Just a Quiet Touch of Steel.

Thunder Bolt

(Part 2)

It had been close to half an hour. Rainbow Dash was still laying, undetected, on the eaves of the roof, above the building her target was supposedly in. She was unbelievably bored. As a trained assassin she was guided to have a far better concept of patience than most, but this was just torture. She had been on several missions, but this was only her third kill assignment.

A noise caught her attention. She fixed her gaze on the door, only to discover that it was a rather large bird resting on the roof. It looked to be an eagle, from the size of it. Rainbow ignored it, and returned to staring at the door. He should have come out by now. She decided if she did not see him in the next half hour she would personally break down the door and investigate herself.

Time passed.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen.

Twenty five.

Rainbow Dash had almost made up her mind to charge in and use submissive force, when the door creaked open.

The eagle lifted his wings and flew away.

Rainbow Dash watched the suspected criminal as he closed and locked the door, then turned and began heading toward a set of stairs, which brought him down to the ground level. The assassin crawled to the edge of the roof she was stationed on, and watched her target move. She marked his clothing: a brown leather jacket, black slacks, normal running shoes. He was probably expecting someone to be following him and he was not to be caught off guard. Rainbow jumped from the roof and landed on the balcony below it, her cape billowing out above her.

The man was now on the ground. Rainbow moved quickly across some roofing, down a flight of steps, and then jumped down to the same elevation. The second she hit the ground, she pumped her legs to catch up to the man. She spotted him quickly, moving through the crowd at a rapid pace. Moving slower, she tailed him through a large crowd, through a few different streets, through an alley, and then back into an abandoned section of the city. A small minority of the people lived there, the oppressed with barely enough money to stay alive.

Rainbow ducked behind a pile of broken crates and watched the man. He looked around, ensuring that nobody had been following, and then he pushed on a wall in front of him. The section of bricks moved inward, and slid to the left.

“Fake walls...” Rainbow Dash whispered to herself. This was new.

The man disappeared inside the hidden room.

The second the door slid back and shut again, Rainbow Dash jumped up and sprinted forward. She leaned on the wall next to the fake section of the wall. Using her hands, she felt along the wall and found the slight ridge where the two pieces of the wall were not connected. Waiting to ensure that the man could not hear her entrance, she stood in front of the wall for a minute.

Losing her patience, she reached behind her and pushed against the wall. Her fingers scraped the fake brickwork as is slid back and to her right. Stepping backwards, she disappeared into the darkness.

Finding a corner of the hidden room, she sat down, bracing her hands against the ground until it was pitch black around her. The door sealed itself to the wall once more, and she could barely see.

But that was better than most.

Having trained her eyes to see well in the dark, she steadied her breathing as her maroon eyes adjusted to the absence of constant light.

When she was ready she started moving again, able to see the walls and corners amidst the extreme blackness. The corridors were many and twisting, going back and forth, and soon enough Rainbow Dash was able to tell that the floors were sloped at the slightest, least noticeable angle. However, her keen senses managed to  pick it up fairly quickly. The tunnel led down, down, and further down. The light got a bit brighter, and she was able to see a few tunnels branching off in other directions at times.

With this new puzzle, Rainbow Dash stopped, and leaned against the wall. She looked at the floor, trying to think. If her target had taken a path that branched away, he would be difficult to find, particularly if he had turned away from the main tunnel farther back. Examining the floor, Rainbow was able to make out tracks. Not individual sets of boots that had come recently, but many, many pairs of footwear passing through here over a period of several years. The stone flooring was worn in the center.

Standing again, she cursed herself for wasting time and she sprinted as silently as she could down the tunnel.

Minutes passed as she ran. It wouldn't be a problem for her, she was very physically fit and she could run flat out for more than an hour. But how long was this tunnel?

A sudden noise halted her. She stopped and knelt down to the ground, listening.

Voices.

Smiling, she stared forward and was able to make out a slightly brighter light. It was flickering, like-

“Fire.”

Rainbow Dash stood and walked toward the light. There was a door, slightly open, giving her a perfect spot to get a glimpse of what she was after.

Peering around the door, she studied what she was looking at. There were several men, and a few women. The men were dressed as though they were rolling in money, fancy suits and hats. The women were entirely different. They looked like they had been pulled off the streets. They were scantily clad in the clothing of an everyday whore. They were very exposed, and were mocked, laughed at, and prodded by the men. Rainbow Dash looked around a wide room, seeing a large fire set up in the rough center, burning brightly. A few groups of men were conversing quietly, and others were flirting with the girls, who had no choice but to succumb to their demands.

Rainbow Dash had to stop herself from tearing out her sword and slaughtering all the people. Two of the slave girls were Aviators. Their wings were battered and bloody.

“Attention! Attention please!” One man had stepped up, holding a glass of what appeared to be alcohol. He waited for the gathered people to give him the attention he had demanded, and then he spoke.

“Gentlemen.” He nodded to the various men. “And our finely dressed ladies.” Majority of the people laughed at the women, who were staring furiously at the man. Rainbow Dash got a good look at his face and was surprised at who she saw.

“Prince Blueblood?” she whispered to herself.

She reflexively slid out her hidden blade. Her target was her target, no matter who it was. Royalty or no, he had to die. There was no sign of the man she had followed here.

