Rainbow Dash
Rainbow’s throat was raw from screaming as she finally sat up, the straps that had held her down to the table during the procedure falling away at an unspoken command by Eethron. For the first time she was able to turn her head, looking at her leg. Her back burned and her leg was in more pain than when she had first lost it, but that didn’t stop her from leaping off the table onto the floor.
Her new muscles worked perfectly, easily supporting her weight as they tensed up. For a moment the pain almost got to her, but she managed to push through it, gritting her teeth as she looked up at Eethron, slowly extending her wings outwards. If it wasn’t for the searing pain, even Rainbow would have been hard pushed to tell the difference between them, and to the outside viewer, they would be nigh-on indistinguishable.
“Well, Ms Dash,” Eethron smiled, extending a hand to gesture at her new limbs. “What do you think of my work?”
“It’s…amazing,” Rainbow grinned, spitting out a globule of blood from where she had bitten through her tongue. “You don’t like anaesthetic, do you?”
“Why would I? Your screams were…beautiful,” Eethron shuddered at the memories. “If your race was still alive, I would dearly enjoy harvesting their screams.”
Rainbow snarled softly at Eethron’s words, forcing herself to keep quiet. Eethron seemed to be looking for a reaction however, staying silent as he leered down at her, before finally speaking again.
“Well then, since you have been finished, I wish you farewell, Dash. I now have a Ygal to study.”
With that, Eethron turned around, moving back towards Wavechill’s corpse that had been splayed out on an operating table by a pair of Wracks. Rainbow felt a tinge of guilt when she saw the lifeless corpse, before shaking her head. The deal had been done, and there was nothing she could do to change that. With one final glance back at Wavechill, Rainbow spread her wings and took to the air, soaring out of the openings usually reserved for the newly converted Scourges that the Covern of Mutilation churned out.
Rainbow beat her wings hard as she headed back towards the arena, ignoring the pain as she finally touched down, landing heavily, only to come face to face with Lightning, Spitfire and the rest of the Shadowbolts.
“Where the hell have you been?” Spitfire demanded, glaring at Rainbow. “It’s been a week, what the hell happened?”
“And why are you covered in blood?” Lightning chimed in, before noticing Rainbows facial features. “And what’s with the unhinged smile?”
“This,” Rainbow grinned, extending her wing and twisting slightly to show them all her new leg.
While they now looked indistinguishable from her real legs, they did look different enough from her cybernetics to stop any questions from the others. Finally, Gilda spoke up.
“Rainbow…is that…real?”
“Sure is,” Rainbow grinned. “As much flesh and blood as the day I was born.”
“Tell me you didn’t just come from the Covern of Mutilation,” Spitfire whispered.
“Well they didn’t just grow over the last week,” Rainbow laughed. “It was worth every iota of pain I had to go through.”
“Rainbow!” Spitfire roared. “How could you do that?! You let Eethron of all people experiment on you?! And what did you even pay him with?!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rainbow shook her head dismissively. “Now come on, I may have been out of action for the past week, but you shouldn’t have been. Everyone to the arena, training’s being stepped up, and Gilda, I’m placing you in charge of searching for new recruits.”
“New recruits?” Scootaloo asked in surprise. “I thought we weren’t going to be recruiting ay Dark Eldar.”
“Why? Because they might expose us?” Rainbow scoffed. “If we had more Reavers in the Shadowbolts, Wavechill might not have gotten pinned down on his own, and he would still be with us. I will not preside over the funerals of any more of you. Do you understand?”
Without waiting for an answer, Rainbow pushed past the group, Gilda walking beside her and Scootaloo trailing behind, leaving Spitfire and Lightning to exchange glances, before following after the trio.
***
Rainbow watched impassively as dozens of Jetbikes shot around the arena at breakneck speed, passing within inches of her nose at one point. Beside her was Gilda, the pair overseeing the new potential candidates for the Shadowbolts, while the rest of the team were still in the garage tuning their own bikes. Spitfire and Lightning still didn’t agree with the decision to recruit more members, and Scootaloo’s bike had been damaged in one of their recent races, luckily she had escaped with only some minor wounds.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Rainbow scoffed over the comm-link. “There’s six spaces on my team, and we’re not derby racers. Start shedding blood or I’ll shed it for you.”
