Breaking Quarantine

Dis's ice blast sailed at the first harpy, but it managed to dodge the blow. The other harpy that hadn't been able to see the blast because of the forward one blocking it's view and ended up flying straight into the condensed magic. The harpy only got out a stifled yelp that may have turned into a full scream given enough time, but the magic took hold too quickly. The icy magic coursed over the figure, first chilling and then freezing cloth, fur, flesh, and bone as it exploded over the quickly moving body. Going into a mix of limp and stiff, the second harpy fell to the ground, the parts that had frozen solid shattered upon impact leaving roughly half the corpse intact while the other half skidded across the floor in dozens of partially melting bloody chunks.

The first Harpy however continued on it's course, finally getting Dis within range of it's spear and stabbing forward with the constant ferocity that it'd displayed the entire time.

The other harpy that'd followed after Star however seemed oblivious to the other harpy falling in combat. It continued it's flight, stabbing forward at Star the moment the thestral came within it's range.

Distortion stood his ground. It was a nice feeling having his mind back together. Thoughts flowed smoothly again, and his idiotic knee-jerk reactions like standing still when a spear was driving at him instead of dodging out of the way were working perfectly. At least his ideas were now in his regular brand of stupid instead of the concussion-fuelled versions.

The moment the first harpy fell to the ground as a result of his ice blast, he switched his gun onto the shield rune and activated it quickly as the second harpy thrust the spear forward. He hoped he was fast enough.

Star looked over to where Distortion was and nearly winced when he was the harpy shatter. He turned back to the one that was flying at him, just barely able to react to the stab. He rolled to his left and stood back onto his hooves with a little shake. He swung his sword in a diagonal upwards. He couldn't afford to pay much heed to Distortion right now, for he was dealing with his of harpy. He had to deal with this thing fast if he wanted to help the unicorn....If he needed help that was.

Being ahead of the second harpy, the second one that was flying at Dis managed to get it's stab in before the rune was activated. The spear piercing slightly into Dis's shoulder, it only manged to get so far before the bubble shield formed around him. It was not that a curious thing happened, the harpy was stuck half in and half out of the shield. From it's position, the harpy began struggling to escape, including trying to force the spear just a little deeper into the wound, but it was held firmly in place by the bubble shield.

The other Harpy that had gone after Star wasn't faring as well though as it wasn't expecting Star's sudden shift or the upward sword swing. The sword, which trailed fire as it was swung, cut into the harpy's underside, deeply searing the flesh as it passed by. The aerial attacker curled tightly around the wound, dropping it's spear and falling to the ground in a crashing tumble. Blood splattered the ground in it's wake, and was already starting to pool where the harpy had come to a rest. The huddled form was still twitching though as it clutched it's badly scored chest, trying vainly to stop the bleeding.

"Tch." Distortion winced as the spear dug into his shoulder. It wasn't very far, but that didn't mean it was painless. Making sure to keep the gun hovering at the same position it had been in when he'd activated the shield, he took a step back, tugging the spear out of his shoulder, then rotated the gun up and down about a pivot of its centre to see if the shield would move similiarly; maybe he could batter this opponent into submission by smashing him against the ground. But just in case...

"Hey, Star?" He grunted as he worked. "Whenever you're free, some help would be nice."

Star looked at the harpy on the ground in front of him. All he needed to do was swing his sword...Swing his sword and kill the thing.... It...It's trying to stop the bleeding though... He felt a little ping in his heart. Gah! Curse my good nature... He looked to the spear the harpy had dropped and grabbed it. He put the spear under his right wing so that the spearhead was pointing forward. He turned away from the harpy and towards Distortion.

"Yeah..." He made his way over to the other stallion who has a harpy trapped in a shield and a spear in his shoulder. He took the spear under his wing and held it in his hooves as he took to a low hover. He stabbed the half in/half out harpy with the spear.

Unable to move, or defend itself, the harpy was powerless to stop the spear from piercing the pile of rags that covered it's body and then simultaneously piercing into's it's body. The harpy let out a pain filled gasp, it's breath tightened, before with a slow exhale the harpy started slumping in the barrier's grip. The harpy was soon limp, the spear it had previously been trying to drive deeper into Dis's shoulder fell from it's grasp and clattered on the ground.

The other harpy that Star had left behind was still struggling to stop the bleeding, it's breath rapid and fleeting as it tried to keep the wound shut. The harpy was soon weakly trying to drag itself away, leaving a bloody trail as it drug itself along the dirty floor and towards one of the doors that lead out of the room. Small pain filled gasps accented each struggling effort, that were suppressed through clenched teeth as it tried to keep quiet.

