether to find amusing or disturbing.

Starbreaker was trying to use her forehooves to snuff out the light of Yukito's horn, eyes wide and pupils dilated. Yukito didn't even do anything to push her away, instead opting to look at her with a bemused frown. Starbreaker acted like a mare possessed, doing everything in her power to stop Yukito from casting—without alighting her own horn or even knocking him to the ground. He, in turn, did nothing to stop her worrying antics.

Sora strode over as she emerged from beneath the stalactites, mental gears grinding to a halt at the sight. "Whoo-kay, what's going on here?" she asked, letting every ounce of confusion she had give an edge in her voice in that moment.

"The shadows hate light, they hate it! Stop making that light or they will strike us!" Starbreaker babbled, worry tinting her tone without restraint. Even as she managed to cup her frogs on the tip of Yukito's horn, she failed to keep what little light that could seep between them from shining upon his head.

"... whaaa?" Sora blinked and shook her head, mentally short-circuiting at what she'd heard.

"I have no idea," Yukito muttered, and he would have shaken his head if part of it wasn't clasped by a pair of hooves. He settled on averting his gaze to Sora.

"Stop making the light!" Starbreaker muttered harshly, bringing her voice to a whisper as she was trying to tighten her meager hold without breaking her hooves again. Yukito groaned and ceased casting, plunging the cavern into darkness. She relented a second later, tail twitching fitfully as she dropped to all fours. After that, she trotted to her seat of the carriage, opened the door, jumped in and closed the door behind her as if that could stop the shadows she spoke of from attacking.

Sora facehoofed once she was certain Starbreaker wouldn't poke her head back out. "Some part of me is really, really glad she didn't harp on about that back at the base…" she grumbled in exasperated confusion. "Not that I understood half of what came out her mouth." She dropped her hoof and trotted to Yukito with a heavy sigh. "And the Corps already sent out what looks like a reconnaissance crew over the Plains. We're gonna have to tear these mountains a new hole if we want another way out."

Yukito nodded and trotted to the second door of the carriage, opening it with a hoof. Instead of climbing in, however, he moved to stand behind the open door with a nod. Sora nodded back to him with a smile and trotted to clamber in with a silent "thank you" mouthed to him. Once she settled in, her husband came after her and closed the door behind them, shifting to lay down into the bundles of blankets and call it a night. He unfurled one of the rolls with his hooves, and Sora spread out the other roll, making sure to not cut into it with her blades.

Once the blankets were unfurled, they crawled into them and rested their heads on their pillows, smiling as the plush seats worked in tandem with the blankets to keep them warm. "Do we have to kill the ponies who attacked Starbreaker?" Sora muttered, smile fading with disdain at that prospect.

"LIkely, yes, and I hope it doesn't come to that…" Yukito replied with a sigh. He shifted to scoot closer to Sora and lightly nuzzled her once he was in range. "Though, we might not have to kill them at all. It's like our consummation night—I doubted we could even pull it off."

Sora giggled and rustled her tail a little. "Just tell them they'll be in the crossfire of the Corps if they don't head east?" she muttered.

"Something to that effect," Yukito replied, a tinge of amusement in his voice. He frowned, though, and asked, "I take it Admiral Prickleston is aware of what we were trying to do, aside from smuggling Starbreaker out?"

Sora glumly nodded. "Or at least, that we've been… wanting out one way or another this whole time," she answered with a tired sigh. "I'd think he'd have shot us both on the spot if I hoofed in our letters of resignation. Wouldn't be surprised if he started calling us two-faced."

"We pretty much gave him a reason for that, but at the same time, we couldn't let Starbreaker fall into his hooves," Yukito said, shifting a little closer. "If, of course, he planned to use her for something else instead of killing her outright. Which… may have been the motive for letting me patch her up."

Sora nuzzled Yukito, relaxing even as that morbid statement's implications sank in. "Trinity and Takahara said they wanted some 'fun' with her," she muttered with a shudder. "I'm glad we got her out when we did."

"And they'll stop toying with us and Omega, too," Yukito added, smiling rather wistfully as he raised his forelegs to hug Sora tightly. "So long as we stay away from their grasping hooves." He lowered his voice and asked, "But… why all the way to Aeverafree?"

Sora smiled in spite of the question. She saw this query coming from a mile away. "It's… one of the very few places I'd be willing to let Star trot about in, under supervision. It's not like the Corps, from what I heard," she replied sincerely. "We could get reliable help there."

"But we'd have to get there first," Yukito pointed out with a tired sigh. Sora nuzzled him and returned the hug. "Then again, you can fly…" He managed a smile. "I feel confident we'll manage. This isn't the first time we've been on the lam."