The Jetbikers began to clash more ferociously, the clanging of blades ringing through the arena, drawing a growl from Rainbow.
“Want something done properly,” Rainbow growled to herself, before grabbing her blaster, propping it up against the lip of the arena.
Her new weapon was simply a rebuilt version of her old lasblaster from the Swooping Hawks, the main core of the weapon stripped out and replaced with Darklight ammunition, which was much more readily available in Commoragh. The result was beautiful, transforming the fast-firing, anti-personal weapon she had before, into a gun capable of firing the very stuff that black holes were made up of. It was deadly, but more importantly, it felt just as familiar to her as her old weapon.
Taking aim, Rainbow fired, a stream of Darklight lancing out and striking one of the Jetbikes. Instantly the bike exploded, what was left of the rider slamming into the sands of the arena. Sneering, Rainbow put the rifle down, before raising her voice again.
“The price of failure is steep! Start killing, or start dying.”
Finally, Jetbikes began to fall from the sky as their riders were ripped apart by each other. Finally, only six remained, Rainbow letting out a screech as two of them aimed at each other, Gilda joining in as they finally got the riders attention.
“No more, not today,” Rainbow called loudly, looking at the six Dark Eldar. “You performed…adequately. You can all live another day, but not as whatever you were before. You earned the right to call yourselves Shadowbolts today. Take your bikes to the garage, they will be remade in our colours, your wargear too. Now get out of here. You better be better on your first race.”
The riders didn’t respond, instead shooting off towards the garage, leaving Rainbow alone with Gilda.
“So, you think they’ll make good Reavers?” Gilda asked.
“They’re all young, so the original team might still be better,” Rainbow shrugged. “When we start getting bigger, recruiting better riders, they’ll be older, have hundreds of years’ experience on us. Then we need to watch out. There’s only one way to rise up in the ranks in Commoragh.”
“Then we’ve got to make sure we’re strong enough that they can’t just kill us and take over,” Gilda smirked.
“Easier said than done,” Rainbow sighed. “You get it, I get it, even Scootaloo seems to get it, but Lightning and Spitfire? They…I hate to say it, but they don’t. They’re living in a dream world of niceties which don’t exist anymore. They’re…”
“The weaker links?” Gilda finished.
“Mentally,” Rainbow nodded reluctantly. “They’re strong, they’re fast, they’re both skilled, but they don’t see what we do, that we can’t be nice anymore.”
“We have to hope they come around then,” Gilda reasoned. “It’s not like we can just train the mentality into them.”
“You’re right. Now come on, we should get to the garage, make sure the new recruits are doing what they’re supposed to.”
Spreading her wings, Rainbow headed towards the garage, Gilda hot on her tail.
***
“So what is this then?” Spitfire asked as Rainbow paced around the room. “We do races all the time, what’s so special about this one?”
“This one qualifies us for the Torn Scar Open,” Rainbow replied simply. “We do this, we get into the main race.”
“Which is when?” Lightning asked. “I haven’t been able to look up much with the amount you’ve been training us.”
“The training is necessary, so we keep up the same regime,” Rainbow replied, before continuing. “The race is in six years.”
“Six years!” Spitfire, Lightning and Scootaloo bellowed at once.
“Six years, Dash?” Spitfire was the first one to speak out of unison. “You expect us to stay here for six years?!”
“And more if needed,” Rainbow nodded. “Six years is nothing, barely a drop in the water of time to the Dark Eldar. We’re lucky the qualifier is so close to the race, I’ve heard of races being separated by centuries before.”
“So we pass today, then six years down the line we actually get to do the race?” Lightning deadpanned. “Excuse me if I don’t faint with excitement.”
“Do you have a better plan?” Rainbow snapped. “We’re racing, we’re going to win, and six years down the line, we win again. Then we speak to the Archon of the All-Seeing Eye and find Applejack. Any objections?”
“None,” Scootaloo replied slowly. “It’s just…six years in this place?”
