Light flashed, and in that moment, Yukito and Sora had vanished from the cell after the former dragged Tsukumi to babysit Starbreaker for the night via a few bouts of teleportation. They reappeared atop the launch pad, whereupon Yukito clambered onto Sora's back as she spread her wings for liftoff. They flew into the city, weaving past buildings as the light of the rising moon shimmered off of the glass and viridian blades. The two took the time to marvel at the sight, as at night the city looked far better in the silvery glow, which complimented the lights shining throughout the streets. The neon blazed in tandem with a myriad of street lights, making the city almost seem to shine with its own prismatic light. This time, Sora did not take the lanes; she flew above all of that.

Ponies looked up as she passed, and some shouted at her, but she ignored them altogether. None of them dared approach her as she soared with speed and grace, weaving her way betwixt buildings aplenty, though she was careful enough to avoid sharp turns. Yukito smiled as the wind tousled his mane and tail, looking at the sky to find that the stars above started to glimmer. A feeling of exhilaration filled his veins, and he commented, "Is this what it's like to fly for you?"

Sora smiled as she turned another few bends, realizing she was getting further away from the base. Exhilaration blossomed in her too, only skyrocketing as she started to accelerate with each twist and turn. The ponies below were starting to see less distinct forms, and more blurs as her speed continued to climb. "When I'm not on a mission, yeah," she answered, relishing the feeling of the wind ruffling her feathers with each flap of her wings.

Yukito continued to look up, though his smile fell as something shot miles and miles above the city. It was silver, glowing almost… "Sora! A shooting star!" he exclaimed. Sora slowed down to safely stop and looked up, seeing the lone streak trail its way across. It didn't fade; instead, curious rings that glimmered a faint rainbow formed as it flew in a twisting circle.

"I don't think shooting stars would do that," Sora remarked, though her smile widened nonetheless at the sight. Another form zipped across the sky, predominately gold with pinkish-red and cornish-blue highlights twisting around it in a tight corkscrew, itself as spectacular as the silver streak and its rings. The two entities met, and performed a small, elegant pirouette that made their tails shimmer radiantly. "Hang tight, Yukito." He heeded her warning, and gripped himself in his magic, which anchored itself to her midsection.

Sora carefully angled her blades in response once Yukito had secured himself, catching the moon and the city's lights, and performed a little dance of her own, twisting and corkscrewing about. She looped and twirled, banked low and climbed high, almost as if the entities above could see her. The entities above changed their movements to match hers in perfect tandem; a rhythm that, had Yukito been able to look for just long enough, was almost too choreographed to have come from practice alone. Something seemed to overtake his companion, but what it was escaped him.

Sora picked up in speed, until her blades were whistling as she spun and danced about, and as the air flowed around her the blades changed pitch with their whistling in a manner that reminded Yukito of somepony singing. She rose a few inches above the city's tallest buildings, wings catching more light, almost glowing now with a radiance all their own. The 'stars' drooped down to match her, but they came no closer than that to meet up. The dance continued, gaining a sense of urgency, growing more complex, forming more maneuvers into its hastening rhythm, becoming more dazzling and frantic as he kept clinging for dear life.

It took a few minutes, but all three slowed into the simpler motions of their aerial displays. Finally, they ceased moving as the dance slowed further when another dome formed and a bell started clanging violently as Sora lifted her hoof and muttered, "Shield, invert." Yukito's heart raced, but he dared not scream and fought to keep himself from losing his lunch; adrenaline filled his veins, and a sense of awe with it as he saw the two forms above languidly circling one another. The entities were now encased in a dome that seemed to refract the moon's light and form a small rainbow around them.

The dance concluded in a sharp retort; the bell ceased ringing, and the two entities charged through the shield's top when it did, shattering it into a million glimmering pieces that shimmered prismatically before they faded from the world. He heard a chorus of voices coming from below; chancing a glance down, he could only see many dots on the streets, and guessed that he wasn't the only pony who saw the display. He smiled as he realized that he didn't just have a front seat; he was, unwittingly, a part of Sora's performance tonight. He looked up and gasped at the sight which greeted him next.

A red entity arrived, followed immediately by some friends: a blue, a purple, a solid gold, and a bright viridian set of 'stars' joined in before performing a dance of their own, though it was short and nowhere near as elegant as that of the first. Sora waved with her wings, and for a second, the forms blazed brighter, almost like stars in their own right. Her wings gleamed in the light, reflecting and refracting in a display of what looked to be shimmering crystal from above. Then, the entities departed, zipping across the sky to parts unknown.

