The invisible Mira kept flying forward, the cold starting to sting at his fresh wounds and augments with a chilling vengeance that made him tremble slightly. He was grateful for his muffler; it kept what little warmth it could save. He was also grateful of the fact he was still ahead of the airship; that meant he and the other whackjobs he was now stuck with could ditch it faster.

That was, until he looked back and found out that lasers started sailing far too close for comfort—not enough to singe anything which got close, but still left their heat in passing. Mira stifled a squawk in his throat at the first one, veering sharply to the side in order to dodge the blast. Another near miss had him swerving right, nearly tossing the carriage doors open in his mad dash to escape being vaporized. A third almost snagged one of his wings by freak chance, but a near-miss downstroke proved lifesaving in the split-second the laser took up airspace in such tight proximity.

He beat his wings faster, and the air distorted around him and the carriage as he began to pick up more speed. He was probably going to get an earful for driving like a lunatic in the midst of a blizzard later, but it wasn't like he was the madpony piloting an armed airship. He scanned the landscape as best he could with the conditions present, looking for the quickest way out he could find.

Alas, white blinded everything within feet of him. He couldn't tell where the area past the Gorge was anymore. The search proved fruitless, and another laser careening above reminded him to keep his attention elsewhere until the storm waned. He dove low as a few more followed that fourth shot, watching as the volley sailed into the snowy gloom up ahead. Distantly, oh so distantly, he heard them impacting something—he could not parse whether it was ground or something else, as the winds muddled the noise.

But there were the echoes left behind—singing to him with a very distinct crackling he could not ignore. Some part of him screamed, something transcending even the primal, and he stooped downwards with wings tucked tight. Not a second later, a blasted missile sailed overhead, trailing smoke and emitting a beeping chorus that sang in tandem with the sputter of its fire. Mira's heart temporarily stopped upon seeing it travel farther ahead into the snowy gloom.

Seconds later, it emerged from back from the blizzard, head flaring with LEDs that were trained on him. A scream started its escape route from his throat, in turn causing Tsih's cloak to falter, but it died halfway through its journey when a flash of light embraced him and the vehicle. The missile exploded harmlessly into the air, and Mira reappeared in front of the smoke cloud, flying away from it… and feeling extra weight on his back along with hooves wrapping around his barrel.

He glanced back to find Yukito looking back at him, frowning ruefully. "Well, now I know they'll do anything to flush us out of hiding," he hissed, voice raised so he could be heard over the winds and laser volley, in turn making the cloak dissipate. Another missile sailed past them, red lights passing and then fading into the white that surrounded them.

"Translation: Hide and seek is out of the question," Brother unhelpfully piped up in the confines of Mira's mind. "Unless you can pull a miracle, we're all screwed," he sibilantly added.

Mira sourly nodded, scowling as he collected himself and turned ahead, anticipating the second missile. "So now what?" he asked.

"I would have Starbreaker help, but she might cause collateral damage," Yukito grumbled, horn glowing as soon as the second missile came into sight, followed by a third whizzing past them. He teleported himself, Mira, and the carriage once more, leaving the second missile to explode as the third changed course to head for the explosion. Reappearing behind the second smoke cloud, Mira grimaced as he realized he didn't hear a third explosion rocking the sky.

Mira glanced over his shoulder and his scowl only deepened. Of course, that third stupid missile was tearing its way through the smoke cloud now, aimed right on his and the others' haunches. Some part of him scrambled to formulate something, anything they could use to avoid certain death-by-shrapnel. He turned ahead, and the winds waned just enough for him to spy a tall shadow in the distance. The only thing he could make out was its erratically-shaped peak, molded into suspect round shapes jutting upwards.

Mira did some quick calculations as the missile slowly gained ground. It would be unlikely that this airship would crash into it, assuming what lay ahead was solid and corporeal. The pilot had probably seen what happened to their fellow, and rightly coming to the worst conclusion, would take steps to avoid that fate. He whinnied in tandem with Yukito as an explosion sang from behind, the shockwave of which was close enough to tilt the flight path and jostle the wagon's doors open. Though just as quickly as they opened, the doors shut with a series of thuds that briefly shook the reaches in his claws.

Yukito dared turn his head back, catching sight of falling blue and orange embers flickering out of existence as the shrapnel descended harmlessly into the snow below. He turned back to Mira and shouted over the din of the storm as he corrected his flight and the carriage, "You have any ideas?!"