“We’ve already been here half a year, we can do six, we’re strong enough,” Rainbow insisted. “Everyone down to the garage, bring the new recruits up to speed with the plan and make sure they’re ready. The entire clan is racing.”
“You’re sure about racing with them?” Spitfire asked sceptically.
“They may be Dark Eldar, but they’re pretty good,” Gilda cut in. “They’ll do fine, at the least they’ll provide us with some cannon fodder.”
“Fine, we race with them,” Spitfire rolled her eyes. “Come on Lightning, let’s go get ready.”
***
Rainbow and the rest of the Shadowbolts waited on their Jetbikes, the garage at the arena of the Deadly Gaze being far quieter than the one they were all used to, owing to the fact the slaves had all had their mouths burnt shut, ugly scar tissue covering the bottom half of their faces. Spitfire, Lightning and Scootaloo were all visibly shaken by the sight, but kept their own mouths shut as well.
“We still don’t know what this race is going to be,” rainbow called over her helmets communicator. “It will be bloody though, as from what I’ve heard there are six other cults competing today. None of them are going to win, do you understand?”
The Shadowbolts all roared back, the new Dark Eldar whooping wildly, eager to taste the blood of their enemies and feel the thrill of flight. A split second later, the floor began to rise, the floor of the arena opening above them as they rose, finally seeing the home of the Deadly Gaze Wych Cult.
Unlike the Lightning Fang arena, the Deadly Gaze arena was simply flat sand, the floor boasting absolutely no blades or traps for the unwary. The air around it however was a different story. A dedicated jetbike track circled and looped around the arena, the floor of the track crackling with power, and rainbow instantly knew that touching it would be a death sentence just as surely as the swinging blades and spikes would.
“The Shadowbolts!” a voice echoed around the arena, Rainbow looking to its source, and seeing the Succubus of the Deadly Gaze pointing at her team, before turning to point at the others who had also just risen up.
“The Blade Maidens! The Sky Masters! The Devils of Night! The Scarlet Streaks! The Air Kings! These Reaver Clans wish entry to the Torn Scar Open! Others have already passed this stage, but only one of the clans before me shall proceed. Win, and you gain entry to the final race. Loose, and my slave pits grow.”
Rainbow felt the breath stick in her throat for a second, the idea that the losers wouldn’t just feel the lash of defeat, but likely feel the very real lash of the Deadly Gaze, shocked her slightly, before she shook her head and snarled. If anything, this just reaffirmed her determination to win.
“You are granted seventy one laps of our track at most,” the Succubus roared once more. “At the end of each lap, the last racer shall be eliminated from the race, and must dismount their bikes. For them, the gauntlet will await. For those of you who do not know what our gauntlet is, I assure you, those who die within it experience more pain than most shall ever know. If they survive, they are out of the race. The winner is the first one to cross the line after seventy one laps, or the last rider left in the race. Projectile weapons are restricted until the fifth lap, then you may act as you wish. Reavers! Take your positions. May the fastest find victory, and the weak…I hope you survive to provide us with more entertainment.”
Taking the prompt, Rainbow moved towards the race track start point, a waypoint popping into life in her helmet and showing her where the Shadowbolts were supposed to set up. They weren’t in the back, but they also weren’t at the front, that honour had gone to the Blade Maidens, an all-female group of riders who considered themselves above everyone else in skill. The Shadowbolts would finally get to prove them wrong today.
“You heard the lady,” Rainbow called over the comm-net. “Seventy one laps, you fall behind, survive the gauntlet and maybe I’ll forget the fact you were slow.”
“Dash…” Spitfire began, before Rainbow cut the link, gripping the controls of her jetbike tighter as she prepared for the go.
The signal was given, and Rainbow shot forward, the other jetbikes doing the exact same. The Jetbikes weapons may have been restricted for now, but her sword wasn’t, and neither was Rainbow’s most efficient weapon, the jetbike itself. Rainbow wasn’t about to let the bunched up formation of the Dark Eldar slip away from her.
