Just a Quiet Touch of Steel.

Chapter 3

Thunderbolt

Rainbow Dash stood in the streets of the marketplace of Canterlot. Her back was to the wall of a building, and her eyes darted back and forth, watching the soldiers. She had removed her assassin's clothing, in order to look as though any other civilian. The only weapon she had available was her hidden blade.

Well, she did have her wings, but those weren't necessarily a weapon.

She reviewed her assignment once again in her head.

There was a man running a large black market in Canterlot, and he was buying and selling illegal drugs. The man would have been disposed of already, had Princess Celestia been doing her job. But that was not the case. For some reason, Twilight had said that an assassin with wings was needed. Rainbow Dash did not inquire why, she imagined she would find out soon enough.

There were three classes of assassins working for Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the resistance force:

Meister, Aviator, and Mage.

Each had it's own unique abilities.

The Meisters, they were superior to the others in terms of body strength. They were tough, and could hold their own against several enemies even with the weight of armor.

The Aviators, they had wings and flight capabilities, and were extremely fast and nimble. Better for getting in, killing, and getting out than the other assassins. Their wings were kept hidden from sight by a design of clothing that Rarity had come up with, with allowed them to be folded comfortably against the back.

Then there were the Mages. They were relatively strong, and they had magic capabilities that allowed fantastic abilities such as invisibility or teleportation.

Rainbow Dash, of course, was an Aviator. Rarity and Twilight were Mages, Applejack and Pinkie Pie were Meisters. Fluttershy was an Aviator, but she seldom went on kill missions.

Which is what Rainbow Dash was doing now. She looked up, and moved through the crowd. She was listening. Listening for any hint of given information about her target. Several people were bound to be involved in the black market she was after.

Rainbow Dash saw a short building rise in front of her. She sprinted toward it, and pushed up on it's side, grasping a window sill, and then pushing with her hand to another hold, before heaving herself onto the roof. She lay down on top, listening to the buzz of the crowd. Her eyes darted back and forth, looking for anything suspicious.

She saw a pair of people standing alone on the far side of the street. Rolling to the right and off the roof, and landed on one knee, one hand pressed against the ground for balance. They were men, one was glancing around nervously, and one had a black hood, which was inadvisable in the heat.

Rainbow Dash sprinted through the crowd, dodging between people carrying various things, without causing a single disturbance. She slid behind a merchant stall, and steadied her breathing as she tried to block out all noise. She had to hear what they were saying. Closing here eyes, she folded her hands, leaned against the stall, and breathed calmly.

“Did it come?”

“I heard the order came this morning. It should be ready to pick up in about an hour. You need your money, though. They won't take any later payments, or any of that crap.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. I'll see you down there. Remember, password's 'threshold of blood'.”

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes, and jumped up. She climbed up the wall in front of her, easily reaching the rooftop. She picked out the two men among the crowd, both of whom were moving in different directions now. She guessed which one was which, and followed the one who had received the information, rather than the one who had it. She crawled along the rooftops, keeping her eyes on her target and feeling with her hands where she was and how she had to move.

Eventually, she jumped down off the roof and followed the man straight through the crowd. She pulled up her hood over her rainbow hair. It was too recognizable. Very few people had hair like hers.

Pushing through the crowd, she maintained her distance, while her gaze remaining locked on his head. Her hidden blade was tight against her wrist. Sweat began forming on her head and her arms. The heat was not helping. However, despite her being very fit and toned with muscle, her counterpart was not the same. He was slowing down. He was constantly wiping his forehead.

Rainbow Dash eventually became relatively close. She could have taken three large strides toward him and cut open his back, but she needed to keep him alive. He was a source of information. In a couple of hours, as was suggested by the other man, he would be moving toward the pickup zone fore whatever was being sold illegally, and she would be following him to the doorstep.

The man finally made a turn out of the crowd, and moved down a side street, presumably to his home. Rainbow Dash felt uncomfortable in closed in spaces, so before she entered the alley, she shot out her wings, and jumped up into the air. It was odd, in front of the other people. Very few wing-clad people were left in Canterlot, it had seemed that it was almost a public offense to have wings. Racism had sprung up, since Celestia had retreated into her own world. The magic-users were popular. Wizards, they were called. Wizards, and, well, normal people, were far more common and took up more of the population.

