Rainbow coughed and wheezed as she flopped back onto her Jetbike, shooting into the webway at full speed. She had used all of her dwindling strength to escape from her latest raid, and she now had nothing left to give.
Taking in another painful breath, Rainbow forced the Jetbike towards her final destination for the night, before her vision failed her for just a moment. In the scheme of things, she only blacked out for a fraction of a second, but that was enough for her tired body to lose control of her bike, travelling at the speeds she was meaning she had no room for errors.
Striking a wraithbone plateau, Rainbow was flung from her bike, skidding across the floor as she felt her face rub raw against the wraithbone. Behind her, bike began to smoke as it threatened to catch fire and finally give out after half a years of being shot at.
It had been six months since she had entered the webway, leaving Saim-Hann in search of the elusive Black Library of Chaos. She had started out with such hope, but all she had got so far was another slew of scars to add to her growing total.
Spitting up a wad of blood, Rainbow grimaced as her newest scars flared up, before she croaked out another few words to the only thing that had kept her sane in her self-imposed exile.
I could save my lonely soul for you, but the feeling in my heart can't follow through.
***
Six Month Earlier
***
Rainbow grinned as she shot into the webway, watching as the blue tinted lights shot by her. She had never actually seen the inside of the webway like this, unlike most of the other aspect warriors or guardians. While they deployed from the ship to the surface through long webway tunnels, Swooping Hawks and Jetbikers deployed straight from the hangers of the ship in low orbit. In fact. The only time she had been in the webway, she had been distraught and wanted to forget about it.
Slowing down, she suddenly caught sight of a towering spire in front of her, the structure made entirely of gleaming white wraithbone. Spying a small landing pad, Rainbow slowed down, intrigued by its presence. She hadn’t expected anything to be in the webway, but she supposed she could use any assistance she could get.
Rainbow slowly slid from her bike, looking around the small pad, before she felt something switch its gaze to her, the fur on the back of her standing on end. Slowly turning around, she caught sight of a glinting scope on the top of one of the spires, before she heard a crackling in her helmet comm.
“Remove your weapons. Place them on the floor and take five steps back. Remove your helmet and place it on the floor. Complete only these actions in this order, or you will be fired upon.”
Rainbow hesitated for a second, debating what course of actions she should take, before a shot rang out, slamming into the ground millimetres from her front hooves. Once again, her helmet crackled and the voice came through.
“That was your last warning. Comply with the orders now or I won’t miss next time.”
Growling softly, Rainbow slowly pulled her sword out of its holster, setting it down on the floor alongside her las-blaster, before stepping back and removing her helmet. Instantly, a red dot shifted itself to be directly on her forehead, before she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Who are you and why are you here?” the Ranger asked, walking in front of her and blocking out the laser dot.
“Rainbow Dash. Pegasus of Equestria,” Rainbow said curtly, keeping a wary eye on the pistol sheathed at the Rangers side.
“A Pegasus hmm?” the Ranger nodded slowly, casting his eye over her armour and weapons. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a Pegasus before, nor have I seen an alien wearing custom made aspect armour and wielding a human sword. Which Craftworld took you in? Saim-Hann, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow nodded slowly. “Lucky guess?”
“Educated one,” the Ranger corrected her. “Ulthwé very rarely comes down these tunnels, and never lands on the spires. Other Craftworld’s, especially Biel-tan, would rather have their Craftworld wiped out than offer xenos Eldar tech, most barely want to work with aliens at all. That being the case, only the more, barbarous, Craftworld of Saim-Hann would try something this farfetched. But, that still leaves us with the question of what you are doing here.”
“I’m looking for the Black Library of Chaos,” Rainbow said simply. “They have information on a lost webway portal, and I need to find out where the portal is so I can get home.”
“You? Looking for the lost Craftworld?” the Ranger laughed, clutching his stomach. “Oh, that’s rich. A xenos from Saim-Hann looking for the hardest place to find in the galaxy. Tell me, what are you really doing?”
