A scream echoed around the Shrine of the Swooping Pegasi. The emotion in that cry was plain for all who heard it, anger and sorrow mixed with pain, not merely of the body, but of the mind as well. Almost as soon as the scream had faded, a second one ripped its way forward as Rainbow’s back arched and twisted, her entire body seemingly convulsing and fighting against itself.
“Take the fucking drugs!” Gilda roared, the Griffon advancing towards Rainbow, a cluster of needles in her talon, only to be stopped by Kas, the woman glaring at Gilda with steely determination.
“She’ll take them over my dead body,” the former slave hissed.
“That wouldn’t be so hard now would it?” Gilda sneered, puffing up her chest in an act of intimidation. “What? Five seconds? Four?”
“Try it,” Kas’s voice was laden with venom. “How long do you think you’d last after that?”
“Longer than you.”
“Oh brilliant, such a witty comeback,” Kas snapped. “Rainbow doesn’t want that shit, not anymore!”
“Well what she wants is getting her killed!” Gilda roared, shouting to be heard as another scream echoed around the room, before finally, mercifully, Rainbow fell backwards, her chest heaving, but no fresh screams erupting from her throat.
“There, it’s over,” Kas grunted dismissively, not taking her eyes off of Gilda.
“This one is over,” Gilda corrected her, before turning and leaving, stalking from the room.
It had been like this for the past six months, since they had all returned and left for the old Shrine in the middle of the Everfree Forest. Kas had struggled to wrap her head around this place at first, nothing conforming to even the Dark Eldar’s view of fundamental sciences, but she had gotten mostly used to it by now. She had had to, neither of the others had seemingly been able to put much focus on her.
Rainbow had taken the banishment hard, potentially far harder than anyone had predicted. The abandonment had been bad enough, the War Mask that Rainbow struggled against every day becoming more and more powerful, slipping on and off her psyke seemingly at random. Those first few weeks had been the hardest, Gilda was competent in battle, but she could not hold a candle to Rainbow’s skill. It was only thanks to Rainbow’s more lucid moments that her War Masked alter self had been restrained, thick chains forged in the Shrines mighty furnace, easily capable of holding even Rainbow’s enhanced strength.
Kas had hated seeing Rainbow like that, hated the pain and the rage of betrayal in the War Masked ponies face. Kas may have started life as a slave, but she had moved beyond that now, she cared for Rainbow, she even cared for Gilda, despite the Griffon’s external qualities, and she thought that deep down, they both cared for her, but here, the citizens of Equis were finally at a true disadvantage.
Emotions ran hot on this world and amongst those species that called it home, far hotter than amongst any other species that Kas had encountered. They laughed more for far less, they were empowered by the very fundamentals of friendship, something Kas had initially scoffed at but had quickly come to realise was true. For every positive however, there was a negative, every ying and yang, every action a reaction. This was no different.
Simple anger became rage, a hurt feeling could become an all consuming sorrow. Everything was amplified a hundred fold, and that was biting Rainbow now.
“Thank you,” Rainbow croaked, Kas whirling at the words, watching Rainbow closely for a moment, before satisfying herself that it was truly Rainbow and not the War Masked pegasus.
“You ask, I obey,” Kas bowed her head with a smirk, crossing to one of the chains and placing her hand upon it, intricate magi-tech woven into the metal reacting to her, and only her, touch, unlocking Rainbow and allowing her to fall free of the table she had secured herself to.
“You’re not a slave anymore.” Rainbow muttered.
“I thought friends helped each other?” Kas folded her arms. “Doesn’t matter anyway, you’re in no position to argue, so don't try it.”
Rainbow grunted, but she didn’t continue the argument, turning and walking away from Kas, the human rolling her eyes before setting off after her.
“Gilda does have a point you know,” Kas broke the silence. “Your body is rejecting your noble decision, it needs the drugs as much as it needs food or water, what you’re doing is little different than starv...”
Kas trailed off as her eyes fell towards Rainbow’s ribs, fully visible beneath skin stretched tautly across the bones beneath. Her body was gaunt, no longer lean and muscled, but truly malnourished, implants creating unnatural bulges at seemingly random intervals. Her coat had lost almost all of its luster, closer to a blue-tinted grey than its previous, glorious cyan, her mane likewise weakened and washed out.
“Finish,” Rainbow said the one word, pausing to look at Kas with deeply sunken eyes.
“Starving yourself,” Kas sighed. “And as always, I wish you would reconsider.”
“As soon as you answer my question,” Rainbow snorted. “Can either you or Gilda best me in combat on my best day?”
“You know the answer,” Kas snapped. “No we can’t, but nor can I stand by and watch you waste away.”