"Well, this is the first time we're having to run from an entire military force," Sora stated, giggling at that morbid thought. "But everypony from the privates to half the Majors won't lay hoof on me."

Yukito snickered. "They won't be able to, if I can teleport us all a few trots ahead of them," he retorted, somewhat amused himself. The two shared another laugh, and snuggled close to get some sleep. They didn't notice the shadows writhing and twisting outside of their carriage—how could they, when the curtains were closed?

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

"What do you mean, she left with the garbage pony!?" the Admiral barked, his office shaking and his desk jumping in place as he slammed a hoof down onto it with enough force to crack the wood. Before him, a heavily-bandaged, cast-sporting and wheelchair-bound Takahara quaked from the power of the shout, and not too far off, Trinity—who herself wasn't doing much better—quivered at the door.

"A-a… a fucking windigo teleported her out!" Takahara stammered, ears pinned back. "Just waltzed in, smacked us around, destroyed an operating room, and whisked the ex-private and the trash collector away!"

The Admiral snorted with an exhale powerful enough to rustle what little of Takahara's mane managed to poke from between the bandages. Slowly, he lowered his raised hoof and stared him down with a malicious glint in his possibly-augmented eyes. Briefly, his gaze flicked to Trinity, who whimpered and looked to the door as if begging it to open. Alas, the bar slid into place between the hooks sometime ago, and so couldn't open now.

"I couldn't have cared less if it was just the lovebirds and the Herald who'd escaped. But the garbage stallion… may have colluded with them," the Admiral growled, a dangerous edge in his voice that wasn't there a moment ago. "Gave them a means for them to even leave in the first place. Assuming, of course, they could escape the ravages of the Protocol." Another snort left him, playing with Takahara's mane as it danced past him. "But if they have… and there's a chance they did… then once the trash collector recovers, he'll most likely put his new augments to use against us."

The Admiral seethed in his seat, and Trinity could've sworn she saw one of his eyelids twitching in the darkness. "Tell me… what did the windigo look like?" he asked slowly, the dangerous edge dulling with his softened tone.

Trinity and Takahara balked in unison, and exchanged glances for a second before Trinity spoke up in a shaking voice, "It… was like solid darkness one second, and then… only half-there the next. It was walking o-on it's hinds, like some of our retired war-mechs…"

Takahara proceeded to continue where Trinity trailed off, "And it looked right mad… it had glowing eyes and everything! Hell, it was horned, and all three of the damned pointy things crackled like crazy!"

The Admiral nodded and quietly absorbed this information, wondering internally if Takahara made up the whole three-horned thing the windigo supposedly had on the fly, before lifting up both forelegs to cross them over the desk. The desk groaned in protest, but did little else beneath what little weight he applied upon its surface. "That is… troubling…" he muttered. "We're going to have a slightly harder time catching the missus and her herd if windigos of all things have come to her aid."

Trinity perked her ears up at that odd statement. Something about the Admiral's soft tone and choice of words put her on edge. "Slightly?" she echoed.

"Yes. We have the means to repel the windigos. But considering we have confirmed that one amongst their number can teleport… it is nonetheless a cause for concern," the Admiral replied smoothly, barely shifting his posture in the slightest. "If nothing else, that one teleporting windigo could have easily evacuated the rest of its ilk, well before the Protocol even reached them, should such prove to be the case."

"Should we warn the colony of Aeverafree and all the other settled provinces about the windigos, sir?" Takahara asked, frowning at that prospect. "Because… we got attacked by them, strictly speaking…"

The Admiral let the question soak in and toyed with that idea a few times in his head. As he contemplated his options, the office sank into an unholy, disquieting silence. His eyes slid closed briefly, and his subordinates tensed even as they opened again, for that unholy light of unbridled rage deepened the crimson hue into a dark bloody maroon. "Yes," he said, shifting in his seat after a few minutes. "We should also tell them to arrest Sora and her herd on the spot if they even try crossing their borders, until we can come to bring their sorry hides back here."

He waved a hoof and focused his hardened gaze on Trinity. "Send the word, Major. Do so telepathically if you must," he ordered in a no-nonsense tone. "We cannot spread our forces too thin, however; send a pegasus with supplies to all the provinces to deliver the warning."

Trinity balked. "B-but sir, I overtaxed m-my alicorn! P-Professor Tsukumi warned me a-against casting magic for th-the next two weeks!" she stammered.

The Admiral leaned back in his seat and lowered his hoof, turning to Takahara. "Colonel, are you able to cast?" he asked bluntly.

Takahara shook his head. "Not without pissing off our remaining doctors," he muttered dismally. "And… why just one pegasus with supplies to every province, sir?"