“Looking for the Black Library,” Rainbow repeated slowly.
“You’re not kidding?” the Ranger asked in astonishment. “Whoa, ok, not what I expected when I got up this morning. Still, I assume due to the fact that you’re here you’ve taken the Outcast path?”
“I have,” Rainbow nodded.
“Well then, it is my duty as the first Ranger you come across to provide you with as many details about your new life as I can.”
“Save it, the less I know the better. All I need to know is how to go about finding the Black Library,” Rainbow shook her head, stooping down and grabbing her sword, sliding it back into its holster.”
“I don’t know,” the Ranger admitted. “I’ve never looked for it, and certainly never found it. I can give you advice though, both about searching the webway and surviving on your own.”
“Go on then,” Rainbow sighed.
“The webway is slightly psycho-connective,” the Ranger began. “It speaks to you, whispers in your mind. If you listen closely, it will help to guide you to your heart’s desire, be it in half a year or one hundred years. Listen, and you shall receive.”
“And surviving in general?” Rainbow asked, grabbing her las blaster and helmet.
“Small scale raids against outer human worlds will keep you fed and watered, just make sure not to attack a heavy military installation. You are one, and as always, humans are many,” the Ranger explained. “But food and water aren’t the only things that will keep you alive out here.”
“And this last thing is...?” Rainbow asked, spinning her hoof round slowly to egg him on.
“Sanity,” the Ranger replied simply. “Being alone in these tunnels for decades, stretching onto centuries or millennia, it can start to weigh heavy on the mind. My advice, don’t go lethargic. Speak out loud, do something to keep your mind occupied outside of combat. Hell, sing if it makes you feel better, just do something.”
“Thanks,” Rainbow nodded, before looking back at her bike. “Sing eh? Anything else?”
“That is all I can give you,” the Ranger said apologetically. “I haven’t attempted your mission, so I have no knowledge of what you will face. All I can say is good luck Rainbow Dash.”
“I never caught your name,” Rainbow pointed out, getting onto her jetbike and carefully fitting her helmet onto her armour.
“I have none,” the Ranger replied over the roar of the jetbikes engines. “I am simply a ranger, my ties to my craftworld gone. Good luck Rainbow.”
“Good luck to you to,” Rainbow nodded, before shooting off from the platform, heading down one of the smaller tunnels off from the spires chamber.
As she flew, she thought on the Rangers words, slowly formulating a plan of action for her search. She would need to stay in the webway a lot, although not indefinitely as she had thought though, not if she was going to get food and fulfil Elarique’s wish for her to avoid the dark port of Commoragh. More than that though, she thought about the third thing he had mentioned to her, and her lips curled back into a smile as she slowly began to sing.
You see me soaring through the sky, I see you below as you walk on by.
***
Present Day
***
Pulling herself shakily to her hooves, Rainbow slowly made her way towards her smoking jetbike, intent on putting the fire out before she passed out for her version of the night. There was no indication of what time it actually was inside the tunnels of the webway, so Rainbow just had to use her own internal body clock, and the readouts from her armour. Right now, her body was screaming at her that it needed to rest, else it would shut down entirely. Her mechanical leg had already shut down to save power, and her replacement wing wasn’t doing much better.
Taking in a shaky breath, Rainbow slammed her hoof down on a button on her jetbike, purging the engines and putting the smouldering fires out, before slowly sliding down to the floor, her back pressed against her bike. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this tired, and she mentally kicked herself for trying to punch above her weight class with that last raid.
Gasping, Rainbow slowly removed her cracked and damaged helmet, dropping it to one side and staring off into the distance and opening her mouth once more.
You can give your broken heart to me.
***
Five Months, Three Weeks Earlier
***
Rainbow crouched low in the long grass just outside of the village she was staring at. She had left her jetbike by the entrance to the webway portal, the vehicle being too loud to pull this off properly.