Throwing her jetbike to the side, Rainbow felt the blade slice through something soft, before she lashed out with her sword at another Dark Eldar, a Scarlet Streak by the bodysuit colour, slicing through the riders arm. She didn’t see if the rider lost control or if another rider finished them off, but she did see she wasn’t the only one to start the killing early. By the time they finally began to space out, at least eleven riders had dropped out of the race, permanently.
Rainbow couldn’t see any of the other Shadowbolts as she drove her bike into a spin, flipping over the head of another rider as she rocketed into the top ten riders, her personal rune moving up a slot on her helmet display.
The laps began to quickly rack up, Rainbow shooting past lap five, firing the few weapons her bike had at the racer in front, forcing them to spin to avoid them, and allowing Rainbow to take yet another place, moving into sixth position. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a Dark Eldar on foot sprinting across the arena, heading for the exit, and for a moment Rainbow thought he was going to make it, before a Clawed Fiend leapt on him.
Tearing her eyes away from the bloody spectacle, albeit reluctantly, Rainbow glued her eyes back to the track just in time for her to see Scootaloo sliding past her.
“Oh you little,” Rainbow muttered, before fully opening the throttle and shooting past her again, twisting her bike so as to not clip her with the blades.
The race continued for what felt like hours, the number of racers left dwindling slowly until there were only a handful of them left. She knew that Gilda and Lightning had been eliminated, and both had at least survived the gauntlet, although she did not know if they had done so unscathed or not. Scootaloo was definitely still in the race, constantly keeping up with Rainbow and even overtaking her occasionally. Spitfire was the only member of the original team she wasn’t sure about, but whatever her situation was, Rainbow couldn’t afford to think about it as she shot across the line, the sixth rider screaming a bloody curse before breaking off from the final five racers.
Before Rainbow could refocus on the racers ahead of her, she felt something heavy land on the back of her bike, and she twisted around just in time to avoid a knife blow from a member of the Blade Maidens, the woman’s face distorted into a snarl as she slashed at Rainbow again.
Rainbow barely avoided the blow, Ravenous being far too cumbersome in such close quarters, and with a reluctant snarl she let go of the sword, allowing it to clatter to the metal floor of the race track, before drawing her own small knife, just barely managing to switch on the bikes auto-pilot before the Blade Maiden was on her again.
For such a slight Dark Eldar, she was incredibly strong, and rainbow found herself almost pushed from the saddle as their two blades locked up.
“If you believed an alien such as yourself was a match for a trueborn Dark Eldar, then you are even more deluded than I believed,” the Blade Maiden sneered, forcing the blades closer to Rainbows neck. “Your pathetic Shadowbolts are nothing more than an entertaining child’s ploy, and now you shall die.”
“Get on with it then,” Rainbow snarled back, her entire body now leaning off of the jetbike as it banked around another corner, almost throwing her off, and dislodging a single feather from her wings.
The feather touched down on the track, the metal instantly coming alive, long arcing bolts of electricity targeting the feather, almost instantly turning it to ash, and giving Rainbow an idea. Her brain whirled as she tried to remember everything she could about electricity, recalling Twilights words as best she could.
“Oh, fuck it,” she grunted, giving up trying to remember and just instead hoping that her luck would hold out.
Wrapping one hoof around the Dark Eldar’s neck, Rainbow exposed some of her skin, making sure her hoof was in contact with it, before jerking her head backwards and letting go of the knife. The sudden lack of resistance on her knife made the Blade Maiden stumble, forcing her to grab on to the bike, before Rainbow punched downwards, her hoof coming into contact with the metal flooring.
Pain shot up Rainbows hoof as a few of the strands of lightning struck it, the arm of her bodysuit liquidising and fusing to her skin, but she gritted her teeth and snarled as she looked at the Blade Maiden.
If Rainbow was feeling any pain, the Dark Eldar was feeling it ten times as much as the power surged through Rainbow and into her. Her face was contorted into a wordless scream of absolute agony as a sickly blue glow began to overpower the paleness of her skin, before her eyes melted and her body went limp.