Mira grimaced. "Not many!" he admitted. And that was a woeful understatement of his mental processes at the moment, as they scrambled to formulate something cohesive, feasible, and most importantly would help preserve everypony's hides except for the pilot behind them all. Another missile sailed past, and another, and another, almost taunting him as they vanished into the world of white ahead.

Then they came back, heads poised on them, side-by-side in such extremely close proximity that the explosions would probably join as one were they to go off prematurely. The pilot's voice went into a sing-song tone of mocking as Yukito prepared another teleport. Unfortunately, the brief sting was accompanied by the grating of the microphone on the receiving end of the taunt, "That endless bag of tricks won't get you anywhere. You'd best stop or else you'll drop then and there."

"This one's even worse than the last pilot," Yukito complained, horn flaring brighter as the missiles came closer. "If he's going to sing again, I might be left with another headache sooner than I thought…" With that, driver, ex-doctor, and vehicle vanished in one burst that made the missiles widen the berth between one another. The gargantuan cannons attached to the ship began firing everywhere, trying to detect their target.

Then the ones on the bottom tried to turn up towards the empty space between them as Mira found himself hovering right beneath the airship; he was close enough he could touch the cold metal with his wingtips and risk knocking the carriage's roof clean off if he sailed any closer. The ship shook as a laser impacted the side, then again as another followed. The missiles were even more confused; at their proximity to the massive vehicle, it was only inevitable that they collided with the front of the ship, though not before trying their best to separate in the last few seconds before the triad of explosions sounded ahead.

The pilot shouted in frustration as the vessel sailed harmlessly through the resultant smoke cloud, "Godsdamnit, Swiftcure! No wonder the Admiral wants your cutie mark as part of his new rug! I'll knock you and that bitch of yours out of the sky if it's the last thing I do!"

Yukito opted to not make a retort to this, instead focusing his attention once more on Mira. "Think you can fly a bit longer?" he asked suddenly.

Mira nodded, though his body shivered as it once more registered the decline in the temperature. "Gonna need to bundle up tonight though!" he retorted, frowning. "If you can think of something, smartass, let's hear it!"

"Sora made the last airship that detected us crash into a mountain! Do you think you can pull something similar?" Mira gave that strange suggestion some thought, before his brain concocted an image of the vessel that was close to the crystal castle. In moments, he shook his head.

"I'm not built for long distances! And the fuckers who augmented our legs didn't include thermal regulators!" Mira barked, eye twitching as he detected the faintest traces of frost building on his claws.

Yukito swore under his breath hearing that, noticing the mass up ahead was growing taller, wider, and darker. He hoped that wasn't thunderclouds he was seeing, because at this rate that wasn't promising with the present conditions. The airship shook again as its own missiles impacted it, and the smoke started to trail above and beneath it, but dispersed before it could reach the stolen carriage.

Mira tried squinting his eyes to see past the cloud of smog. Strange… was the whole world growing darker all of a sudden, or were his eyes playing tricks? He blinked, trying to dispel the strange fog that had overtaken his sight, before hollering to the murderous hitchhiker upon his back, "Isn't it still daytime?!"

"Maybe another thunderstorm's going to hit!" Yukito yelled back, hocks twitching. "We need to get away from this airship pronto!"

"And how are we gonna do that, wiseass?" Mira snapped, eyes narrowing as the landscape darkened some more, along with the rest of the world. He wondered if he had reached his limit, before a shrill scream blasted through the air with enough force to rattle the airship.

"Gah! You… how did you fuckers get inside the ship!?" the pilot howled, followed by the audible sound of a gun being cocked. The airship rattled again, and Mira nodded before descending and accelerating to put some distance between the vehicles. Shots were fired from within the vessel, feeding through the intercom as they impacted on steel with a distinct clang.

A few more missiles let loose, followed by a score of fifteen after that, whilst the cannons began to fire erratically once again, some shooting up into the wings and some shooting down into the snow. Yukito paid heed to this growing bedlam he'd found himself in, wondering what had suddenly gone wrong for the pilot.

The airship tilted slowly with a groan, one wing swinging down towards the ground. Mira saw the shift from the corner of his eye, and immediately corrected his flight to fly at an angle towards the dark object in the distance whilst also dragging the carriage farther and farther away from the flying arms factory. The missiles that were launched sailed into the white gloom by now, and for just a moment, Mira thought he'd have to dodge them again.