Yukito took a moment to catch his breath. It took him several tries to even take one breath of air that wasn't shallow, and thankfully Sora took her sweet time getting back into the city's maze of roads and buildings. "What was that about?" he asked once his heart slowed down and he was able to collect himself. He hadn't expected to be given a coronary so soon.

"A few acquaintances," Sora answered, smiling fondly as she started flying through the city again.

"Pleasantries?" Yukito guessed. Sora shook her head.

"If we're at different altitudes, that little samba is our equivalent of 'salutations,'" she answered.

"Ah," Yukito muttered with a nod of understanding. "Are you going to dance like that anymore this evening?"

"Maybe," Sora chirped, a hint of deviousness in her voice. "But only if they show up again tonight."

Within an hour after they had caught the 'shooting stars,' which passed without incident and thankfully without anymore aerial dancing on Yukito's behalf, they reached a small building that was dwarfed by the others on the eastmost side of the city. This building was only half the height of a standard building and an eighth that of the base, and with almost all of its lights conspicuously turned off. A sign reading 'Off-duty doctor and professors' quarters' had been affixed crudely to its top, blazing with flickering lights.

Sora banked to land on the pavement before it, and Yukito hopped off before his horn glowed and they vanished in another flare of light. Upon reappearing, they found themselves in a dark room, and for a moment they swayed on their hooves as spots danced in their eyes. They steadied themselves and shook their heads to clear their vision, before a small light started dancing at the tip of Yukito's horn.

The light revealed a meager living room with walls and floor hewn of metal that were decidedly less than polished to perfection, sporting little more than a worn leather couch that wasn't up against a wall but rather put in the center of the room, with a heavily scratched coffee table stationed close to said couch. There were no more than a mere five doors leading to other rooms, each one positioned in a way to form the five points of a standard star if Yukito were of a mind to map it out with chalk.

There were no overhead lights here, much less any cameras to monitor them; instead there were holes in the ceiling where they should have been, lined with frayed wires aplenty that were trapped by clear glass bubbles to keep them from becoming a fire hazard. The walls were barren as far as personal items were concerned, instead riddled with a myriad of papers crudely taped onto them with scientific mumbo-jumbo that Sora couldn't hope to make sense of. There were few barren spots betwixt the papers, and the few barren spots that were there were small and empty save for a faint layer of dust that had built up. There was a small plaque next to the door that faced north which simply bore '#508, Prof. Yukito Swiftcure' in bold copper font.

The doors were shut, similar in build to those of the base, and Sora opted to trot to the couch and lay on it. Yukito chuckled as two of her legs dangled off the side, while one back leg and a front propped themselves on the arms. She angled her wings at something of an awkward position, one flared wide and up to hug the couch's back and top whilst the other laid itself over the coffee table. She hummed as she melted into the couch, which simply molded to her body and position with a supple softness that made it so much better.

"So cozy," Sora purred, letting a dopey grin cross her face and her eyes close in bliss. "It doesn't stab me like my bed in the barracks does every night. If we ever have to run, can we bring this thing?"

"We'd need a carriage to bring it with," Yukito replied with another chuckle. His magic embraced his longcoat and undergarments, which he used to promptly shuck off, revealing a cutie mark of a pair of winged serpents entwining a slender rod with a crystal sphere at its top, with the totality of that mark a relatively warm red in hue. With his clothes gone, Sora could see bits and pieces of him were clearly metallic, though that was only limited to his legs and a small section of his barrel. "Do you think Tsukumi would handle Starbreaker for the night?"

Sora nodded. "She'll be bedridden for a while. One night with her won't do him any harm," she chirped. Her tail swished, and her ears twitched as she heard a door hiss open. Her eyelids cracked, and she turned to Yukito as he approached a door on the rightmost side of the room and started trotting to the second room beyond. "Toilet?" she guessed.

"No, kitchen," Yukito replied as he fully trotted past the open door. "I forgot to check and see if my pantry's stocked before I went to work this morning."

"Ah." Sora nodded and closed her eyes again, relishing the feeling of laying on the couch. She heard something click sharply, followed by multiple creaking hinges, and then the slamming of doors. Yukito started trotting again, the sound getting louder and louder, and a hoof came onto her withers the moment the trotting had stopped. Her eyes opened once more, and gravitated to him. "Stocked?"