It had been two week since she had left Saim-Hann, and she had finally run out of the provisions she had brought with her. That meant she was going to have to find some more, and as luck would have it, she had been right beside a small portal to this remote outer rim world of the Imperium when she had discovered her lack of supplies.
Her stomach growled at her, signalling its need to get something edible inside it, and she grinned as she finalised her plan of attack. Nothing lethal of course, these were just farmers and herdsmen, not soldiers, but she might need to tackle a few alerted humans. Killing was out, kicking them unconscious was not.
Slowly, she began to whisper to herself, continuing the advice the Ranger had given her.
I could be sitting here on a cloud, watching the sun as it starts to go down,
Springing forward, Rainbow made it to one of the outlying buildings, pushing her back to it as she began to shimmy around to get a better view of the village. She had been observing it for the past day, and she knew that the food would be in the middle of the settlement. She also knew that the majority of the men, and most of the guards, would be away from the village, fighting against a recently defeated threat to the planet, although what that threat had been she hadn’t worked out yet. All that mattered was now was the time to strike.
Diving out of cover, Rainbow sprinted forward, catching sight of a foot coming round a corner and taking to the skies. The woman rounded the corner, catching sight of the blue blur flying towards her and staring in awe. If she had reacted quicker then maybe she would have avoided Rainbow. As it was, she caught a mouthful of equine hoof for her troubles, and fell to the floor like a sack of stones.
Kneeling down beside her, Rainbow checked her pulse, assuring herself that the woman was still alive, before dragging the body into an alcove in a nearby building and setting off once more.
It didn’t take her long to reach the central food store, and she slipped inside quietly, locking the door behind her as she looked at the cornucopia of food arrayed in front of her. Licking her lips, she set to work grabbing enough food to last her until her next raid, stuffing grain and dried fruits into one of the bags she had attached to her armour for just this reason.
Five minutes later the bags were full, Rainbow securing the tops, before silently slipping from the building and making her way towards the edge of the village. Just as she made it out, a deafening echoed around the still air around her, making her blood run cold. She had heard a roar like that a life-time ago, and it scared her just as much now as it did back then. It would have been easy for her to leave, the scurry away with her prize and never look back, and she almost did that, until another scream echoed out across the still night. This wasn’t an adult scream. It was the scream of a child.
Cursing herself, Rainbow turned around and took to the sky, soaring above the village and catching sight of the thing causing all the trouble, grimacing as she confirmed that she had been right about what it was.
Roaring, Rainbow plummeted towards the ground, drawing her las-blaster and preparing herself to fight, mentally protecting her mind from the war mask, before slamming into the ground, placing herself between the whimpering child and the advancing Genestealer.
Screaming, Rainbow unleashed a pair of shots, one slamming into the creature’s carapace, and the second striking its head, felling the creature easily. Whirling around, Rainbow looked down at the female child, quickly scanning the area for anymore threats, before crouching down.
“Is there anywhere you can hide? Inside?” she asked urgently, getting a shaky nod in reply. “Get there then, stay there until everything is safe out here. OK?”
The child nodded again, before getting to her feet and running towards one of the buildings, tears streaming from her eyes as she went. Rainbow sighed, before turning and taking to the skies, flying low over the ground as she searched for other creatures. That had been a Genestealer, meaning it was likely there were more of the creatures around, but also meant that it was unlikely that there would be a Lictor this time.
‘Unless the Lictor is leading the attack,’ a voice in her mind pointed out, and Rainbow grimaced at that thought. She hated Lictors.
Emerging into the central courtyard once more, Rainbow spied at handful of humans with primitive solid shot rifles trying to fend off a swarming group of Genestealers, the creatures avoiding most of the shots as they advanced. There were only ten or so of them, but that would be more than enough to destroy the village. Luckily for the village though, she had been passing through at the time.
