//------------------------------//
// Brace 
// Story: Through the Nether 
// by StormDancer 
//------------------------------//

The world filtered back into focus, dull silvery moonlight seeming to cast everything in a glistening aura of pale blue. Slowly, she blinked, lidless yellow orbs dimming before returning to their normal brightness. For some reason, everything seemed to be moving slowly.

It took a few more moments to put the jumbled mess of things in front of her into some kind of sense. The mishmash of dark and light, the pile of gray/black, and even the oddly shaped flakes and scraps around her seemed entirely alien before a bit of movement caught her eye.

With the tiniest bit of recognition, things suddenly snapped into focus.

The chaotic mess above her resolved into the tangled ivy of the wall and the bush she had been hiding in. The dark pile, the remains of her organs and tattered bits she had pulled free to reduce trouble moving. The flat things that littered the area around her were the patches of cloth and skin she had been slowly losing in the process.

But with movement came clarity. On the other side of her shelter, something was moving. And it was getting closer.

In the silvery light of the moon, she caught a brief reflection of gold and memories of the creatures swarming the garden slammed back into her mind. There was no time to delay, no time to plan... she had to act or there would be no more time to worry.

With a shuddering lurch, she reached down and found, to her surprise, more mana than she had expected. It was something she would have to figure out later... right now, she needed to be ready.

Another muffled crunch from the other side of the bush snapped her back to the present as her skeletal fingers took on a golden light which snaked across her ruined body before sinking in.

The feeling was a study of contrasts. At once, she felt strength returning to her body, tattered skin and damaged bone seeming to reinforce and repair at the same time as a heady vertigo slammed into her mind. She could feel her body healing, filling in gaps and restoring lost parts just as quickly as she found herself struggling to remain focused.

Blearily, she heard the startled yelp of something nearby, only to blink back the confusion a moment later.

For a few moments, she remained completely still, silent, as she waited for the attack. She could feel her arms and torso, the flesh of her face and the ragged drift of her hair. She noticed the rough splintering of her spine and the abrupt end of herself just below the ribcage. Her gaze drifted down to note the pile of organs and bits had disappeared.... at least some things still worked right.

But despite her returning focus, the attack never came.

A minute passed, and then two, before she slowly braced herself and pushed off from the wall. On her elbows, she drug herself forward before tentatively parting the brittle branches before her and seeing something she would never have expected.

Barely an arms reach before her, one of the armored creatures lay gasping on the ground. It's skin withered and taunt, slowly twitching as it struggled to move. Despite everything, she found herself confused.

Even in its current state, the creature didn't appear to be some wild monstrosity or an aberration. It's face was contorted in pain and confusion, and though its eyes were crushed shut in its suffering, she suspected that if they were open, they would be pleading rather than wrathful.

Even as she felt her strength returning, she knew she couldn't stay.

Tentatively, she reached over and laid a skeletal hand across the creature's side before stealing herself and forcing her will upon the beast.

A moment later, the world went dark before she found herself wracked with pain and drained of nearly every bit of strength. A tiny tweak of willpower and she forced the eyes open, struggled to her..... hooves... and walked unsteadily across the clearing feeling the body's strength waning moment by moment.

Eventually, she collapsed, forcing another breath into straining lungs, as she lay gasping. She dared not look back at the bushes... there was always a chance that the creature might see her body... so, instead, she forced her legs to sprawl out before the world went dark again.

A momentary snap of confusion assaulted her senses as she found herself back in her own tattered body. Though she had managed to move the creature, the effort had sapped more of her energy than expected, and the result was a heaviness that brought her ruined body to its figurative knees.

It took far longer than she would have liked to recover, but the moment she felt up to it, she had started to scuttle along the wall, hidden by the bushes, as she sought some manner of escape from the oddly beautiful garden.

And somewhere, behind her, laying in the moonlight, a pegasus Guard lay withered and gasping... a mind torn with confusion and horror at having been struck with magic and sapped of life before being possessed and left too weak to even cry for help.


-~oOo~-





Panacea had seen many things over the years, but what the officers had brought in had caused her to pale in horror. No fewer than seven ponies, all Guard, had been carried in in one form or another, each with the same horrible symptoms.

Each was drawn, their flesh dehydrated and emaciated to the point of appearing corpse-like; faces sunken, manes and tails ratty or falling out, and even their hooves showed signs of extreme negligence. If she didn't know better, she would have thought the lot of them had been found baking in the desert or in some unmarked crypt.

Through it all, they never stopped twitching or moaning softly.

The first had come in only a few minutes ago, the rest following rapidly as their friends and comrades rushed them to help. Whatever it was, her nurses and medics had flung themselves at the stricken ponies with the dedication and professionalism she had come to expect.

The call had gone out almost instantly, and within two minutes, others had flown or run into the ward to take up emergency positions as the arcanists had warded the area. Finally, one of the newer additions, a zebra intern named Meallin, had plucked something from her pouch of strange herbs and thrown it over one of the afflicted.

If it weren't for the fact that Meallin's 'medicine' had apparently arrested the effect, Panacea would have escorted the zebra from the ward herself.

As it was, whatever Meallin had used had been effective on every one of the victims, and when asked, the zebra had only said "De bones be eatin' der insides out. So I made der meal cause dem to pout."

Panacea had glared.

Mumbo jumbo and rhymes had their places.... in sideshows and backwoods fairs... but she couldn't argue with the results.

But why did the 'cure' have to be a mix of beeswax, dried orange peel, powdered spearmint leaves and sugar?


-~oOo~-