"Not as much as I'd have liked, but for now it'll do," Yukito answered with a sigh. "Are you going to spend the night on that, in such a position? It can't be good for your wings."

Sora snickered and waited until Yukito retracted his hoof before she got off of the couch, though not before closing her wings to keep from scratching things. She sighed in contentment, and for a moment, her worries seemed to melt away. Even her own apathy had been swept aside as a sense of calm seeped in. Something about this place just put her at ease, and it helped that Yukito was present—she appreciated his company. She didn't dare question the feeling of calm that settled in, and simply smiled at her companion. "So… how stocked are you?" she asked.

Yukito lifted a hoof and rubbed the back of his head with it. "I'll need to go get groceries in a few days. The pantry's only half-full," he answered, donning an amused yet slightly concerned smile. "Bastards don't pay any of the other troops enough for even the simplest services. We've both been blackballed, at the bare minimum. But then again... when have such things even mattered to them?"

Sora sighed and leaned to Yukito, resting the side of her neck against his and her chin on his shoulder. He returned the gesture. "And the army keeps heaping the shit jobs on me," she muttered. "I'd get either bored out of my mind, or the menial tasks nopony else is gonna do."

"Somepony has to do those menial tasks, sadly," Yukito replied with a shrug of earnest. "You and I work the thankless jobs, helping anypony we can just because we're able to do so."

"Eh, that's true," Sora agreed with a snort. They broke apart and sighed. "Trinity's probably going to bitch again when she sees I'm not in the barracks."

"That's neither here nor there," Yukito stated, smile widening. "I was thinking…"

Sora's ears twitched. "Yes?" she asked.

"When Starbreaker gets her broken front hoof fully recovered… we should move her here. That way, she won't cause much trouble, and I can monitor her progress without risking drawing the army's attention anymore than we already have," Yukito began, watching as Sora's eyes went round at the suggestion. "And, it may in fact take the heat away from her and us. Without her in the base, and in the city with us, the Majors and the Admiral can stop getting their tails tied up over it."

Sora took a moment to ponder this. On one hoof, he had a point; now that her superiors knew Starbreaker was under the same roof they were, they simply had varying unpleasant reactions to that news. This arrangement would take the heat off everypony involved. However, Starbreaker simply going up and vanishing on them could have potential to become something worse, since they'd likely catch wind about it thanks to the camera feed. There was a very good, very real risk of the Admiral growing suspicious of the whole thing, especially since he'd probably be checking said camera feed a lot more often now.

Still… if it could get the army to maybe calm down, and if they could pull it off without anypony the wiser… this would also give her a chance to stop worrying so much and keep a more attentive eye out for anymore strange goings-on. "I think that's a good idea," Sora replied, wings bristling a little. "We'll just have to figure out a way and a time to do that. We don't know when Star's hoof and leg will get better, so..."

Yukito nodded in understanding. "And remember…" He leaned his neck against hers, and she did likewise. "This is just between us." Sora nodded back and hummed softly.

"Just like what goes on here will also be between us," Sora chirped with a giggle, her face tinting a slight shade of red around her cheeks. Her tail swished, and again they ceased leaning onto each other. She trotted past him, purposely brushing a bit of her tail against his foreleg as she went to the kitchen. "I'll need to get a glass of water or two."

Yukito chuckled and turned to follow her movements. "Alright," he replied. He heard the sound of water running mere seconds after she'd entered the kitchen, followed by the sound of a few gulps, and opted to let Sora have herself a drink, a hoof raising and idly tracing where she had brushed up against him. It took a moment for the water to shut off, only for that to give way to a rustling of garments. When the noise ceased overall, he piped up, "I thought you said you weren't in the mood?"

"I didn't want Starbreaker to toss in her two bits!" Sora retorted from the kitchen, her remark followed by a soft flomp of some sort of collision. "If she has no clue what a friend is, then how the hell would we explain this to her?"

"Touché," Yukito agreed with a chuckle. "Poor filly has a lot to learn."

Sora trotted back into the small living room, sighing as Yukito noted she now wore nothing but the bell on her neck and that her muzzle was a little damp. He also saw that the bruises and cuts she had acquired the past few days had already mended entirely; now, Sora looked like nothing particularly interesting had happened to her. "Threw the uniform in the laundry bin. It needs a washing anyway," she reported, grinning.