Lifting her hoof from the track, Rainbow kicked the dead rider from her bike, gasping in pain as she took the controls of her bike once more and shot off in pursuit of the second to last rider. With a start she saw that it was Scootaloo, and for a moment she debated allowing Scootaloo to take the lap, and run the gauntlet herself, before squashing the thought. The race was no place for weakness.
“Sorry squirt,” she muttered, before twisting the bike and shooting past Scootaloo just as they crossed the line.
Considering the fact that Scootaloo instantly dropped back, Rainbow assumed she had just made it, and pushed the guilty thoughts from her mind as she focused on the one remaining rider in the race. They had only had sixty laps so far, so Rainbow had eleven more to make up the distance, but the Scarlet Streak was almost half a lap ahead, and it was a lot to make up.
“Come on Rainbow, you can do this,” Rainbow snarled as she banked hard, trying to ignore the burning pain in her hoof.
Rainbow shot into lap sixty nine, and with a horrible realisation, she realised that she wasn’t going to be able to catch up in the remaining laps. She was going to lose.
No you’re not, a voice whispered in her head. You’re faster than this. You know what you can do. Push yourself just a little bit more
Rainbow froze for a second as the thought hit her, before letting out an angry growl. She had to win this race, no matter what.
Leaping from her bike, Rainbow beat her wings harder than she had ever done before, shooting round the track and building up speed. She had installed a cap on her bikes throttle years ago to prevent it from achieving what she wanted to do right now, but her own body had no such limits. A cone of air began to form around her, the sight still being familiar to her even after five years of not even attempting to do what she was about to do.
With a screech, the cone solidified, before Rainbow felt herself shoot forward at phenomenal speeds, the war mask she had sought to keep buried for so long crashing to the front as she sped through the final racer, the bike and the rider not even slowing her as she crossed the finish line.
The entire stadium cheered as the blood cloud she had created rose around her, while slightly further back a huge rainbow had been formed, casting light across the Dark City, before fading once more. Rainbow snarled as she looked at the crowd around her, all of whom were bellowing for more, before she raised her own head and howled, letting the bloodlust of the long dormant war mask lift her voice into a crazed screech to match that of the other Dark Eldar. She barely even noticed Spitfire and Lightning giving each other slightly concerned looks as she basked in the glory of blood and victory.
***
Asdrubael Vect, the Dark Lord of Commoragh, Archon of the Kabal of the Black Heart, and quite possibly the oldest and deadliest being in the galaxy, stood upon the balcony of the Black Heart’s tower, surveying his empire. Behind him were scores of Incubi, the silent warriors never leaving his side for an instant, not that he needed their protection.
Those who were foolish enough to actually challenge him had all been dealt with long ago, and either put to grass or disgraced beyond the ability to return. None could challenge his rule, and so instead he busied himself watching the petty plans and squabbles of those beneath him as they vied for position and the slightest bit of attention from him.
Vect could hardly remember the last time someone had actually managed to gain his attention in a positive and meaningful way, far more often were those who gained his attention by pathetic attempts to usurp his throne. Lady Malys was the only one in the entire city who he saw as his equal, the rest were beneath his notice.
Suddenly the tower shook ever so slightly, Vect only feeling it because he had walked these halls for millennia, and knew their feeling like his own body. Slowly placing his hands on the balcony’s edge, Vect leant forward, scanning for any signs of what had caused the tremor, before his eyes widened slightly behind his helmet as something entirely new to Commoragh graced his vision.
A rainbow ring spread out across the city for a few seconds, casting lights more vibrant than Vect had seen in the city for many lifetimes, before disappearing once more.
“Interesting,” Vect murmured as he watched the light fade, before he turned around.
Whatever made that light was new to Vect, and that was saying something. New was in short supply to the Dark Lord, and he could use the excitement of seeing what had caused it first-hand. Of course, new could also be dangerous, and if whatever had caused the rainbow was a threat to his rule, he would stamp it out now, rather than wait for it to fester into something more unruly.
“My lord, shall I have your Dias prepared?” one of the Incubi bowed low as he passed.
“Yes, I think so,” Vect nodded. “Come. We may have a new quarry to hunt.”
With that, Vect strode out of the room, his Incubi follow silently behind him.