"Hmph." Distortion released the trigger and allowed the shield around him to dissolve back into nothingness, causing the harpy's body to drop towards the floor. He toggled the gun onto the laser rune and lifted it, moving towards the door that the harpy was. "Come on, Star. Let's get a move on. The longer we stay around here, the more time we give them to ambush us again. I doubt they'd have expected us to survive that, so if we want to get out of here safe we should leave now."

He paused, twirling the gun in the air thoughtfully. "One thing first, though." Without so much as a hint of hesitation, he levelled the barrel of the gun at the head of the struggling harpy and pulled the trigger, point-blank. "Now let's go. Two bottlecaps says that this door leads to where the rest of the harpies are. You wanna go in and surprise them?"

Star looked at the harpy on the end of the spear. He backed away shakily. He shook his head to focus but he could only focus on the harpy. He turned to follow Distortion. "Yeah...Let's go..." He said, a little distant. He had just killed something that was once a pony... But...It tried to kill both of us...It deserves to die. He looked at his hooves. "No one deserves to die...Not even these harpies..." He said in a very low voice so Distortion wouldn't hear him.

He looked up at the other stallion as he levitated the gun to the harpies head...The harpy he had spared to help Distortion...Then he shot the harpy in the head. Half of him said yes, but the other half said he wanted to kill Distortion right then and there...Maybe it was his good nature, or his outright dumbness, but all he did was sheath his sword back into it's scabbard and walk over to Distortion. "Y-yeah...I'll go..." He had to keep in mind that he had a job to do and he couldn't get distracted by harpies. He took his sword into his mouth again and walked over to the door, opening it and silently going in.

Unable to raise a defense, the harpy Distortion leveled his gun at was near instantly killed, it's body being thrown like a rag doll from the force of the shot and skidding across the floor until it came to a slow stop. As the door the harpy had been trying to drag itself to was thrown open, sunlight beamed inside the place through a large hole in the wall.

Past the door, aside from the hole in the sky, hallways went off both to the left and right, with multiple other hallways branching off of them. Some scattered trash was all that littered the space, occasionally shifting in the breezes that wafted in through the opening and broken windows.

"Mhm." Distortion nodded in satisfaction as the harpy was thrown across the room. "That'll take care of that, I think." His voice was oddly cheerful. He turned to Star and noticed his stutter. "Are you alright? Come, we can't let that distract us. We've got a long ways ahead of us yet, and I think I'm better suited for being the oblivious dunce. You gotta keep your wits around you, you know." He tapped Star's shoulder gently, just before realising that his hoof was wet. He lifted it up to check; it was stained with harpy blood. "Huh. Would you look at that. Hope it isn't poisonous."

Humming an upbeat tune, he trotted towards the open door and extended a hoof. "You first? I'm not very good at picking which way to go."

Star closed his eyes quickly because of the beam of sunlight in his face. After a few moment he slowly opened his eyes and gazed down the hallway. He looked at his shoulder when Distortion tapped him and immediately tried to wipe off the blood. "You better really hope that's not poisonous." He said to him with a roll of his eyes. "Me go first? Because I'm the one who lead us into this room in the first place." He eyed down the hall to see if anything was coming towards them or moving at all.

Down either side of the hall, nothing moved about of it's own volition. There was a small breeze that blew in threw both the broken windows and the large opening that would occasionally disturb either a hanging scrap of cloth or some of the trash that littered the hallway. The view of the city itself through the opening was fairly impressive and slightly intimidating as it appeared the hole wasn't only in the wall in front of them, but going cleanly through multiple buildings allowing a tube of vision for quite some distance.

But even that view held very little movement other than a few distant specs that moved about the suspended walkways or across broken windows quite some distance away. Behind the two though, the door that Star and Dis just exited from would shift just slightly.

Whistling cheerfully, Distortion proceeded down the hall behind Star, perfectly content to let the pegasus lead the way. His magic grip, however, was tensed around the trigger of his gun as he switched it back to shield rune mode. These corridors were far too empty and deserted; he didn't trust them one bit. Walking around unprepared was just inviting someone to appear around the corner and shoot them dead.

I might be stupid, Distortion thought, but I'm not that stupid.