Screaming, Rainbow flapped her wings, propelling her high into the sky, before she unleashed a flurry of grenades into the swarm and dived downwards. The grenades exploded just as she hit the floor, scattering the Genestealers as they tried to reorganise to combat this new threat. Two of their number had just been killed in a couple of seconds, and now Rainbow was in their midst.
Twisting, Rainbow fired a short burst of laser fire into a pair of Genestealers, before slipping her sword from its sheath and diving forward, activating the power field as she hacked at the Genestealers.
It was a bloody affair for both sides, Rainbow receiving her fair share of cuts, gashes and burns from the claws of her enemy and their slightly acidic blood, but she had something that they didn’t have. Training, mixed with one pissed off Pegasus. When the dust finally settled, the Genestealers lay dead, and Rainbow looked towards the stunned humans, panting heavily.
Slowly, they began to raise their rifles, pointing them at Rainbow, but not firing them.
“Really?” she deadpanned, looking around. “You want…”
She suddenly found herself flying unaided across the courtyard, slamming into and through one of the buildings, before slowly pulling herself from the splintered wood and grimacing at the new creature, the massive Lictor slowly advancing towards the humans, the pitiful human shots bouncing off from its carapace.
Pulling herself from the wreckage, Rainbow glanced over at the ground behind the Lictor, the bags of food lying on the ground where she had been when she had been struck, near the slowly encroaching acidic blood of the Genestealers. She had to get those bags out of the way of the blood, but that would mean abandoning the humans.
“Fuck,” Rainbow growled, before pulling herself from the wreckage and raising her voice. “Hey! Ugly! Pick on somepony your own size!”
Instantly, the Lictor turned, its bestial eyes locking onto her and her weapons. It instantly identified her as a greater threat, before it roared, charging towards Rainbow, intent on finishing what it started.
Screaming, Rainbow dived to the floor, grabbing her rifle and quickly adjusting the power setting. She would only have five shots, but they would do a lot more damage. That was if she could hit the blasted creature.
Diving aside once more, Rainbow skidded along the floor, before springing to her hooves and taking aim along the barrel of her rifle, squeezing off a shot as soon as she gauged the Lictors movements.
The laser slashed forward, slamming into one of the Lictor’s claws and burning through, the fleshy appendage falling to the floor as the creature roared, before yet another shot slammed into its other claw, leaving it with only its arms to attack with.
Rainbow grinned, before a beeping in her rifle told her she had miscalculated the power usage of the higher power setting. Grimacing, she sidestepped the enraged creature, before pulling out her sword and hovering in mid-air.
“I hate to tell you buddy, this isn’t my first time,” she growled, readying her sword.
The creature roared again, charging at Rainbow, expecting her to dive out of its way again. Instead, Rainbow did something that any halfway intelligent person would tell her was suicidal, and charged straight at the Lictor, flapping her wings as she held the sword out in front of her, spinning as she headed straight for it.
The Lictor’s eyes went wide as it realised what she was doing, and it desperately tried to change it course, bringing its severed claw stumps up to try and defend itself, but it was pointless, it was already dead, it just didn’t know it yet.
Rainbow slammed into the creature, the power field surrounding the sword easily cutting through the armour of the Lictor, and when coupled with the speed she had been going at, meant she passed straight through the creature, landing on the other side as it fell to the floor, dead.
Glancing back, Rainbow checked it was really dead, before looking at the stunned humans. They were all staring straight at her, a rifle pointed at her in a lacklustre fashion, while the others were simply pointed at the ground, the men wielding them too shocked to do anything.
Rainbow whirled around as something touched her rear leg, bringing her sword up in preparation to strike down at the Lictor once again.
The roar died in her throat as she saw the human girl once more, her tiny arms wrapped around her rear leg as she snuggled against Rainbow. Rainbow looked around in shock as more humans began to walk towards the pair, some slowly clapping, while others simply walked towards her, extending hands to pat her on the back.
Rainbow didn’t quite know what to do as she got surrounded by humans, before finally deciding that she had had enough, flapping her wings once and buffeting the humans with a powerful gust of wind, creating a space around her so she could move once more.