“Until you can answer that, nothing’s changed,” Rainbow sighed. “The War Mask is getting stronger, Kas. One day it will slip on when I’m not ready for it, or it won’t come off, or a hundred other possibilities. If that happens then Celestial help Equestria. How many lives would be ruined or cut short before the Princesses caught up? Or the Elements of Harmony? Applejack? Even Discord?”
“I don’t...”
“Exactly. You don’t know, no one does, so until you can tell me that you and Gilda could stop me here and now, this is continuing.”
“For how long?” Kas asked, stopping at the bottom of a stairwell and calling up after Rainbow.
“Until I find a cure or die, whichever comes first,” Rainbow whispered, before turning a corner and disappearing from sight.
“We both know which one’s going to come first.”
Kas whirled at the voice, glaring at Gilda.
“Don’t eavesdrop,” she snarled.
“Oh drop the act,” Gilda snapped. “You’re as worried for her as I am and you are thinking the exact same thing. We’ve got to stop her.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Kas snapped back. “Starving herself would be bad enough, trying to quit the drugs cold turkey would be bad enough, but both? You’ve seen her, I don’t know how long she can keep that up.”
“We could force her,” Gilda insisted. Come on, Kas. You want to as much as I do, and with the pair of us now, we can beat her and get her to see sense.”
Kas hesitated for a moment, Gilda taking the silence as an opportunity to follow up on her point, capitalising on the weakness as she would have done in the arena itself, Kas feeling very much like prey in that split second.
“Between the two of us, we can force her to at least eat, if not taking the drugs. She’ll probably appreciate it, you know how much she enjoys being told what to do at times, plus she wants us to be able to beat her anyway.”
“I hardly think her desires in the bedroom hold true in this,” Kas retorted dryly, before sighing. “But...you are correct in your latter statement, she does want assurances that she would be containable if the worst should happen. This could prove that we are ready for that.”
“Exactly!” Gilda grinned, moving in for the proverbial kill as she passed Kas a tightly bound bundle of micro-fibre. “Even took the liberty of getting your net ready, just in case.”
Kas sighed, looking down at the bundled net, before nodding, unfurling it with practiced ease. Both she and Gilda had been practicing day and night since their banishment, Kas having become proficient with the Dark Eldar Shardnet and Impaler combination, though the weapon she now held had swapped viciou barbs for magi-disruption tech, designed to stun and incapacitate, not maim and kill.
“Are you prepared then?” Kas asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Gilda nodded, sheathes around her fore-talons crackling with electrical energy as she spoke.
With no further words needed, the pair bolted up the stairs, Gilda leading the way with Kas hot on her heels. Rainbow quarters were this way, being the obvious place to start their search, Gilda barging through the door without hesitation.
“Gilda...” Rainbow began, turning to look at the Griffon, before Gilda let out a screech and dived forward, extending her right claw to deliver a devastating opening blow.
It was a predictable strike, Gilda telegraph her intentions like a novice pugilist, Rainbow’s face darkening as the war mask forced its way forward, the pegasus effortlessly dodging the blow, moving to the left and preparing her own strike, stepping directly into Kas’s path.
With a grunt, Kas hurled her net forward, hitting her target perfectly, the weighted ends tangling themselves around Rainbow’s wings, locking them to her side. For a moment, Kas thought that the fight was already over, activating the disruption field as soon as the net had struck home. Had she activated it while it was still in flight, she may have succeeded, but in the time it took for the charge to travel the length of the net, Kas realised with awful surety that she had been too slow.
With a snarl, Rainbow’s talon’s ripped through the as-yet unpowered micro-fibre, twisting to hurl the remnants at Gilda, the net now fully powered striking the Griffon square in the face. Gilda let out a screeching squark as the disruption field passed over her, her limbs spasming as she fought to free herself, before being sent flying by a powerful kick from Rainbow. Even malnourished, Rainbow was still strong, the wall cracking at the impact.
Kas sprinted forward, unsure of what she was hoping to do but unwilling to do nothing. Letting out a roar of her own, Kas delivered a brutal haymaker to Rainbow’s side, feeling bones break, both hers as Rainbow’s, but it was all she managed, the Pegasus twisting with the punch, hurling Kas after Gilda.
Kas slammed into Gilda, the crack in the wall widening, before smashing open, Rainbow diving at the pair of them and forcing all three through the hole, tumbling to the main courtyard of the shrine below.
Gilda had still been struggling to free herself from Kas’s net, now finding herself wrapped ever tighter by it, Rainbow grasping the fabric and pulling it taught. Gilda’s eyes bulged as her airways were suddenly cut off, turning blue as she struggled to breath. Kas tried to rise, but her legs would not answer, the human helpless as she watched Rainbow almost effortlessly snuffing the life from Gilda.
