When I woke up, the lab was in a terrible condition. Papers were strewn everywhere, there were craters in the floor, and worst of all, ponies were lying motionless on the ground. However, Celestia and Luna were nowhere to be seen. I looked around and saw Roam and Artemis lying on the ground, not moving. I stood bolt upright and began dashing towards them, but before I could, I felt a searing pain from behind me. Shuddering and wide-eyed, I looked over my shoulder, and saw that my left skeletal wing was snapped almost completely in half, only hanging on by a thread, with bone marrow oozing from the wound. My magical aura just barely keeping it from falling off completely.
I didn't even react when I saw this; I was experiencing a complete sensory overload. I just sort of stared at my broken limb, dumbfounded, for about thirty seconds, before remembering about my siblings. Slowly, I made my way over to them, and put my ear to their chests. With a sigh of relief, I heard a clear heartbeat in both of them. I tried shaking them awake, but failed. Worried about what might have been going on in the outside world now that Blood was free, I summoned two small balls of ice-cold water and directed them into my siblings faces. It had the desired effect, both of them waking with a start, wiping water off their faces before looking forwards me. They both looked shocked seeing my wing in the condition it was in.
"Are you alright?" Artemis asked, and I was shocked to find that she was close to tears. That really wasn't like her.
"I'm fine. Well... It doesn't hurt anymore, I'm not feeling anything at all in it." I lied, ignoring the shot of pain I got. I could pretend to be alright for her sake.
"How are you?" I asked, opening my arms to hug my sister. I know that was a loaded question, but I felt it would be polite to ask.
"I'm fine," Artemis said through her tears. It felt weird not only because of her crying, but because I was in a situation where I had to comfort her. Normally it was the other way around, except she strayed away from physical contact.
"How about you, Roam?" I asked when Artemis let me go.
"I'm fine, but you need a cast for that," He said, gesturing towards my wing and summoning one. "Alright, this is gonna sting for a sec," He said, slipping it on.
"AHH!" I yelled as he was doing it.
"Done," He said.
I looked over my shoulder to see that my wing was in a roll of white gauze.
"Thanks," I said shakily. "We need to see if they're alive," I said, pointing to the various scientists sprawled across the ground. At least, the ones who were still in one piece. Most were alive, but just barely. We gave the ones who were alive stitches, casts, really whatever they needed to stabilize them.
"Thank you," One of the old bearded men said gently after I stitched his leg back to normal.
"You're welcome," I said, walking over to Roam. "I never thought I would have to be the one to stitch people up. Normally that's something you do after I do something stupid," I said to him, trying my best to keep the air light, but considering the circumstances, I failed miserably.
"Yeah. How's your wing feeling?" He asked.
"It hasn't been long enough for it to get better, but it isn't feeling at all right now." I replied, and this time I was honest. If you're wondering why I'm being more open now, I guess I felt like if I was truthful about my nightmares earlier, things wouldn't have gotten to this point. I know that's really stupid, but I somehow felt responsible for everything that had gone wrong.
"Well, it's better than it hurting," He replied, finishing up with his last patient.
"I guess there's that," I agreed, looking over at Artemis, seeing that she too, was done.
"It looks like there's no putting off looking for Blood any longer." I said reluctantly.
"It does indeed look that way," Artemis said.
"Ok, but I need to do one more thing before we go," Roam said, summoning a small platform for him to stand on, before looking over at the crowd of people we had helped get back to normal. "Alright, everyone. We're going to go hunt down Blood Oath. You've been studying him for years, is there any weakness he has?"
There was a lot of murmuring in the crowd before a young Pegasus mare spoke up.
"The inside of his snapped horn seems to be extremely sensitive," She said.
"Thank you. We'll be going now. Stay here," Roam said before walking off with Artemis. I started to follow them before the old bearded Earth pony I had treated grabbed my arm.
"I used to think Shades were pure evil, as most of us do. However, you seem to be an exception to that rule. When the people trying to free Blood Oath came here, you fought to protect us, even though you could have just joined them. If you did, you're wing wouldn't be broken right now. However, you stayed by us to the end. You have my undying admiration, and I am forever in you debt," He said wheezily to me, which caused my eyes to well up a bit.
"Thanks. I'll be sure to stop him," I replied.
"There is no doubt in my mind that you will," He said with a kind smile.
"Hey, Vortex! You coming, or what?" I heard Artemis say from up the staircase.
"I'm coming, don't worry!" I replied. And with that, I walked up the stairs with my siblings, ready to face whatever life decided to throw at us as a team and as a family, the way we always do.