The laser burst from the end of her weapon, and impacted with the nearest Ork, ripping through the skin and muscle, and burning into the bone beneath. The Ork dropped to the ground dead, but tens of thousands more were already pushing forward. Quick as a flash, she pulled the trigger again, killing another Ork, before taking off in perfect tandem with the rest of the Floating Assault. The drills they had run on board the Celestial Ideal had helped, and now they knew exactly how long to stay on the ground, and when to fight.
“The enemy seeks to take the skies from us!” Tar’nek roared, pointing upwards.
Rainbow looked upwards, and was shocked to see a whole host of Orks flying through the sky towards them, crude rockets strapped to their backs. Their flight was not smooth like hers, and they span and stuttered along on massive trails of black smoke. Never the less, they were deadly, and she saw a Swooping Hawk from one of the other temples suddenly go limp, nothing remaining of his left chest cavity as a large bore round ripped through it.
“Get ‘em boyz!” One of the larger Orks shouted.
“Waaaagggghhhhhh!” Came the reply from the others, and just like that, they were amongst them, the two forces clashing in mid-air.
Dropping slightly, she avoided the swing of an Orks axe, before bringing the butt of her rifle down on the Orks rocket pack as it sped past. The Ork screamed as it suddenly found itself plummeting towards the ground absent any form of motivation. Beneath her helmet, Rainbow grinned manically as she made another kill, before she re-aimed, and fired once more.
Far beneath the aerial fight, the Orks were mobilising in force to combat the enemy in their midst. Already, thousands more Orks were flocking towards the battle, hooting loudly as they streamed towards the battle, either on foot, or clinging to the sides of ramshackle wagons.
“Fighter-Bombers!” Faren screamed, pointing upwards, towards a wing of at least ten aircraft.
“Fighter-Bombers seen. Engaging.” Came a voice over the radio, and Rainbow looked upwards again just in time to see a host of Crimson Hunters soar over head, their bright lances flaring, and ripping through the Orks aircraft, before the two forces sped past each other, banking and coming around for another pass.
“Dive!” Kaliden shouted over the helmet com, and without thinking, Rainbow locked her wings and plummeted towards the ground, and not a moment too soon.
The Crimson Hunters roared passed again, firing their pulse lasers into the remaining stormboyz, ripping them to shreds, and covering Rainbow in a fine layer of blood. A few drops seeped through the grille of her helmet, and Rainbow stuck her tongue out, savouring the bitter, iron like taste of the red liquid.
Dismissing the blissful feeling, she turned her attention to the fast approaching ground. Once again, she released a flurry of grenades, landing in the midst of the explosion, and blackening her armour slightly with the plasma blast. Landing heavily, she suddenly saw a massive Ork charging at her, its armour warped and melted to its body by the explosion, but still very much alive, and very angry.
“Wats dis?” It bellowed, swinging it massive axe in a two handed blow which Rainbow only just managed to dodge. “You’re not a pointy ‘ead!”
“Pony.” Rainbow grunted, dodging another blow.
“Huh huh. Puny.” The Ork laughed, before lashing out with a fist again.
With a sudden bolt of realisation, Rainbow realised that the Ork was far to close, and she wasn’t able to get any sort of shot in. She cursed Kaliden and the Floating Assault under her breath at their insistence that she had to earn her sword. Deciding on a proper course of action, she put her plan in motion.
Dodging a blow with the axe, she then flapped her wings and pushed herself behind the Ork. The creature roared with laughter, as it brought its foot up, brining it smashing into Rainbows chest, and sending her flipping head over hooves.
Rainbow grimaced in pain as she landed, but her plan had worked, and she instantly brought her rifle up. The Ork was still laughing, but slowed as it saw the rifle.
“Pony!” She roared, before pulling the trigger, destroying the creatures head and killing it instantly.
She laughed at the dead Ork, before watching Kaliden swoop overhead. Nodding at the Exarch, she took off after him, just as more Orks flooded the area, attempting to grab her, but failing. Not a moment later, a host of Warp Spiders appear, spraying indiscriminate death into the Orks, before vanishing again.
Catching up with Kaliden, Rainbow opened a com link to her Exarch, and shouting through to him.
“Where’s the Warboss?!”
“We’re looking for him!” Kaliden shouted back, firing a shot from his rifle and taking an Orks arm off.
“Where are the Wind Riders then?!” Rainbow asked.
“About Five miles nor-nor-west! They encountered heavy resistance!”
“Are we going to help them?!”
“The autarch has ordered us to relieve them! But only our temple! The others are needed to hold the diversion here!”
During the conversation, the rest of the temple had formed up on Kaliden, and as one, they increased their speed, streaking across the sky in a blur, and leaving the battle behind.