A huge whooshing roar filled the courtyard a fraction of a second before the ground trembled, Rainbow torn away from Gilda by a large, all too familiar shape. Before Rainbow could react, the shape was atop her, one giant mechanical foot pushing Rainbow into the floor, a burning sword bursting free from the other forelimb, Applejack bringing her battlesuit’s fusion blade close enough to singe the hairs on Rainbow’s neck.
“That’s enough,” Applejack’s voice was calm, even filtered through the suits emitters that much was clear. Once, rainbow might have been able to put up a fight in such a situation, but as strong as she still was, such times had passed.
“Applejack,” Kas breathed a sigh of relief, hurrying to Gilda as she spoke, freeing the Griffon from the now deactivated net, Gilda spluttering and coughing as she sucked in much needed air.
“Just what in the hay is goin’ on here?” Applejack demanded, looking between the three. “Ah didn’t think it was gonna be great here, but ya mind explainin’ why yer trying to kill Gilda?”
“They attacked me,” Rainbow snarled, glaring at Kas, a fight clearly taking place behind Rainbow’s eyes, forcing the War Mask back into submission.
“That true?” Applejack asked.
“Yeah,” Kas nodded, before holding her hands up in defence. “But...we have our reasons. Look at her Applejack, she’s wasting away, that’s not our doing, that’s hers. She won’t take stimms, she barely eats, the War Mask is on as much as it’s off these days. She’s trying to weaken herself so that if the worst happens, someone can stop her before...”
“Before I slaughter a town's worth of innocents,” Rainbow finished for her, the savage tone gone from her voice, the War Mask gone, for now. “And I think I’ve proven my point. You two had every advantage, and you failed. I need to go further.”
“No, ya don’t,” Applejack looked back at Rainbow, deactivating the Fusion Blade but keeping the battlesuits hoof firmly pressing into Rainbow’s chest. “No offense to either of ya, but y’all may not be suited for containment in this case, but...” Applejack took a deep breath, as if steadying herself for what she was about to say,” but ah am. Think ah’ve proved that now, and back on Pa’Laa. Between the three of us, and without y’all takin’ yer drugs, ah think we can keep ya contained, don’t y’all?”
“You want to stay here?” Rainbow asked, taken aback by Applejack’s words. “Why?”
Applejack sighed, removing the hoof from Rainbow and allowing the Pegasus to stand, her battlesuit hissing as it opened, Applejack dropping neatly to the floor.
In a similar vein to Rainbow, Applejack looked terrible, bags clearly visible under her eyes, her orange fur duller than Kas remembered it, her bionics still shining, freshly polished from the look of things, standing at odds with the rest of her. She looked tired, more tired than anyone Kas had ever seen.
“You look like shit,” Gilda wheezed, moving to stand beside the others.
“Thanks,” Applejack deadpanned. “Ah feel like shit. Ah haven’t slept, ah haven’t laughed...none of us have Rainbow, not properly, not since y’all left for the Shrine.”
“Spitfire made it very clear that we weren’t welcome, and I agreed,” Rainbow pointed out.
“Aye, yer not welcome,” Applejack conceded. “The stuff y’all pulled, ah ain’t surprised she did what she did, but we all grieve in our own way, Rainbow. Ah ain’t gonna tell you that ah even begin to sympathize with ya, ah don’t. Whatever pain yer feeling right now, ya earnt that in spades, and y’all know it.”
Rainbow nodded but remained silent.
“Ah came ta see ya, ta try and make sense of...well, of anythin’, ta try and find purpose. Ah didn’t come lookin’ ta stay, but now? Now it looks like ah don’t have a choice. Yer a monster, Rainbow, ah know you know that. But yer a monster tryin’ to not be one, ah can at least respect that. And if yer trying and need someone on hoof to stop ya if ya ever get out of hand again? Well, ah think that might be somethin’ ah can do. Give me some...purpose, there ain’t much use for a busted old Shas’O in Equestria.”
As Applejack finished talking, she looked at Rainbow, seeing her one time friends eyes swimming with tears. They were tears of joy, that much was clear, but there was also sorrow behind them, pain that Applejack couldn’t even begin to fathom, remembrance of what she had done and what she had sunk to as much as what she was currently feeling.
Wordlessly, Applejack raised a hoof, Rainbow taking the limb and embracing Applejack, Kas and Gilda joining the pair. None of the four said anything, nothing was needed. The world was a dark place for all of them, they had each seen and done things that no one else could imagine, even Spitfire, Scootaloo and Lightning would have struggled. Alone they were vulnerable, alone that darkness would swallow them up without a second thought, but together...together they could face that storm, they could bolster each other where one would have failed.
And maybe, just maybe, though it would take many years, they could all begin to ascend from madness.