//------------------------------// // The Citadel // Story: Swooping Pegasus // by FenrisianBrony //------------------------------// Rainbow looked at her helmet dispassionately, inspecting every inch of it as she slowly turned it in her hooves. The surface was worn and pitted, dents covering almost every part of it, and yet it was still functional. The rest of her armour was fine however, and even the massive hole on the right had almost completely sealed itself again, although the actual leg armour had been completely destroyed, and was now missing entirely, there was only so much wraithbone could repair. When she got back to the craftworld she would have to see to it, if she got back that is. Beside her, the remaining few men of the 212th Drop Regiment milled about, sitting against few Valkyries that had survived the devastating attack. Some were playing cards or talking to one another, while one had managed to get hold of a small violin, and was plucking away at the strings, singing a mournful song. There was no joy here, just soldiers trying to stave off the boredom until they could attack, and join their brothers in a glorious death, or avenging them. This next assault would decide whether or not the 212th lived to see reinforcements or not. The soldiers had actually been remarkably accepting of her since the attack. That wasn’t to say that many of them had spoken to her, but they had stopped throwing scathing looks her way, or muttering about her in their little groups. The bonds of combat bound them now, and they were hard to break. Leaning back, Rainbow listened to the singing soldier, closing her eyes as the mournful tune washed over her. Here I sit on Buttermilk hill, who could blame me cry my fill. Every tear would turn a mill, Johnny's gone for a soldier. I’ll sell my rod, I’ll sell my reel, I’ll even sell my spinning wheel. To buy my love a coat of steel. Johnny's gone for a soldier. “Lay off it Daniel.” Another soldier said wearily, looking over at the soldier. “Can’t you play something happier?” “Possibly.” Daniel nodded, before looking across as the sound of footsteps filled their ears. “On your feet!” Goge roared, looking around at the seven men and one pony. “Mount up, we leave in five!” Quickly fitting her helmet on over her head for the first time since the drop, Rainbow suddenly realised why she had felt so different. There was no voice in her head anymore, neither of the Avatar or the strange voices around the guns. For the first time since Hannibal, she was going to go into combat with her mind open to the horrors of war. She only hoped that the war mask had come off properly, since she had always had Kaliden to remove it for her. Slotting the helmet over her head, Rainbow was initially blinded, before the optics flared into life and she was greeted by the familiar green tinted vision. Following after Goge, Rainbow trotted up the ramp into the Valkyrie, quickly finding a seat and strapping herself uncomfortably into it, before looking over at the Colonel, who was standing at the far end of the Valkyrie. “We are on our way towards the Citadel, the heart of the Chaos operations on this planet.” Goge roared, fighting to be heard over the roar of the engines as the aircraft lifted off. “Our Lord Astartes have already begun the attack, we are to stay out of their way. We are not wanted on this attack, we are but mortals fighting beside Gods, but we are proud! We are the 212th, and we will avenge our brothers, or feast with them at His table! Our enemy wants to die for their gods. Let’s oblige them!” “By Strength and Guile!” the soldiers roared back. Rainbow grinned beneath her helmet as she heard the regiment’s motto. Watching from the rear door, Rainbow saw the trenches rushing past. Suddenly, the whole ship rocked and dropped dramatically, nearing the ground at an alarming rate. “Looks like we’re here boys! Hold on!” Goge roared, drawing a chainsword and pistol. “For the Emperor!” The ship slammed into the ground with a jarring impact that threw Rainbow forward in her harness. Shaking her head to relieve the dizziness, Rainbow felt the harness release, freeing her from the wrecked Valkyrie. Flapping her one remaining wing, Rainbow dived from the transport, bringing up her own weapon, and getting her first look at the hell she had managed to find herself in this time. They had landed just outside the wall to the Citadel, a huge hole already blasted into its surface, and giving her glimpses of the battle already raging inside. However, she was much more concerned with the battle that was outside of the wall at the moment, and looked around quickly, taking stock of her situation. The rest of the Valkyries had also made emergency landings outside of the Citadel, the pilots not wanting to risk their ships against the vengeful guns of the massive fortress. Spilling out from their transports, the men and women of the 212th began to push forward, passing by the forms of more of the stubby Space Marine ships had touched down just behind them, painted in the colours of the Space Wolves. Rainbow watched in awe as the giants moved