Rainbow was annoyed at being forced to leave the blood shedding, but she followed her leader dutifully. The Wind Riders were somewhere near here, and if they were in trouble, she would have to swallow her own personal feelings about bloodletting.
For almost three minutes, they flew in silence, before finally, they saw more flashes of battle around a ramshackle camp, surrounded by a crude sheet metal wall. All around the camp, jetbikes clashed with scores of Ork bikers, sporadic explosions erupting around the place.
“We need to help them!” Jolee shouted.
“Don’t need to tell me twice!” Juhani laughed, diving, and unleashing shot after shot from her rifle.
Grinning, Rainbow followed suite, diving to just above the ground, skimming over the sand dunes, before flaring her wings, sending a grenade into the wheel base of an Ork trukk, flipping it through the air, and causing it to be engulfed in a fireball.
“One.” She grunted, killing an Ork that had managed to crawl out of the wreckage with a flurry of shots to its chest.
“Two.” She growled, bisecting another Ork who had survived.
“Three.” A decapitated Ork fell to the ground.
“Four!” She screamed, ramming the rifle into the mouth of an Ork pinned in the trukk and pulling the trigger, sending the laser out of the back of the Orks spine.
She stood still, breathing heavily as the Ork twitched in front of her, before it fell towards her, covering her from head to hoof in blood.
For a moment, the battlefield felt silent, like she was the only one on it. She looked around at the destruction that she had just unleashed. Corpses lay around her, some killed directly by her rifle, others bearing burn marks from the explosion of the trukk. Somewhere, deep down within her, a part of her screamed, raging against the power of the war mask, but she ignored it. Now, she was a warrior, and warriors couldn’t second guess themselves in battle. If she did, she would be dead.
Coming back to reality, she was dimly aware of shouting over the radio.
“Gazgutz sighted! Bearing 5-5-9-2! Engaging now!” One of the Wind Riders called.
A moment later, the radio was flooded with screams of pain, before silence, and Rainbow instinctively knew that he was dead.
Taking off, she was instantly joined by the rest of the temple, as they sped towards the location the late Wind Rider had given. Spotting an immense Battlefortress moving away from the battlefield, surrounded by a host of war bikes and war buggies. As she watched, Rainbow saw Wind Riders being picked off by the guns of the fortress and the outriders that surrounded it.
“We need to get on that!” Kaliden shouted.
“No shit!” Goroic yelled, speeding towards the fortress.
Nodding, she followed the others as they moved towards the Battlefortress, dodging a stream of fire from the room top guns. From behind her, she heard a scream, and Rainbow turned in the air to see Makhutar falling, his chest a mess of blood.
Screeching, Rainbow dived, attempting to reach him before he hit the ground, him being unable to stop his own descent.
They were fifty meters above the ground when Makhutar was hit, and by the time Rainbow had dived after him, he had already fallen ten meters.
She began to close the gap, struggling to catch him.
She was nine meters away.
Eight meters.
Seven meters.
Five.
Two.
Makhutar hit the ground hard, head first. Blood sprayed upwards, and covered Rainbow in yet another layer of the red liquid. She flared her wings at the last moment, but still hit the ground hard, crashing into the lifeless, headless form of Makhutar, crushing it further, and cracking the armour. Little bits of flesh from beneath the armour squeezed through the cracks that had been made, causing the armour to look like some grotesque creature.
For a moment, her real self managed to break through the war mask, something that Kaliden had said should be impossible, but she managed it. Instantly, she was back on Aspoh fields on Hannibal, standing over the broken form of her erstwhile friend.
“Talvan!” She screamed, shaking the Eldar, and honestly believing that the Swooping Hawk was the Warlock that she had known.
“Talvan!” She shouted again.
“Rainbow Dash!” A voice crackled over the radio. “Report!”
And just like that, Rainbow was dragged back to reality, her war mask bursting through her psyche and coming to the forefront again. Looking down, she realised that it wasn’t the warlock, but the hawk.
“Makhutar’s dead.” She screamed.
The voice on the radio cursed, before he spoke to rainbow again. “Grab his spirit stone and get back up her. The guns up top have been silenced.”
Nodding grimly, Rainbow reached out, prying the spirit stone out of the fallen warrior’s armour, before slipping it into a pouch on her armour and taking off again.
Taking off, she left the dead Eldar on the ground, before landing on top of the speeding Battlefortress. From what she could see, the Orks didn’t know they were there as they weren’t streaming onto the roof on the three story vehicle.
“They don’t know we’re here.” Faren roared, having to shout to make himself heard over the wind.
“The outriders haven’t seen us either!” Goroic roared back.
“Juhani, off the hull!” Kaliden roared, and the Swooping Hawk complied.