"Lemme go! I don't know what you assclowns are on about, but I ain't makin' a spark of light!" the pilot howled, continuing to fire shots as if that could save them from whatever decided to assail their hide.

A new, different, and distinctly hoarse voice filled into the feed, chilling Mira to the augments and down his spine as the owner spoke. "It's not you we're after… but you're still making light in this flying coffin nonetheless… don't worry, we'll fix that for you," the second entity said, followed by the sound of something smashing against steel with enough force to make the metal groan.

The carriage rattled slightly, followed by a distinct sound of hooves hitting glass. Yukito turned back to find Starbreaker had crawled to the frontmost cab, eyes wide and irises shimmering blue. She was moving her mouth a mile a minute, pounding again and again as though she wanted out. He took a moment to piece together what she was trying to convey, "The shadows that eat light! They're here! Fly away faster, damnit, I don't want my horn broken again!"

That made Yukito's brow furrow. He wondered if that was Starbreaker's insanity doing the talking, but then he noted the sheer desperation in her eyes and mannerisms. She pounded again and again, the glass shaking against her hooves as she kept striking like a trapped labrat that had been stuffed into a cage. He turned to Mira again. "Are you able to go faster?" he asked.

Mira nodded. "We can try!" he replied, beating his wings as fast as they could go. "Hang tight!"

At that moment, the missiles emerged from the world of white, heads still blinking and trained on the group. Mira grumbled, swerving the carriage so he and the vehicle faced the airship. It was still tilting, slowly flying with wings rising to a position as rigid and tall as a flagpole. The cannons were still firing, their volleys sailing off in the far distance. As fast as he could go, he sped towards the airship, leading the cluster of missiles onward.

The cluster began to converge, inching towards itself more and more as they tailed Mira. Yukito clung for all it was worth, clenching his teeth as he dared to glance over his shoulder to find that not one of this fresh volley had exploded. In addition, Star seemed too focused on pounding the glass to do much else.

"What are you doing?!" she yelled, voice muted by the pane that kept her in the carriage. "You'll make the shadows notice us! Stop!"

Yukito was about to retort when the world jostled. He found himself glancing back forward, only to find his gaze skyward. He looked behind himself again, magically holding his glasses in place to find that a few of the missiles in the back of the procession were starting to redirect their course. The missiles up ahead weren't as fast; in seconds, explosions came from below, and the airship went careening through the cloud of smog.

Yukito let light dance upon his horn. As soon as Mira swerved to the dark object in the distance, he teleported himself, Mira and the vehicle to reappear at the airship's exposed underside. The missiles that managed to get out of exploding crashed into the airship's back, rattling it and its still-firing cannons. One persistent rocket, though, managed to sail over the airship's back, still homing in on the fleeing herd; were it alive and with eyes, there would have been fire blazing in them.

With a mute nod between them, Yukito lifted his hoof to gesture ahead, then upwards for a brief moment before he had to return to clutching with it. Mira started flying that way, the funnel of wind forming as he picked up speed. The missile kept up its pursuit though, dogging them even as Mira swerved again to fly to one of the airship's cannons. The carriage doors flew open, though with a blue aura surrounding them a second later, they slammed shut just as quickly.

Zipping around the first cannon as it fired into the distance was a chore, largely due to its size in comparison to the carriage. Even with speed on his side, it took Mira a minute to clear the swiveling base entirely, which was the time that the pursuing projectile spent tracking his trail intently. Another swiveling base was before him, but Mira had an idea.

Another mute nod was all the signal that the murderous hitchhiker on his back would need. Scaling the swiveling base was one thing, but swerving around its side to fly down the other side was another. Mira was sure gravity was aiding him one moment and fighting him the next, but that concern slipped his mind as soon as it announced itself in his head. The airship began tilting again, continuing in the same clockwise maneuver that had yet to correct its course and altitude.

Mira went with the wing of the beast, adjusting his flight to compensate for this. He flew around the swiveling base of the cannon a few times, hoping to persuade the missile into hitting it, though he wasn't surprised that it was still tailing him a few laps afterwards. So he doubled back to the first cannon, that damnable rocket still following him. Instead of going around it, though, Yukito noticed he looked like he was going to charge through it.