"Well, at least you're doing your own laundry," Yukito chirped. Sora snickered at that, and shook her head in mock exasperation.

"Oh, Professor, what would I ever do without you?" she muttered, earning a chuckle in response.

Yukito turned and trotted to another room, this one on the westmost corner, his horn dimming a little as he went. "Let's not focus on that. Besides… your blades could use a bit of polish," he cooed. He trotted inside without lighting his horn up a second time. "That being said… do you still need to vent tonight after that little dance? I think I have just the thing to help you get all that pent-up anger out of your system," he called from the room, his voice rather expectant and inviting. Sora grinned and followed him, tail swishing as she went. She wouldn't miss a chance to vent her anger out, and this was as good an opportunity as any.

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

Seven streaks trailed above the plains closest to the city, packed tightly into a V-formation and each with distinct features in their tails if one looked closely enough. Suguri was at the lead of this formation, mane flowing and almost shedding light in her wake, horn ablaze and magic producing the rainbow rings that marked her trail. A small smile crossed her muzzle as she thought of the little green glimmers she saw moving about in the city.

She turned to the forms on her left side, seeing a triad of unicorn mares with horns glowing and their magic leaving their own distinctly-colored trails, with turbine engines fitted onto crude wings and smaller, blocky engines affixed onto their backs. One of the mares, sensing she was being stared at, looked back at her expectantly. She was a slender sort with a pale cornish blue coat and an indigo-colored mane that only reached the point betwixt her wings in length. Deep blue eyes framed by glasses glimmered, and a chilled air radiated from her horn. A cutie mark of a medical cross, riddled with icicles, was bared on her hip. "Was that… her?" the mare asked.

Suguri nodded. "No doubt, Kyoko. That was… her," she answered, her smile falling a little. Kyoko offered a weak smile at that. "I'm surprised she had the time to dance tonight."

Kyoko nodded, her smile growing a smidgen. Her eyes gleamed warmly. "Would it be alright if we met with her sometime?" she offered.

Suguri nodded eagerly at that, eyes gleaming with a fondness that Kyoko could not ignore. "We'll still need to figure out what to do regarding the big shot running the Umbralium Corps. The meeting can wait," she stated.

Kyoko's smile fell. "What's the matter?" she replied. "The terms of the truce seemed perfectly normal to me."

Suguri's smile turned into a frown, and she shook her head. "It wasn't that. There was… something off about the place, and the Admiral himself especially," she replied, her voice uneasy and distant to even her own ears. "He said he was sorting papers, but there was nothing of the sort between his front hooves when he said this to me via a projector. I couldn't see much of the room he was in that well, but I seriously doubt he has an inbox within that inky blackness he calls a room. I heard a faint shuffling from that projector too... but I think that may have been his rear hooves..."

Kyoko's brow furrowed in befuddlement. "Do you think… she might know something?" she pressed.

Suguri shook her head again. "That, I seriously doubt. Last I've seen of her, she'd gotten demoted to the bottom rung in the army. And almost nothing reaches the ears of the privates. She was exceptionally pissed about that," she muttered grimly. The air turned colder, and she turned ahead to find that the snow-capped mountains were fast approaching. "Warm up everypony! We don't want icicles on our tails!" she ordered. The formation tightened, and Kyoko's chilled air took on a warmth that made her trail dim.

"Why are they keeping her in the Corps, then?" Kyoko asked as she and the other ponies smoothly flew over a steep mountain, revealing that a myriad of frozen cliffsides and snow-laden moors awaited them, all surrounded by a tight ring of yet more distant mountainsides. One set of these cliffsides formed a canyon, steep and yet filled with snow.

Suguri took a moment to ponder the question as she and her small retinue started flying over the first of several moors. "Perhaps in case of emergency," she replied, brow furrowing as she realized the implications of her own statement. "She's their best in combat, enough that I have seen her stop the world's reckoning with nothing more than her blades and that odd device around her neck."

Kyoko's eyes went round. "When you tried to find Starbreaker and couldn't get there fast enough?" she queried, a note of surprise in her tone.

Suguri nodded. "She basically beat me to that punch," she concluded.