forward faster than anything that size had a right to, their weapons spitting death as they ripped through the few defenders that remained outside of the wall as they sought to carry the breech. Screaming, Rainbow began to follow them, only to be driven into by a series of heavy calibre solid shots. Peaking over the lip of the crater she was in, Rainbow saw the weapons team that was shooting at her, crouching over an even larger version of the Space Marines weapons, and spewing death into the oncoming Elysians. Snarling, Rainbow drew her weapon, controlling her breathing as she lined up her crosshair with the head of the operator of the massive weapon, before pulling the trigger. The man dropped without a word, the laser instantly cauterising his wound. A split second later, the second weapon operator dropped as well, felled by a flurry of shots from the advancing Guardsman, and clearing the way for Rainbow to make it to the hole in the wall. Reaching the breech, Rainbow stared inside with a sense of disgust and macabre awe. It was carnage, and Rainbow instantly was reminded of the drop attack. There were dead men everywhere, fires blazing as ammunition stockpiles and fuel dumps caught fire and exploded, and through it all, giants strode, doing battle with their own kind, and trading blows like the Gods of war they were. Several strange pods littered the battlefields, painted in the red colour of the Blood Ravens. While some were empty, the harnesses within open to allow the occupants that rode the beast to the earth out, even more were spewing death from on board weapons, mowing down the few remaining human enemies, but doing little to deter the Iron Warriors. That was a job to be left up to the Blood Ravens and the Space Wolves. Not that that was going to stop Goge or the rest of the 212th from trying, and try they did. Letting out a war cry, Rainbow leaped forward, Goge hot on her hooves, firing his laspistol at a huge Space Marine, but doing little more than annoy it, causing it to turn ominously towards the advancing guardsmen and unleashing a torrent of bolt shells, sending Rainbow diving for cover, her mechanical leg whining it protest. Keeping her head down, Rainbow began to crawl forward, not looking back to see if anyone was following her or not, before reaching the burnt husk of a traitor tank, pressing her back against it to steady herself as she raised herself onto her rear hooves allowing her to line up her weapon better with the Chaos Space Marine. Grimacing, she depressed the trigger, keeping it held down and pumping a stream of lasers into the Space Marine. The first few shots were absorbed by the Marines armour, barely even phasing him as he continued to pump shot after shot into any guardsman that moved. Then, his armour buckled and peeled back, revealing flesh. Exploiting her enemy’s weakness, Rainbow intensified her firepower, almost draining her weapon, but she was met with success, and the Marine toppled to the floor. Letting out a cry of success, Rainbow threw caution and sense to the wind, wrapped up in the thrill of battle. This must be what it felt like without the war mask, and she liked it, the smell of blood in her nose, the tremor of a weapon discharge in her hooves, this was where she was meant to be, and what she was meant to do. This was bliss. Snarling, Rainbow unloaded the rest of her rifles charge into an Iron Warrior wielding a flamethrower, managing to hit the fuel tank and covering her enemy in fire. This didn’t seem to faze him much however, and Rainbow continued forward, drawing her sword as the Marine drew its combat knife, a long thick blade that to anything else would have been a short sword. Flicking on the power field, Rainbows blade was surrounded by a corona of crackling energy along its length an instant before the pair clashed. Hitting the Space Marine was like charging head first at the Ponyville express, but Rainbow had a power field on her side, and the Marines knife did not. With a grin of satisfaction, Rainbows blade past through the knife, continuing along its path as it passed through the breast plate of the Marine. Her momentum carried her forward, ripping the blade out of the back of the Space Marine who clutched the gash that was now pumping blood onto the floor, before falling to the ground with a hard thump. Looking around, Rainbow’s helmet allowing her to see through the smoke and fire, Rainbow caught sight of another foe engaging Gabriel, and ran forward, intent on adding another Space Marine to her list of kills. Before she could even draw close however, the Chaos marine was batted away by a swing of the massive hammer the Chapter Master wielded, slumping against a wall to rise no more. Skidding to a halt, rainbow stopped in front of the Space Marine, looking up at him expectantly, waiting for him to make a move. For a long time, Rainbow thought that he would follow through on his hatred of Xenos and attack her, and readied herself, but no blows came. Instead, the Chapter Master chuckled deeply, before running towards a massive doorway that lead into the Citadel itself. “Are