The humans looked at her fearfully, before the girl slowly walked forward again, dragging a pair of bags behind her, which Rainbow instantly recognised.
“Take them,” one of the rifle wielding men said softly, gesturing down at the bags and softly rubbing the girl’s hair. “And thank you.”
Rainbow smiled softly beneath her helmet, before grabbing the bags and attaching them back to her armour. Beneath her helmet, her eyes were swimming with tears at the small gesture, and she slowly slid her sword back into its sheath and crouched down in front of the girl, pulling her into a soft hug, before taking off once more, heading back towards her jetbike and the webway portal.
the only thing missing is you by my side.
***
Present Day
***
Rainbow managed a smile as she remembered that memory, glad that she had decided to stop and help the village, rather than fleeing from it because she could. She still didn’t know why she had stopped to help them. She owed them nothing, and they could have decided to kill her the instant she had stopped being useful, and yet they had helped her, saving her stolen food and giving it back to her. Grimacing as she let out a heavy cough, blood intermixing with her saliva as it splattered onto the wraithbone platform and her own armour, Rainbow slowly leaned forward, lying down on the platform.
Her smile and good memories were soon replaced by tears and the knowledge of her failed mission, and she softly sobbed, each sob sending lances of pain through her ruined and scarred body. She had tried to find the library, she had tried to get home, and yet all she had managed to do was get into the middle of the webway and get shot at. She was dying, there was nothing she could do, no one to help her, and she knew that this was it.
Memories of her friends flooded her mind, and she managed to croak once again, her vision spinning ad beginning to fade.
‘cause you know that I’ll stay with you,
***
Half an Hour Earlier
***
Rainbow sighed as looked over the city in front of her, hovering just behind a bank of clouds as she prepared her plan, her jetbikes engine growling softly in anticipating of her newest raid. This was bigger than any of the other raids she had perpetrated in the past six months, the planet below being a human forge world, but the prize at the end was also bigger. She had heard rumours of the humans unearthing something ancient here, a piece of Eldar technology that they believed was one of their fabled Standard Temple Constructs, or STCs as they insisted on calling them.
This technology, while not necessary for her mission, would help the Eldar race immensely, allowing them to recreate shielding technology that had been impossible since the fall. The Eldar would be thrilled to have that back, and it may just be enough to allow Rainbow access to the Black Library when she finally found it. Softly, Rainbow whispered to herself, psyching herself up for the attack.
I could save my lonely soul for you, but the feeling in my heart can't follow through,
Grinning, she gunned the engines of her bike, shooting forward under the cover of night. She knew that this attack was risky, but she was confident that she could get in and out before anyone there even knew about her. She had killed mechanicus soldiers before, so if push came to shove, she would be able to kill the Magos and get her hooves on…
A shot glanced her helmet, sending her spinning as she reflexively hauled on the handlebars of her bike, before looking down at the thing that had shot at her. It was ugly, a big two seated vehicle crewed by a pair of massive Space Marines, clad in the blue armour she recognised as belonging to the Ultramarines.
Growling, she turned her bike around, shooting back up towards the clouds in an attempt to lose her pursuers, but finding herself unable to shake the landspeeder that was now hot on her tail, snapping off shots from the heavy bolter that was strapped to the front, missing her by mere inches as she twisted and turned. Even over the roar of the engines of both her bike and the landspeeder, Rainbow could hear the voices of the Ultramarines.
“Go left!,” the gunner roared, tracking after Rainbow with his massive gun.
“No brother, the Codex Astartes tells us that when chasing an Eldar, we are to dive first, regardless of our enemies actions,” the other replied.
“If we dive we’ll lose it,” the first one pointed out.
“Brother, are you saying we should deviated from the Codex’s holy text?” the second marine asked in astonishment. “I never thought I would see the day when a noble Ultramarine would blaspheme against his holy work.”
“Do you want to catch this Eldar or not?” the gunner snapped.