With a teleport both had reappeared on the other side of the cannon, and turned just in time to see an explosion rocking it from behind. The cannon jerked upwards and fired into the sky, but after that it was still. Another teleport, and the herd and carriage were ahead of the airship once more.

The pilot shouted once more, garbled and gargling this time, "That's my—no, wait, what are you doing?! Stop! I don't want to be—"

"You will submit to the darkness that your beloved Admiral resides in!" the second entity declared, and with a loud retort and hooves scraping against steel, the feed cut off entirely for a moment. When it came back, it was superseded by the tearing of meat and the crunching of bones and augments. A choked scream, raising to a crescendo, was all that came out of the pilot afterwards.

Slowly, Mira widened the berth between carriage and armed airship, though even he was sure Yukito now wondered why the pilot had shifted their attention all of a sudden and what had decided to make said pilot meet their gruesome end. The firing from the intercoms died, but the striking of steel continued in tandem with the less than savory noises filtering through the feed. Though as he gained more and more distance, the snowstorm and thunder started to drown out whatever pandemonium had stolen the pilot's life. Soon enough, only the howling winds reigned supreme.

The airship was lost to the storm around them. It was a few miles before a distant crash and explosion rang in his ears, barely audible through the gloom. Mira pushed on, heedless of the lightning. He had to find safety before his claws froze. He had to find safety before whatever else had boarded that airship could notice he was there too.

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

The dark shadow's features crystallized, though only increment by increment as the pilfered carriage came closer. Mira wasn't sure how many miles he crossed or if time even mattered anymore, but all the same he could see that there was a small square thing set into the mighty stone side of a mountainside, doors ajar and rusted open with frost keeping them that way. To the side of this oddity stood a tower, a simple thing without a ladder that had a roof, four walls with windows, and the foundations.

Studying the mountainside around this discovery, Mira could spot more frosted windows and steel columns filtering in through the stonework, complete with a few more towers here and there. Yukito perked up at this. "Oh hello! A guard post!"

Mira sighed, shaking his head. "What, you want us to waltz in there and kill everypony?"

"Might not have much choice," Yukito retorted. "Besides, I don't see anypony flying around here but us." He glanced around as Mira slowed, but all the same came close to the guard post. "... strange, I don't see any lights on."

"Would lights be on out here?" Mira retorted. "If they are, then the ice is playing merry hell and you're the king of the pre-Clash continents."

"Good point," Yukito conceded. Into the open doors they flew, but in the guard post it wasn't much warmer inside than it was outside. Meeting them was a large square room, itself with three doors at the sides and in front of them. Above those doors rested signs, all smeared with black gunk that had frozen in place, and the doors themselves had also been frosted and rusted open. Yukito hopped off of Mira's back, and trotted around the carriage to open the middle door.

Starbreaker was the first to exit, followed by Tsih. Sora seemed to debate on whether or not she should stay in, but had Omega clamber onto her blanketed backside with Starbreaker's magical aid before she too jumped out. Mira made the carriage vanish with a flash of his horn, and the six grouped together to take stock of their surroundings.

Starbreaker paled upon spotting the black gunk, ears turned back as an unusually stifled whimper crawled out her throat. Omega turned to her as soon as she made the odd noise. "What grabbed your teats just now?" he asked.

"I find it odd that nopony's come," Yukito said, looking between the doors with a critical eye. Indeed, nopony had intercepted the arrival, much less come to halt any further advances. "We have airships trained on our cutie marks, the Admiral hot on the chase, and yet this post…" A chill raced up his spine, and he wasn't sure if it came from outside.

A thought hit Mira, and he turned to the ex-medic. "So… you think the airship might have some friends on board?" he asked.

"A platoon?" Yukito entertained that thought, letting it stew in his head as the mental gears turned. "... it's possible," he admitted after some seconds. "But given my present company, the Admiral probably wouldn't want to wantonly waste soldiers, like the other races that were slaughtered during the Clash. That… and whatever did the pilot in might have killed that platoon as well." He snorted. "At the least, somepony is probably watching the cameras here…"

"But nopony's come. Not even an announcement saying, 'Hey, we have intruders! Get your asses down here pronto!'" Tsih piped up, garnering a glance from Yukito.

"In that case, the security detail has been slacking lately," Yukito muttered. "Though, it would be unwise to just leave them here… we wouldn't be trapped with them; they'd be trapped with us."