Kyoko's lips twisted into a frown upon hearing that. The fact that Suguri admitted to getting a sense of wrongness only made it deepen. Still, if it was just Suguri who had gotten that peculiar feeling…

Somepony on Kyoko's left groaned. "Admittedly, I too picked up something off about the Corps, though not before we tucked in at their guest wing," a young voice interjected. Kyoko turned to the source, finding a lilac mare small enough to pass for a filly, with a short and tousled purple mane with narrowed eyes to match in color. Her legs were lanky and a bit long, as if she'd had a growth spurt that had been stopped, perhaps due to disease or genetics. Were she and Kyoko standing on solid ground, this mare would have only reached Kyoko's barrel with her head alone. Though whatever the case, she didn't seem terribly bothered by it.

Her turbines were comically too big for her body, and at her side, several strange machines that were ovoid in shape flew alongside her with circular protrusions on their equivalent to ends that crackled with magic. Some of the devices, however, rested on her makeshift wings, perhaps as a sort of counterbalance for her tiny body. All of them had lines spanning only half of their bodies, with hinges resting snugly at the ends of these lines. One of these strange objects, framed in the middle of a circle laden with arcane runes, even made this mare's cutie mark. "And that feeling only grew stronger just before we left," the small mare added.

Suguri turned to the mare in question. "You got it too, Nanako?" she queried, making certain she'd heard that right.

Nanako grimly nodded, her glare easing for a moment. "I couldn't put my hoof nor my bits on it… but the longer I dwelt in those halls, the more my still-intact equine instinct screamed at me to get as far away as I could," she replied. "It's fading now, but…"

"... only as we're heading for home?" Suguri offered. At this, Nanako's face hardened, and she nodded again.

"Yes. What sort of place would radiate that particular vibe?" Nanako queried with utmost sincerity, and at this the group fell silent. It took them several long minutes to ruminate on any forthcoming answers, and they casually passed over the moors in that time.

The answer Nanako got came from somepony at the end of her half of the V-formation, unbidden and yet riddled with a sense of alarm. "It's like working for Shifu all over again… it's like something bad's gonna happen," a small voice uttered. Nanako turned to her left and found a young sandy brown mare looking back at her with wide brown eyes and a paling complexion. Some sort of device, slender like a stick but ending in an ovoid shape, overlapped with a large bell—these two items made her mark.

"You got it too, Saki?" Nanako asked. Saki hastily nodded, her short yellow mane flapping uselessly about with the motion.

Saki swallowed nervously. "It's just… I don't…" she stammered, struggling to vocalize what had been on her mind. Nanako lifted a hoof and waved, and one of the strange devices at her side veered to gently brush up against Saki's shoulder in a reassuring gesture.

"It's okay…" Nanako cooed. "Whatever gave us that… feeling is away from us now."

"I have a hunch it may not remain that way," Kyoko piped up, garnering looks from Nanako and Saki. She crossed her forelegs over her barrel, face hardening into a glare as cold as the snow and ice below them. "The Umbralium Corps could decide to visit us at Aeverafree anytime they'd like; they have airships and pegasi galore."

Nanako deflated, and her brow slanted. "Why would they want to visit?" she asked.

"We dropped by unexpectedly for them. They may be keen to return the favor," Kyoko reasoned, shaking her head. "And they may want to add new terms to the truce, perhaps regarding something we ourselves didn't consider."

Nanako's ears fell back at that. A faint chill ran down her spine, all the way to her tail. "B-but what if it's not about the truce?" she stammered. "Wh-what if they visit because of something else?"

Kyoko's face hardened a little more. She turned away. "I… honestly don't know," she muttered dismally.

Nanako's pupils shrank at that answer, and she turned to look ahead. Silence once again reigned on their flight, and another clawing sense of wrongness welled up within her. She had a sinking suspicion that this feeling, whose origin she could not exactly pinpoint, was spreading throughout the group.

But who it was affecting, and how much in extent, in their little formation was unknown to her. That started making her worry.

There was naught she could do about it, though, since nopony else decided to speak after Kyoko herself admitted to not knowing anything else regarding a potential visit from the Umbralium Corps, much less what to do if and when they dropped by. Even Suguri had fallen deathly quiet; not once had her beating wings produced sound when they should have.

The land below seemed to hold its breath with the formation. No life stirred, no snow kicked up. Not so much as one icicle fell from the canyons. Not so much as one flake danced past them in a descent to join its countless fellows.

Silence held, firmly. Suguri and her retinue were merely subjected to it now.