The Admiral flashed his subordinates a smile that the shadows thankfully concealed. "Because, chances are, the windigos might have attacked those areas as well. Perhaps the cloaked ponies who might have been sticking the mysterious crystals in the corpses of our citizens have come… to issue a dire warning," he answered, though his voice betrayed no amusement whatsoever at that prospect. "We've only had a visit from the spring chickens of Aeverafree… and they seemed healthy and hale, if not a bit too young for the burdens of leadership…"

Trinity nodded, seeing the logic of that. "Of course, the cloaked weirdos never gave any signs of a warning," she pointed out, ears turning back. "And those sons o' whorses left no other trace, if they are producing the crystals to begin with."

"And we don't know where they even came from," Takahara added. "Just sorta…"

The Admiral cut them off with a curt nod. He leaned a little closer to them, letting them see his wide and toothy smile. He savored their shudders, almost soaking in their pooling fear that was betrayed by their widening eyes. "You both need say no more," he muttered darkly. "If you cannot send word… either tell the medical staff, or I shall have to do so myself." He stood up and shifted to push his chair back. "You two are dismissed for the evening—and, quite likely, for the next three months at the minimum. Get some rest. And next time… don't use a joint attack unless it's absolutely necessary." With that, he reached under his desk and pushed on something on its underside, and the bar slid out of the hooks, letting the two sorry sadsacks wheel out of his office with cast-bound legs.

Once they left and the door shut behind them, the Admiral waited for the sound of squeaking wheels and discontent grumbles to fade entirely before ever lighting up his horn. He vanished in a burst of silver light, and reappeared in the confines of the massive room that held the giant furnace and transparent cages—or rather, what remained of it. Large swaths of ice covered the area, perfectly freezing the hapless ponies within their prisons, fogged up with contaminants that stayed a distance away from their horrified faces. The furnace fared not much better; it's flames had already died, letting no warmth permeate the large chamber. The lights were smashed, plunging the room into shadow.

And yet, in front of that furnace, in the dismal gloom stood a figure sporting glowing brown eyes. It seemed to have trained its gaze right onto the Admiral the moment he'd arrived, and the Admiral had to squint a little to determine its posture—ramrod straight, eyes level, with a dimming horn jutting from its head. It didn't move in the slightest, save for a darkness-concealed smile so slight it might as well have not been present at all. The Admiral glared at the figure, who mutely stared back with that contemptible expression—he could see it on its face, 'looks like I won.'

Neither found the gumption to take a step forward, nor to light up their horns anymore than they already had. Something, something about this figure's presence set off several alarm bells in the Admiral's head, yet he could not figure out what it was or why. The living shadow—he himself wasn't even certain it was equine—seemed content to stand there and smile knowingly. He donned his no-nonsense face, and knew something was up when an echoing, mirthless, all-too-feminine chuckle wormed its way out of the shadow's throat—assuming it had a throat to work with.

Finally, he addressed the thing, "What business have you here?"

The living shadow chuckled again; didn't look even the least bit affronted. Didn't dare utter a word, as instead it opted to lift a stiff, shuddering hoof and strike the ice repeatedly in movements that were simply so fast it was as if the leg wasn't moving. The Admiral noticed several metallic pings coming with each and every impact, before the thing channeled oddly white light into the resultant holes in the ice and vanished in a burst of light. Curious, he trotted over to the anomaly, both brows raised high and horn lighting up to better look at what he was about to get into.

On the floor, where the shadow stood, he found a message—a message that crackled in miniscule lightning bolts. He read it aloud to himself, if only to convince his inner skeptic that his eyes weren't playing another sleight of hoof on him.

This message also sported four carvings next to it—square-shaped, depicting a carriage, a five-point star, a knight chess piece, and a king chess piece. The Admiral studied the message and the square-bound scribbles, turning it all over and over again in his head. What nonsense had the being wrote? It took him moments to piece together the message's meaning, though—and his glower deepened when it clicked and only came out more cryptic in his mind.

He turned to look at the gathered prisoners, and noticed that behind their frozen expressions, he saw reflections of relief and… and anger. A moment ago, they were looking every which-way they possibly could; now, all eyes were inexplicably trained on him. The eyes of the frozen ponies burst into hellish fires one minute, then returned to their glassy stares the very next. He blinked, not certain if he was hallucinating, and his horn lit up as he realized that he couldn't take chances no matter what the case was.

He teleported back to his office before things could get any weirder, though he doubted that the scales of strangeness could be rigged anymore considering what had happened over the course of the previous day. Strangely, when he returned, he found that the projection light had been turned on in his absence, and he trotted to his desk to figure out why. His magic cupped the light, and he eased his glower as he found Professor Tsukumi standing in a room whose furniture was shrouded in white sheets. "Have you found anything?" the Admiral asked, shifting to sit down in his chair.