Mira nodded, considering the fact that he was accompanying a walking disaster area, and a mare that knocked him senseless during the Clash at the given moment. His ears perked up and swiveled, but all he heard was the soft breathing of his small 'herd,' the occasional clap of thunder, and the howling of the wind outside. In fact, he should have heard the crackle of fire by now, given a certain somepony's disposition… but all that came from the mare in question was a soft, hitched breathing.

"Y'think th' Admiral might've pulled th' security detail back home?" Omega piped up, ears upright and tense as he did his own preliminary scan of the immediate premises. He looked up to the ceiling, and found there was a camera above the entrance they had waltzed in from… but it was frosted in place, its form barely recognizable.

"And leave a post unattended?" Yukito retorted, jerking in the direction of a distant clattering that came from the rightmost door. His gut clenched as the noise repeated, and his tail bristled as the sound grew louder and louder. He motioned with a hoof, and slowly, delicately trotted towards that door with steps as muffled as he could make them. Poking his head in as soon as he could, he found very little out of the ordinary; doors spanning the left side of the hall, frost coating the windows to the right, and not a single frame ajar or out of place.

What he did find out of place was the lights flickering intermittently, and the frosted black sludge smeared between, upon, and in front of the doors. Most were large, one even splashed against the ceiling somehow, and others were small enough he could trot around them without noticing they were there. Everypony else filed in behind him when he turned to the farthest door, shaking vigorously, though not with enough force to part it from its frame.

Another question flooded his mind, refusing to go away. If the security detail had been pulled away… then what was left in its place? Sharing a glance with Sora, he started to approach that door with ears pricked and alert. He took special care in stepping around the smudges wherever he could, should the frosted substance keep traction at bay. At a large swath of odd substance that would be impossible to merely step around, he paused, turning back to the others after noticing it hadn't reflected a thing upon its surface.

Nopony else had moved from the doorframe they huddled in. Mira even lifted a claw to urge him onwards, curling and uncurling his digits repeatedly in vague gestures that Yukito had to take a moment to understand. He turned back ahead, and set one hoof on the swath of sludge carefully. The ice flaked at his touch, and so did the matter it coated. The crunch was a little like snow, but less prominent. Neither even started to melt beneath his hoof, instead sticking to more of itself around where he'd stepped on it.

A peal of thunder did not stop the shaking, nor did it amplify it with its passing. Yukito looked down at his hoof, noticing that the fragments around it did not rattle. Another step produced the same result, and delicately, he trotted on through the sludge. Once he crossed the swath, he looked back at it to find the matter moving by itself to fill in the gaps he made with his hooves. The frost reformed after the gaps were refilled, a perfect sheen of ice that did not reflect the flickering glow of the overhead lights.

Mira urged him on again. Yukito turned to the rattling door, walking around the patches of solidified sable with care. When he reached it, he carefully turned one of his ears and pressed it against the jittery door. Besides the incessant shaking… there was nothing that he could make out. Shifting to rest his front hooves against the door, he started to strain in an attempt to force it open.

It didn't budge to his whims. He tried again, grunting this time as he applied more force. It groaned and shifted the tiniest bit, but that was it. He tried again, yet the still-shaking door didn't part any further. Yukito sighed and tried to peek into the tiny slit he had managed to open, but found absolute darkness within.

He heard the crunching of the strange substance, and metal scraping against metal. He turned to find Mira cantering over, and moved aside to observe him. Mira reared onto his hinds and his claws slipped into the crack of the door, and he heaved. With a few pushes and some growling, the door parted before it got stuck again, yet the rattling still didn't stop even then.

This did, however, let light spill into the room—and with just enough wiggle room to let Yukito inside as well. His shadow stretched to the farthest wall in the room as he went in, and as he glanced around the light glinted off various corners of the things strewn about. A broken table lay before him, its legs ripped off and thrust into the ceiling lights overhead, and the chairs were cleaved in half and resting on their sides. To either side of the room rested opened cupboards with many of their doors wrenched off and tossed about haphazardly, all smeared with that foul substance he hoped wasn't decayed blood. At the farthest wall a painting hung askew, sludge trailing from behind it to pool in a frozen mass at the floor.