He bent down and removed a pile of grenades from his dispensers and placed them on the hinges of the main top hatch. Pressing a few buttons on the top one, he moved back as Kaliden got out a few grenades of his own and held them tightly.
The hull was suddenly rocked as the grenades exploded, melting through the hatch and opening a large hole in the top of the Battlefortress. Quick as a flash, Kaliden moved over and dropped the pair of grenades into the darkness. A second explosion rocked the vehicle, accompanied by Orkoid screams.
“Feet first…” Goroic shouted, jumping down the hole.
“…into hell!” Juhani finished, jumping after Goroic. Rainbow couldn’t shake the feeling that the pair were more than just brothers and sisters in arms.
Following the pair, Rainbow dived into the vehicle, rolling as she hit the floor, before bringing her rifle up, scanning for targets. No were there, the doors, walls, even the ceiling was covered in the blood and guts of Orks. There weren’t even carcasses, they had just, been obliterated.
Kicking a closed door, the metal buckled, but didn’t give. She growled and tried again, and this time, the door ripped off its hinges. Hovering upwards, she moved across the threshold of the doorway, just above the floor, and brought her rifle up, pulling the trigger and firing at one of the small creatures in the room. What were they called again? Grotchin? Grets? Something like that.
“Engine room!” She yelled out.
“Destroy it.” Kaliden shouted back over the radio. From what Rainbow could hear over the radio, he was fighting his own battle.
Nodding, Rainbow flew backwards quickly, tensing her muscles and allowing the grenades to fly towards the spluttering engine block, engulfing it in a blue explosion.
The Battlefortress groaned and metal plates scraped together in a high, ear splitting sound, as the massive behemoth ground to a halt.
“Oi, ya lazy gitz!” Came an Orks voice from a metal pipe just by the door. “We better get movin’ now or I’m cuming up there to crump sum ‘eads!”
“Not this time Ork.” Rainbow growled into the pipe, before releasing it and moving out of the room.
“Boyz! Looks like we have sum guests. Show em why Orks are the biggest and the strongest.” The Warboss raged, before Rainbow heard heavy footfalls over the crude communication system.
“The Warboss…” Rainbow yelled, before a shadow fell across her.
“Is ‘ere…whatever puny thing you are.” The Warboss yelled from behind her.
Whirling around and flying backwards at the same time, Rainbow got the first sight of a true example of Ork physiology.
The Warboss was big, bigger than any other Ork she had ever seen. Its entire lower jaw was missing, being replaced by a large, crude metal prosthesis. From what she could see, its lower right arm was also mechanical, replaced by a wicked looking three pronged claw. In its other hand, it held a massive plasma weapon, which look a lot more like a human weapon than an Ork one.
She screamed as the weapon fired, and caught her in the leg, skimming her, but still burning through her armour and singing her fur beneath. The shot was followed up by a back handed strike that sent her flying across the hold, ripping her helmet from her head. She smashed into the wall, causing a dent to form in it, and dazing her.
The Warboss advanced, laughing as he approached the struggling form of Rainbow. Rainbow looked at the Warboss with fear in her eyes.
“Puny.” The Warboss growled, raising his claw.
“Surprise!” Kaliden roared, bringing his sword in an upwards arc, slicing through the Orks right arm, cutting it off at the shoulder.
The heavy mechanical limb crashed to the floor as the Ork roared in pain, flailing around, trying to catch the Eldar with a stray shot. Kaliden easily dodged the blows however, before spinning, and ripping the Orks head from its shoulders.
The Ork fell to the ground, dead, but there were still other Orks in the vehicle. They didn’t seem put off by the death of their leader at all, but Rainbow knew that eventually, the battle lust would wear off, and infighting would begin.
“We need to go!” Kaliden roared. “The Celestial Ideal can’t hold orbit for much longer! I’m calling her into low orbit!”
The others flashed their acknowledgement, but not Rainbow. A red film had descended over her eyes, and all she could think about was ripping the remaining Orks apart. Tearing their limbs off and bathing in the blood as it poured over her bare face.
Leaping up, she jumped on an Ork, taking it by surprise, and smashing her head into its. Before it could react, she grabbed its chopper, and brought it down through the air into the meat of the Orks arm.
“Let’s go Rainbow!” Kaliden screamed, standing by the hole in the top of the hull.
Rainbow didn’t listen. She brought the axe down again, and then pulled the severed limb away, covering herself in yet more blood, before bringing the armoured arm down hard on the Orks skull, cracking it open and sending brains all over the floor.
She roared as the Ork died, before she felt two sets of arms grab her, and haul her backwards. She twisted, and saw Goroic and Juhani dragging her away. She raged against the two Eldar, even as they took off, speeding upwards towards the dark black shape of the Celestial Ideal.