Tsukumi shook his head. "I even checked the off-duty building nopony uses anymore. Yukito was thorough in cleaning his quarters out; only the things that are nailed down have remained, and even they are barren. He somehow made off with the plaque, too—might have it repurposed for something else," he replied dismally. "It's as if he were a ghost." His expression hardened. "Curiously, the cameras there were ripped out at some point."

The Admiral groaned at that tidbit of news, which shed light on a little more of his ex-employees' antics as of late. This was the best vanishing act that Yukito had pulled yet, he had to give him that much. Some part of him started to regret having that bastard on the medical team, almost as much as he started to regret having Sora amidst his ranks, when she proved she wasn't one to be trusted. "I'll assume he did that so he could… test Sora's durability," he muttered with a wince; stars above, that sounded awkward.

"And he may have well squirreled the Herald in there as well, before taking his leave," Tsukumi finished, seemingly understanding what the Admiral was referring to. "We should've torn down the structure long ago, sir." He adjusted his posture for a second, swishing his tail. "That said, I already have the demolition crew gathered for that task. They shall set to it in the 'morrow."

"Have you found anything else on your end?" the Admiral asked, careful to not let hope creep into his tone. He knew better than to take that bait—especially now of all times, when things were still going topsy-turvy.

"The citizens came out of that freak icestorm and the Protocol unusually unscathed. There's little doubt in my mind—the weather was coordinated, and so was the attack on the base itself," Tsukumi muttered, glowering. "Every single soldier of every rank and file that came out of it alive reported living shadows—one upright, one crawling, and one quadruped."

"Windigos, I'd guess," the Admiral hissed, lifting a hoof to rub his temples. "Have you spread word of my orders yet? Or even received them, for that matter?"

Tsukumi nodded, donning a small smile. "Yes; Major Trinity informed me of them, and I sent out the word through swift teleportation. We'll be able to cut Sora off before she can reach any of the major provinces by the end of the month," he answered, oddly chipper. "She could travel to Aeverafree and be beaten by our more loyal pegasi in weeks; I made certain they were fitted with a small airship each to house the supplies needed for the trip."

The Admiral smiled back. At least things were turning up, if only a little. "Most excellent," he said. "Any signs of her passing?"

Tsukumi shook his head. "None yet, nor of her leaving except for the door she dismantled and the two medics that were slain," he replied. "But, she's bound to slip up—between her foalsitting the Herald and her adamantite-electrum alloy Zapper blades, we will at least get tell-tale marks indicative of where she has recently been. That's not even assuming when and if she'll… allow herself to be tested by her husband again." His smile widened. "She's made herself easy pickings… and when we catch her…"

The Admiral let his own smile widen, and ideas began swimming in his head. Oh, he'd make an example of Sora once he could get his hooves on her, and he'd start by tearing her troublesome wings off outright. Then he'd go to town as he saw fit. He'd made her beg for air once—what more could he make her hopelessly grovel for? "Let her get her hopes up—it will be far sweeter than if we quashed that hope here and now, when we do catch her," the Admiral ordered in a firm voice that belied his giddiness. "After all… we're going to need to let her lower her guard."

"Pity that the trash collector didn't tell us anything. A shame, too," Tsukumi lamented, smile falling as he spoke. "But then again… we shouldn't have expected him to know anything anyway."

"He might have still been privy to some information—Trinity stupidly had Sora deliver corpses to him," the Admiral retorted, shaking his head. "We'll have to kill him too, first chance we get. And Yukito, so he can't intercept."

Tsukumi nodded and smiled again. "That can be arranged, sir," he replied. With that, the projection light switched off and plunged the office into darkness again. Even with the good news he'd received, the Admiral couldn't take his mind off of the message the maybe-windigo wrote out to him before his very eyes. With little else to do, he took out his chessboard and mini-replicas, being careful to add a pawn in Omega's likeness and placed it in the middle of Sora's troublesome triangle, followed by vague shadowy things hanging off to the side. He even carved 'Page of Swords' into the base of one of the things, and frowned when it turned to his pieces the instant the carving was complete.

Neither of the other shadow-replicas moved. His frown deepened as he once again went over the cryptic message he'd gotten. A niggling feeling that something was amiss sank into his hardened soul. He just couldn't pinpoint what exactly that was, but he knew the source of that feeling… was now officially out of the premises of the Corps itself.

He steeled his nerve and scoffed at the warning within the message the shadow wrote to him. He'd make Sora pay very dearly for what she had done before the coming winter melted into spring, and he'd off Starbreaker for good measure. So he moved a chess piece of a faceless pawn towards the triangle, and turned to the side of the board housing Suguri's replica.

Oddly, Suguri's replica moved on its own—no less than three squares back.