Mira shoved the door a few more times, and it stopped its jittering. He squeezed himself in and looked around, noting the destroyed state of the room. A chill raced down his spine as he realized that nopony else had been in this room; given the destruction, there should have been at least blood splatters to indicate a scuffle… but there wasn't even so much as a frozen drop on the floor. He heard a door creaking, and snapped out of his stupor to find Yukito pawing in the cupboards with a hoof, and one lucky enough to still cling to its door at that.

Mira wanted to ask the obvious 'What are you doing?,' but held his tongue. Perhaps there were corpses stuffed into them? He watched, the light from the hall dancing upon those silver strands of tail like a beacon. Mira turned to the door, hearing hoofsteps and crunching coming from outside. He shrugged, figuring it was the others catching up, and turned back to the ex-medic as he lifted his hoof out of the cupboard to discover more frozen sludge clinging to it.

Yukito shook his hoof off, frowning. "Nothing over here," he reported, turning to the taller stallion with a sigh. He began trotting to the door, and Mira followed, though not before casting one last look at the room. Another chill swept up his spine as he took it in, followed by a sense of utter wrongness that settled in the pit of his stomach.

When the two left, they found the others waiting on them. "What all didja find?" Omega asked.

Yukito shook his head. "Signs of a fight… but no corpses," he answered. Then he noticed Starbreaker's rather disturbed expression and turned to her. "Do you know what happened here?"

Starbreaker's head shook a mite too fiercely for a mare so nervous. Yukito tried again, "Do you know what caused this?" That got a nod from her straight away. "Then what is—" A grey-teal hoof was stuffed into his mouth swiftly enough to clack against his teeth as they were parted, and Starbreaker leaned in until she was snout to snout with him.

"Not. Another. Word," she spat, voice and lips trembling as she spoke. Her eyes darted from Yukito to the sludge, and her ears rotated back as she removed her hoof from his mouth.

Sora opened her mouth to comment on the absurdity of what had happened, but a low groan from deep within the mountain stopped her from speaking. The groan was less sound and more vibration, so low that she couldn't hear it so much as feel it coursing throughout the building. She turned to the room that had its door forced open, and so did the others in unison. As the strange tremor passed, she could've sworn she heard something crashing upon, then clattering against the floor.

Tsih poked her head into the open room. She found that the lopsided painting had vacated the wall, revealing a circle sporting something that was scrawled in its circumference. Motioning the others in with a hoof, she cantered delicately to it to see what it was. Soon enough, everypony had crowded around the sludge, and for whatever reason Sora made the painting vanish with the aid of her bell.

After some jostling, Yukito lit his horn and scrutinized the scrawling. What he read did not bode well for the others, "'It hurts to breathe… somepony please stop the pain.'" He took a step back, ears rotating to the door. If something had happened, enough for a dead and pregnant silence to permeate here… and Starbreaker knew the cause, but wouldn't say a word of what that was… those musings gave rise to two prominent questions he couldn't ignore.

Who wrote this message? What had visited this guard post before they did? He shared an uneasy glance with Sora, her brow furrowing as she seemed to consider these ramifications too. Omega glanced at Yukito as well, lips pursed as his own mental gears began to grind. Then the gazes went to Mira, who only kept staring at the scrawling with a furrowed brow and a slight frown on his muzzle. The three turned to Tsih, who did much the same, save for her having to look up due to her height.

At long last, the ex-Corps trio turned to the one mare in the room that gave rise to their half-baked, less-than-grand escape. Her eyes were distant and pale, an already-pale cornflower blue that seemed to be turning whiter and whiter with every passing minute, with pupils shrunken and unfocused. Her ears had barely twitched since entering. Her jaw was set, and her lips pursed tight against themselves to the point the resultant frown seemed to be carved from a statue. Her tail was nestled between her hinds, and her gaze was set straight ahead.

Sora waved a hoof in front of Starbreaker's face. Her eyes did not follow the hoof. The lights were evidently on, as she had walked into the room with them of her own volition… but now, nopony was home. Yukito tried the same, and garnered very similar results. Both dropped their hooves, glancing at each other once again. "... is it something bad, Yukito?" Sora ventured, lip quivering slightly even as she tried to settle the mask of apathy over her face once again.