“We are Ultramarines, not barbarians like the Space Wolves. If we do not follow the Codex Astartes to the letter, we cannot be the greatest of all His warriors. For we are the greatest of His Space Marines, the Ultramarines.”
“We’re going to lose it!” the gunner roared. “Go left!”
“We are diving as we should,” the driver retorted, before pushing the landspeeder into a dive. “When we return to the company, I will report these actions, and you can follow the example of our noble Captain Ventris into exile. You may even make it back like he did.”
“Pull up you idiot! We’re going to hit the ground!” the gunner roared.
“The Codex Astartes will not steer us wring brother. We are to dive for fifteen seconds, before…”
Rainbow never heard what was supposed to happen after the dive as the Space Marine landspeeder slammed into the ground, erupting into a ball of flames. Rainbow stared in confusion at the wreckage, the two Space Marines within not moving, before shaking her head at the stupidity of the driver. Anyone who followed a books rules to the letter with no actual thought deserved to crash, and were certainly not great warriors.
Unfortunately, the death of the two idiotic Ultramarines had done something useful for the humans, and as Rainbow watched, a pair of vulture gunships appeared out of the city, followed by four Valkyries. The aircraft shot toward her, shots lashing out at her as soon as she came into range and view.
Grimacing, Rainbow turned her bike back towards the portal she had come through, intent on getting through it quickly. She may not have done anything on this raid, but if it was the choice between dying and living, she knew which one she would chose. She had enough food to last her another few days, this had just been because she was cocky, and now she was paying the price.
She let out a roar as a multi-laser pumped a stream of shots at her, most of the missing her, but a few slamming into her side and burning through her armour. It was only by the greatest margin of luck that she wasn’t killed right there, her armour taking most of the force out of the blows. She wasn’t eager to try it again through, and pushed her bike harder, finally catching sight of the portal she had come through.
Glancing back, she saw the craft slowly peeling off from their pursuit, all except for one of the Vulture gunships, its weapon mounts taken up by two massive cyclical cannons, their barrels already spinning, before they unleashed a hail of shots at her.
Rainbow screamed as the sound assaulted her ears, sounding more like a giant piece of fabric being ripped in half rather than a gun firing. The air around her was filled with the bright red bullets, and she was almost thrown from her seat as two slammed into her jetbikes hull, almost making her lose control.
Gasping from the pain of her latest blunder, Rainbow made the final adjustments to her trajectory, desperate to escape the Vulture gunship, before she heard something else firing. Risking a glance back, Rainbow saw a missile from one of the other crafts arcing towards her, traveling even faster than she was going.
Rainbow cursed as she realised that even at this speed, she wouldn’t reach the portal before the missile reach her, and if she tried to avoid it, she would miss the portal and be at the mercy of the Imperium of man, something she was not eager to do this time round.
The jetbike shuddered as another shot struck it, and a massive piece of the wing snapped off, flying backwards as it twisted in the air and caught the wind. The piece of debris slammed into the missile as it neared the jetbike, activating the pressure cap on the front of the warhead, and detonating its payload.
Rainbow felt the pressure wave slam into her, her organs feeling like they had been shaken to pieces even with her armour protecting her. However, the early explosion had given her the chance she needed, and Rainbow shot through the portal.
***
Rainbow cursed herself again for even trying to raid a forge world on her own. Even with an entire assault force, a forge world was next to impossible to take, and yet in her hubris she had decided she could take it on all by herself. Now that same hubris had cost her everything.
She had failed.
She was going to die here.
She wouldn’t see her friends again, any of them, either those in Equestria or those back on Saim-Hann.
These thoughts stayed with her as she slowly closed her eyes, shutting out the blurry figure that moved in front of her. She didn’t care anymore, and she hoped that if the thing was here to kill her, it would be quick.
Opening her mouth, she softly croaked what she assumed would be her final words, the sound coming out as barely anything more than a horse whisper.
That's why they call me loyalty.