you coming?” He asked, not looking back as he got further and further away. With a grin, Rainbow followed the squad of Blood Ravens into the confines of the building. Instantly, Rainbow felt something in her mind, a voice like she had felt at the cannons. A subtle whisper in her mind, nagging at her to listen and to accept its power. Growling, Rainbow ignored the voice, forging deeper into the inner sanctum of chaos. Diving to the side, Rainbow narrowly avoided a blow from a human, his eyes stretched open wildly as he swung his crude, home-made axe at Rainbow again. Twisting, Rainbow delivered a double legged buck to the man’s chest, the bionic replacement increasing the strength of the blow, and leaving the man gurgling on his own blood as he chocked to death. Emerging into a massive room, Rainbow collapsed to the floor, dropping her sword as she clutched her head in pain. The voices in her head were screaming now, threatening to swallow her whole, and reduce Rainbow Dash to nothing but a forgotten memory, unremembered by the world. RAINBOW DASH. COME TO ME, COME TO MY THRONE WITH SKULL IN HOOF. PLEDGE YOURSELF ANEW TO ME. “Ne…ver.” Rainbow grunted, scrunching her face up behind her helmet. COME TO THE LORD OF SKULLS! KILL FOR ME! LET BLOOD FLOW FOR THE BLOOD GOD! ADD TO MY THRONE OF SKULLS! “I…Won’t!” Rainbow screamed. IT IS POINTLESS TO RESIST! GIVE IN OR DIE! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! “NO!” Rainbow screamed, getting back to her hooves and concentrating on the voice. She would not end her life here, not before she got back home. She was Rainbow Dash, the coolest pony to ever live, the first non-Eldar member to join an Aspect Temple in history, and the one who befriended a human from a xenophobic empire. She would fight this Lord of Skulls, and she would win. “I AM RAINBOW DASH!” She screamed. “I SURVIVED HANIBAL! I SURVIVED THE DROP ASSAULT! I WILL SURVIVE THIS!” Raising her head high, Rainbow let out a wordless scream, pouring everything she had in her body into the scream. The voice howled as well, the two sounds melding together as Rainbow fought for control. Slowly, the voice began to recede, before becoming silent once more. Collapsing to the floor, Rainbow looked around her, only to see that the Space Marines had gone. Getting to her feet, Rainbow hurried down the only corridor that the Space Marines could have gone down, quickly catching up to them just as they as emerged into a cavernous central room. The room was huge, and Rainbow didn’t know how such a huge room and fitted inside the building. It was also hot, steam rising and obscuring her view slightly. The entire room was strewn with the dead, but they were not recent, and blood seeped from the corpses, pooling at the centre of the room in a massive brass pool of the crimson liquid. Around the pool stood ten Chaos Space Marines, all chanting a in a language that hurt Rainbows head just to listen to it, yet they weren’t Iron Warriors. These warriors were armoured in dark red armour, bedecked in scrolls which fluttered in an unseen breeze. On their shoulder pads stood a screaming skull, back by an eight pointed star that seemed to ripple even as Rainbow watched. The final member of the Chaos Marines was not standing around the edge of the pool, but was instead standing in the middle, his bald head thrown back and his arms extended out to the side. He was shuddering violently as the blood from the pool flowed up his legs and chest, pouring down his throat. Rainbow could feel the power in this room, and it was not something she liked. “Word Bearers!” Gabriel roared, pointing at the Space Marines. “They attempt to summon the immaterial! Destroy….” He never finished, a flurry of bolts slamming into the Marines around him, one of them dropping as his leg was ripped from his body, screaming as he clutched the bloody stump. Before any of them could react, a trio of grenades rolled into the centre of the group and detonated, pitching them all from their feet, and allowing rainbow to see their attackers. There were three of them in total, two huge warriors flanking a normal sized Chaos Marine. The flanking warriors were terrifyingly large, even by Space Marine standards, their armour looking as if it could stand up to any assault that was laid against it, and the fearsome they wielded told Rainbow that they would be able to dish out damage as well. Yet fearsome as they were, they did not seem as terrible as the man that they guarded. He wore no helmet, revealing a bald head and a cybernetic eye, the red orb glowing brightly and casting shadows across the rest of his face. However, it was his arm that drew Rainbow’s attention. The entire limb was a gleaming silver colour, and was clearly artificial, yet had no joints like hers did, and seemed to move like a real limb, any dirt or blood that landed on it instantly being absorbed by the metal and disappearing, leaving the surface smooth and clean once more. “Gabriel Angelos.” The warrior sneered, looking across as Gabriel regained his footing, followed swiftly by the rest of the Space marines and Rainbow. “I