Yukito took another look at Starbreaker's rigid, unchanging expression. Merely making eye contact, however distant her gaze seemed, made his stomach flip worse than her normal, manic glare. Slowly, hesitantly, he nodded with a soft gulp that was barely audible. His throat started to dry as he spoke, "... I would assume as much. If it's enough to terrify her, then…" He licked his lips, trying in vain to wet them before continuing with the unhappy train of thought he began to entertain, "then what could it do to us? What in the seven hells have we gotten ourselves into?"

Mira turned to Yukito, face settling into a scowl as his train of thought derailed to take in what Yukito had just uttered. Even with the light of the ex-medic's horn, his expression was shadowed in anger and a hint of dismay twinkled in his eyes. "Nothing good, that's what," he said bluntly. "We… know what it is, too. But—" He winced as the marked ponies turned to him, scrunching his eyes tight as he put a claw to his temples in an effort to dull a sudden and sharp pain that came from his mismatched ear. "—it's… you'll have to see for yourselves."

"Sableshrouds?" Sora guessed, brow furrowing when Mira shook his head.

"Worse," Mira said, continuing to shake his head until the pain in his ear had went away. "Much… much worse." He turned to Starbreaker, dropping his claw as he considered her vacant expression. "... and it seems she's acquainted with it too."

A chill swept into the room from outside, running down everypony's spines once more. Sora looked to Tsih, who shook her head. "He's… he's right. You'll have to see for yourselves," she said bluntly, not even daring to look away from the scrawling that was written upon the wall. One of her hooves had twitched, but that was the only other movement she dared to make.

Omega turned to Yukito with a frown. "... that means something else's out here, with us?" he asked slowly. A sour nod answered him, and nothing more.

"What that is… I don't know, Omega. And something…" Yukito swallowed again, pursing his lips for a moment before continuing, "tells me I'd be better off not knowing." The mountain gave another deep, cavernous groan that was once more felt instead of heard, which caused the strange black gunk pooled on the floor to jitter and flake momentarily before it reformed. He looked to the substance as it moved of its own accord, almost daring it to do something else under his now-cautious eye.

It stilled after it reformed, as quiet and cold as the tomb that cradled Sham's body. He wondered to what this substance could belong, or if it could be produced… or linked to something that was once living.

He made up his mind in that moment, and turned to look Mira square in the eye. "We'll have to scrounge for supplies here, just in case. The post may extend to the other side of the mountain; we could fly out from there," he said.

Mira nodded even as he considered this. In the depths of his mind, Brother grumbled a bit, but made no disapproving noise to object to that idea. "Do we scout out the land after?" he asked.

Yukito shook his head. "Far too much snow; it would muddle even our senses," he replied. "If we have to, we'll spend the night here." He looked around for a moment before asking, "Any objections?"

Sora shook her head. So did Omega. "None whatsoever," they said in tandem.

Tsih tilted her head and hummed before nodding. "Much as I hate it, it beats freezing out there," she grumbled. She sat and stretched her forelegs over her head. "Nanoraaaaa, I wonder if there's any food left here."

"Probably frozen and freezer burned to hell, so… yeah, we'll have to pass on the food," Mira muttered, pausing as he raised a claw to tap it against his chin. "Unless we luck out and find canned rations? Those things go a long way, even if they've been turned to ice cubes."

Yukito turned to Starbreaker, who still stared into the middle distance in a manner that suggested she'd gotten strung up on something, and apparently that something had decided to wedge itself where it didn't need to go and stay there. "Of course… should we find frozen cans, we'll just have her thaw them out," he said, noticing she still didn't seem to be home yet.

"If we can get her to snap out of it," Sora pointed out, also turning to Starbreaker with concern flashing in her eyes and niggling at her instincts, screaming that something was amiss. "At this rate, she might need to be piggybacked."

At that moment, Starbreaker slowly shook her head, some bit of awareness returning to her eyes. "No… no… I can trot. I'm not a foal," she said quietly, legs trembling as she spoke. "Just… want out of here… as soon as possible. Now would be nice. I won't have to burn you all sooner if we just leave, alright?"

Sora's ears perked up at this. The niggling concern grew stronger when she realized, mere seconds after Starbreaker had spoken, that she had not heard an ounce of malice within the threat. Whatever had her by the horn had her on edge—an edge that she hadn't seen or heard since they had first met during the Clash years ago.

"Is it just me, or is she chickenin' out?" Omega asked, looking at Yukito.

Yukito shook his head. "Afraid it's not just you," he said with a deepening frown, "and I'm starting to wish it was."