Rainbow Dash hated the racism. She had seen it up close and personal in Canterlot, on several missions, and had taken to “fixing” the issue.

Rainbow Dash pumped her wings, and landed on the buildings above the street. Folding her wings back, she watched the man below, as he moved a bit faster, out of the sun. she trailed him, keeping her eyes locked. He took several turns, and eventually moved up a flight of stairs into an apartment building. He walked along a balcony, and then stopped at a door marked 23. Rainbow Dash shot a mental image, and then jumped up to a higher roof, thankfully there was a green overhang that provided some decent shade. She lay down underneath it, watching the door. The man had disappeared inside the room.

Rainbow Dash, after several minutes, jumped off the roof, snapped open her wings, and coasted down toward the ground, landing between two buildings. She dropped one hand down to steady herself.  A shriek reached her ears. Folding her wings, she moved through the buildings toward the noise.

“STOP!” a high pitched, female voice echoed between the buildings.

Rainbow Dash moved faster. There was a building on a corner, a small shop, with a window on either side. She could see clearly through the windows, and was immediately aware of who had made the shout, and why.

A woman, with red wings, and fiery hair, was held up against a wall, by some thugs. They were rough men, all with hefty muscles, and evil grins on their fat faces. Rainbow Dash watched, in silence as the woman received multiple hits from hard fists. She was intending to stay out of a fight, she could not risk being exposed as an assassin. If she did, she would have to kill the men, forcing her to be notorious if she couldn't hide the bodies.

But once the racism reached a different turning point, she acted.

One of the thugs grabbed her shirt and tore it away, leaving a few shreds of cloth and a simple piece of lingerie covering her breasts.

“Damn it..” Rainbow Dash said to herself. She sprinted to the corner of the building, took a deep breath, and stepped out.

“Hey.”

The thugs turned and saw her. “Another bitch?” One said.

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. The woman being pressed against the wall, nearly naked, gazed at her with a glint of hope in her bright, orange pupils.

Two of the men advanced toward Rainbow Dash, the other two holding back the other woman.

The assassin took a short fighting stance, lowering herself closer to the ground. The men laughed, and one pulled a short knife from his belt. Rainbow Dash spread her wings, to show them who and what she was. One of them laughed haughtily, and his hand flashed with magic. That was a disadvantage for the assassins, it was very difficult to tell whether or not the person was a magician.

A bolt of light shot from his hand and wrapped around her. Her hidden blade hand was lashed to her waist, though her left hand was still free. Her legs were locked together. Binding spells were illegal, but of course the underground magicians would know them and use them to their advantage.

The man who had cast the spell got down on a knee and held his hand out, maintaining the spell, while the other moved toward her. He took hold of her right arm, and tried to lift her from the ground. Rainbow Dash used her left hand to throw a hard punch into his face, landing it squarely on his nose. He grunted and fell back, blood flowing from his face. Rage turned his face red. He charged her and kicked her across the thigh, bruising it. She clenched her teeth, trying not to let the pain affect her.

Pressing against the bindings, she managed to slide her other hand free. Although it was a magical spell, it was as tangible as any ordinary rope or chain. As the man charged her again, she leaned backward, allowing the taut restraints to hold her up, and as the thug swung a fist at her face, she ducked beneath the blow and then jerked forward, smashed her knuckles into his neck, and then rammed her skull into his stomach. He doubled over, and before he could recover, Rainbow Dash

smashed both forearms across his back.

He dropped, bruised and bloody, to the ground.

The magician pulled on the magical tendons, and Rainbow Dash fell forward, and was dragged toward him. It was painful, the cobblestone street scraping against her torso and thighs. Unfortunately, her pants did not reach past mid-thigh, but then, she had not been expecting a random fight in the middle of a mission. All of her armor was stashed away in a secret location approximately a mile from where she was.

The thug pulled her directly below him. He leaned down, speaking softly. “You, my dear, don't go around smashing up my friends. I'm going to have to kill you for that. I'll make it slow. And I think I'll make her,” he pointed at the other woman, who was now bloody from multiple attacks from the two men holding her, “watch. Now, if you'll just stand up, we can begin.”