must say, I expected better from the Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens.” “Honsou.” Gabriel spat, readying his hammer. “The Ultramarines may have failed to kill you, but I will not!” He sprinted forward, readying his hammer as Honsou raised his axe. “The Sons of Guilliman are fools.” Honsou sneered, “Yet you will fare no better!” Unable to watch the fight any longer, Rainbow jumped after a Blood Raven as he charged one of the massive Iron Warriors. Rainbow raised her sword as the iron Warrior swept its massive claws at her, narrowly avoiding being gutted, before leaping forward, stabbing with her sword. She expected it to go through the armour as it had done before, but the sword simply slid off the armour, barely leaving a mark on it. Stunned by the lack of damage her sword had done, Rainbow did not notice the massive fist coming towards her until it slammed into her chest, throwing her back into a wall. Rainbow struggled to breathe as she leant against the wall, taking in the sight of the battle before her. Gabriel and Honsou were trading blows, each one matching the other as they clashed, scoring hits against every part of the opponents armour, and yet Honsou’s arm was still as shiny as ever, not showing a sign of damage. The four remaining Blood ravens were fighting against the two massive Iron Warriors, but they did not seem to be able to get any strikes through the tick armour, none of their weapons possessing the power needed. As rainbow watched, one of the Blood Ravens was a second to slow, and was suddenly relieved of his stomach, the claws slicing through his armour as if it wasn’t there. The Space Marine fell to the floor, still firing his own weapon to no effect, before lying still. Rainbow realised that she had to do something to help them, else they would all perish here. Sparing the Word Bearers a tiny glance, Rainbow looked around frantically for a weapon, catching sight of an odd looking weapon buried amidst the corpses. Pulling it out, Rainbow instantly recognised it as a meltagun, and grinned maniacally behind her helmet. She knew what this weapon could do. “Blood Raven!” She bellowed. “Down!” Not waiting to see if the Marine listened to her, Rainbow depressed the firing stud, sending a jet of barely visible super-heated gas out of the barrel. The impact of the weapon was devastating to the Iron Warrior, the shot hitting his chest straight on, reducing it to nothing more than molten slag, and pitching the massive brute from his feet. Rainbow herself was thrown back by the massive kick of the weapon, her chest exploding in pain as she felt a rib crack at the very least, and she flopped down into a pile of corpses. The Blood Raven who had dived to the floor however was not deterred, and now had a weapon capable of taking out the remaining hulking Iron Warrior. Diving into a role, the Blood Raven snatched up the weapon, the Imperial Guard meltagun looking pathetically tiny and ineffectual in the hands of an Astartes, but it would do. Sprinting forward, the Blood Raven dodged swipe from the Iron Warrior, before pressing the gun to his helmet. Rainbow could almost imagine the thoughts going through his head, before the weapon discharged, and the Iron Warrior fell, his head and the back of his armour. Getting back to her hooves, Rainbow turned to watch as Honsou and Gabriel continued to fight, their movements faster than even she could follow. She wanted to help the Chapter Master, to finish off the iron Warrior, but she knew that she would only get in the way. With a roar, Gabriel managed to deliver a massive kick to Honsou’s chest, sending the Iron Warrior skidding back. Raising their bolters, the Blood Ravens prepared to fire, before a blood curdling roar echoed throughout the room, so loud that it physically knocked Rainbow and the Blood Ravens back to the ground. The roar was dulled when the sound of Honsou’s voice echoed around the room, a deep throaty laugh preceding his message. “Fools. Now this planet will burn for Chaos, and you along with it. Goodbye Gabriel.” “The portal!” Gabriel bellowed, pointing at the blood pool in the centre of the room before setting off towards it at a sprint. Rainbow turned her head almost in slow motion, catching sight of the ritual in the middle of the room. The air around the Word bearers was shimmering, rippling as though it was a pool that someone had just jumped into. The blood was now covering the man in the middle of his pool. His face only just visible as the blood spilled into his mouth. He was shaking violently, but suddenly stopped, shooting up into the air and hovering above the pool. The other Word Bearers had stopped to, and Rainbow once again heard the roaring voice in her mind. MY CHILDREN COME! FEED ON THEIR FLESH, LET THEIR BLOOD FLOW, AND REAP THEIR SOULS FOR ME! The air rippled one more time, before the Word Bearers around the pool exploded, their blood splashing across the room and splattering onto the corpses. The force of the explosion knocked Gabriel off his feet. As the bloody haze cleared, Rainbow discovered a new definition for the word hell.