Star walked over to the hole and looked through it. His eyes widened at how the hole went through the other buildings. "Hm...That's rather....Scary." He said trying to think of the right word but his head had decided on the word scary. He kept his sword tightly in his mouth as he walked down the hall. He turned quickly behind them at the sound of the door shifting behind them and glared at it. It could just be the wind...Or another harpy...

The door behind them stayed where it was, not swaying any farther out or returning back where it'd been previously. The breezes that did blow in through the various openings continued to disturb the various bits of debris that littered the hallway. Off farther down the hall though, some noises did start up. Somewhat high pitched, almost squawk like calls started sounding off, but they were distorted by the echo within the hall and the building.

"Mhm, mhm." Distortion nodded and stopped humming when he detected the noises coming from somewhere down the hall and echoing off the walls. "Ooh, hear that, Star? That's incoming doom distilled into sound waves!" He flicked the trigger and activated the shield rune, sticking close to his companion as he travelled down the corridor fraught with danger. "Don't you think it's interesting how much need for paranoia can be injected into normally innocuous sounds in the right situations? I find it fascinating."

Star sighed and turned back to look down the hallway. Then that annoying sound again...That sound was gonna annoy him more than other night guards teasing him. He looked at Distortion with an annoyed look. "Yeah I hear it. Annoys the crap out of me too." He kept moving, seeing his partner had activated a shield. He kept his eyes peeled. "Can't really say it fascinates me...."

The calls continued, gradually starting to grow in volume as they drew closer to Dis and Star. The wind seemed to die down, finally depositing the trash scattered about on the ground, the curtains coming once again to a rest. The door behind them didn't move anymore, but another one down the halls started to sound like it was being fidgeted with. Like the opening was locked, and whatever was on the other side was trying to get past without destroying the barrier.

"Hm... Suspicious." Distortion approached the door down the hall cautiously, listening to the noise of what sounded like somepony was fidgeting with it. "So... you wanna open it? I'll leave it to you, Star. Mostly because I don't trust a fool like me to know what's good for us." He lowered the shield obligingly as he stepped aside and allowed Star access to the door. "Your choice."

Star shook his head. "We don't even know if that door leads the way we are suppose to go....Unless you know where north is, I suggest we don't open that door." He shook his head to try and ignore the noise, but it was really getting annoying. "We really need to find the north side of the building and meet back up with Stalwart. Got any ideas which way that is?" He asked Distortion with a raised eyebrow.

The door next to Star and Dis suddenly stopped fidgeting with the rough sounds of a sickening splatter and a stifled yelp that didn't have the time to become a full scream of terror. It didn't take long for blood to start pooling under the bottom of the door. Farther down the hallway, another door was so violently slammed open, it flew off it's hinges and slammed into the wall on the other side, shattering glass as the top part collided with the window. Whatever it was though had yet to actually step into the hallway.

The door Star and Dis had used to come into the hall shifted as the other door was thrown off it's hinges. Pulling back slightly as it resettled to where it would normally come to rest.

"Called it~!" Distortion said cheerfully, reactivating the shield rune and backing away from the door that had been violently slammed open. "See? If a sound contains an appropriate amount of danger, it's possible to be detected by the equine ear. Danger senses are further boosted in periods of paranoia, which cause the... Right, not the time for this." He lifted the gun and prepared to switch to the ice rune, though not actually doing so yet, as he aimed the muzzle of the device at the open doorway. "So, Star, you ready to fight?"

Star looked at the blood that pooled under the door. He wondered what happened on the other side of the door. He was about to open his mouth and say something when the door down the hall was torn from it's hinges, making him yelp and jump into the air, dropping his sword on the ground. He looked at Distortion and coughed. "You did not see that." He said in a serious tone before picking up his sword in his mouth again. He didn't pay any attention to what Distortion was babbling about, but was more or less keeping an eye on the doorway. "Eyup. Ready to fight."

It didn't take long for what had blown the door off it's hinges to emerge from the door. A slowly moving mound of rags emerged. While the harpiers had at least something of a shape, this was literally just a mound of moving scraps layered so heavily that no details could be ascertained. The only break in the fabric was the pony skull resting at what could be assumed was the head of the creature. Two red dots glowed in the hallowed sockets of the creature, becoming fully visible as it looked down the hallway to face them. The creature let out a disturbing cry, that only had the barest traces of a high pitched, agonized pony whine before it began to move towards them with a lurching gait.

The door Star and Dis emerged from shuddered again, swaying slightly on it's hinges, and farther behind the new creature, more similar sounding calls rang out, drowning out the calls the harpies had previously made.