“You bastard.” Rainbow Dash spat on the ground in front of him. She was replied with a sharp kick to the jaw.

“I'll teach you some respect, girl.” he kicked her again, this time in the side. A sharp, fiery pain lanced up her right side, and spread across her torso.

She winced, and took a few painful breaths. “Enough...enough of this.” she whispered.

“What was that? I like being able to hear my slaves.”

“YOU BITCH!”

Rainbow Dash flexed her wrist, and gored him through the top of his foot. His scream echoed back and forth between the tight walls of the alleyway. She kicked up from the vanished magic, and quickly bashed him across the neck with her elbow.

He dropped to the ground, bleeding and unconscious.

Rainbow Dash looked at the other two men. One let go of the other woman, and ran away. The other one was stupid enough to charge the assassin. Rainbow braced herself, and ducked under his body, allowing the momentum to work toward her advantage. She side-stepped and pushed him past her, grabbing his arm and forcing him around to crash into the stone wall. He fell backward, his nose crushed and bleeding in gushes of red.

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. The adrenaline rush had given her energy, but that was unneeded now. She strode toward the woman. Her hair was dirty and tangled, her wings were battered, as though they had been the target of abuse. She was breathing heavily, her clothes in tatters. “Th-thank you, ma'am... I knew what they were planning... It happened to my sister...”

Rainbow Dash pushed a finger against her lips. Removing her outer shirt, and revealing her heavy set armored underclothing, she handed the clothing to the woman, and whispered, “Fly. Fly home. Spread your wings, be proud of who you are. Heal, rest, and if you hear of me, know that I am fighting for our race.” With that, Rainbow Dash pressed a firm hand against the woman's shoulder, and propelled herself straight upward, along the wall, using the handholds in various places to give herself momentum, and she shot up into the sky. It felt amazing, flying up this high, freedom in the air, out of reach of any of the other people.

Closing her wings slightly, she dropped down, throwing herself forward in an aerial flip, and she twisted around to land firmly on the highest rooftop that she knew of in Canterlot. From here, she had the best view, of every building straight to the castle. The castle, where Celestia was sitting, wasting money on soldiers and self-pleasuring eccentricities, was surrounded by something similar to what Shining Armor had put up around all of Canterlot. It was not a light purple, it was a very dark yellow, like gold stained with blood. Black blood. And it seemed to snap as if alive with energy, and sometimes sound would echo over Canterlot, presumably, as Twilight Sparkle had suggested, from the re-energization from the spell.

Rainbow Dash ran lightly across the rooftops, toward where she had stashed her equipment. She had wasted time with the thugs, but she had felt good, rescuing her fellow flier. Now, she was in a hurry. She had no idea the precise time in which her target would be leaving his room, and it was absolutely imperative that she be there to follow him toward her goal.

Reaching her destination, she slid down a small alley, climbed a ladder to a hidden scaffolding, and looked around. She needed to make sure she had not been followed.

Confirming her solitude, she reached into the wall in front of her and released a short clasp, and opened a hidden door. Inside was a relatively large space, and stashed away were her weapons and armor. She fitted on her greaves and bracers,  secured the clips, and then replaced the shirt she had given away with a heavy white garment. She then slipped on a skirt made of chain mail, and secured the belt. Onto the belt, she clasped her sword and it's sheath on the left, and on the right she placed her dagger, and secured the weapons. When this was all in place, she donned her white cloak, bearing the symbol of the Elements of Harmony, and pulled the hood low over her face. She retied her boots, and then closed the hidden door.

Crouching down, she placed her hands on the wood beneath her, and spread her wings, pushing the cloak back between her shoulders. Closing her eyes and breathing calmly, she pushed her wings down and jumped upward, flapping her wings hard and fast. The blue feathers spread to either side of her were seemingly endless, fading into the blue of the cloudless sky.

Once she was a considerable height, she located the buildings she needed to be at, and soared toward them. She was so high that she was hardly able to spot specific individuals on the ground. As she reached her destination, she lowered her altitude and began coasting down.

She reached the roof that she had been laying on a half hour before, and dropped straight down, her cloak flapping in the wind. Landing smoothly, she sat down to wait.