“You all have come to celebrate with me! For we have achieved much in this past year, and today you will all receive a portion of what has arrived this morning! Allow me to demonstrate. You,” he pointed at one of the winged girls. Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. There was nothing she could do just yet. “Come up here.”

The assassin noticed her wings. The girl who had been summoned was the same one she had rescued. How had she been caught again? What little clothing she was wearing had left her shivering. The underground area was colder.

Moving quickly, Rainbow Dash silently pushed the door outward, slowly, until she could fit through it. Thankfully there were piles of crates all over the floor, and she was able to hide behind a few of them before she was spotted.

“Now, as you will see, our new product has quite an effect, but most particularly it was designed for the fine females of this glorious city. The effects are almost immediate. Do observe.” He withdrew a syringe from a small case that he had pulled from his pocket. Forcing the girl around, he held her arm out, and slowly injected the needle's contents into her blood. After he removed the needle, he stood back, waiting for the drugs to take effect. The girl stood, motionless. She blinked.

A second later, she began to breathe unnaturally loud. Even Rainbow Dash, who was some distance away, could hear it.

“Allow me to explain.” Blueblood continued. “The drugs target the brain, but not the entire thing. Only the areas devoted to memory and thinking. Through this drug, a person becomes completely incapacitated and essentially no more than an animal. This leaves you, our fine customers, to use the girl however you will!!” At this, he put on a wry smile as he removed his outer coat, and handed it to a man who stood close by him.

Reaching out to the girl, he touched her shoulder. She hardly reacted. She just looked at him with a blank stare. Her orange eyes gazed at nothing. The Prince turned the girl to look at him. She did nothing to resist. Her breathing had slowed. She looked almost normal. Blueblood reached over her shoulder and flicked the plastic clasp that held what was left of her clothing. The piece of clothing that had covered her chest hit the floor. The girl looked at it on the ground, not reacting to the fact that she was now bare-chested in front of a crowd of lustful men. Blueblood turned to the crowd and smiled. “First four pounds you will have on me, in honor of our achievements, but after that, we will have prices! You may take from the stores in the crates behind you!” He pointed to the piles of boxes that Rainbow Dash was hiding behind.

“Damn it.” She opened her bag and pulled out a fistful of powder. Twilight had developed this as a resource of either distraction or escape.

Jumping up, she leaped onto the crates in front of her, revealing herself to the crowd. “You'll do nothing with this trash, you vermin!” she yelled at the Prince. The drug dealers laughed and advanced toward her, unsheathing deadly looking knives, and a few had swords. Rainbow Dash jumped to the ground in front of the men and threw the powder in her hand at the ground. An explosion of air rushed at her face as the powder rushed outward, creating a large cloud of dust impossible to see through. Rainbow Dash heard the men stop blindly and shout to one another. She jumped and rolled out one side of the cloud, and was pleased to see that a number of the men had pushed into the smoke. Sneaking behind a pair, she stabbed one in the back with her hidden blade, and slashed open the back of the other. The fell in a lot of pain, screaming insults at her while trying to stop the blood.

Ignoring the rest of the men, Rainbow Dash shoved aside one of the girls and charged up the room toward Blueblood. He laughed, and pulled something small and funny looking out of his shirt. He pointed it at Rainbow Dash.

Instinctively, she knew whatever he had was bad. Assuming her life was on the line, she began weaving left and right as she made her way toward him. He narrowed his eyes, and then there was a loud bang. It was so unbelievably loud, Rainbow's ears rang with the sound. Her head vibrated. But almost immediately after the noise, something slammed into her shoulder, just below her collarbone. Pain rocketed through her. Her arm went numb. Blood seeped from the wound and fell in streams down her clothing, staining her armor and cloak. Shock went through her head. What technology was this? This thing that could fire a high-speed projectile that ripped through armor and tore through her body?

A harsh, loud, familiar yell forced her mind back to the situation. Rainbow Dash was now lying on the ground, gripping her shoulder and clenching her teeth. Looking around, she saw a person wrapped in black clothing, with a light gray cloak similar to her own wrapped around her. The person was walking toward Blueblood with a look of murderous intent in their stride. As the person picked up speed, the cloak fell away, and yellow hair streaked behind the woman. She was tall, and her muscles rippled with fresh energy.

Blueblood started panicking. He grabbed the girl he had drugged and pulled her in front of him. Applejack hesitated, then picked up a sprint, flexed her wrist, jumped onto a table, and used her momentum to push her body above Blueblood. When she landed behind him, he didn't have time to turn the girl as well as himself. He made it halfway around, before Applejack swept his legs from under him and punched him to the ground. The girl dropped to the floor and lay there, not moving, her red wings flat against the ground. Rainbow Dash struggled to stand. The men who had been distracted by the smoke were beginning to recover. She was a vulnerable girl now, unable to defend herself. Her sword arm was useless.

She turned and watched as Applejack kicked away the tool he had used to injure Rainbow, and she jabbed her blade into his throat, and pulled it out just as quickly. Blood sprayed up and over his body, staining his clothes and leaving a red puddle on the ground.

Dash managed to stand. She hobbled over to the girl. She was unconscious. Supposing that it was a side effect of the drugs, Rainbow flexed her wrist to reveal the only weapon she could use at the moment. Applejack sprinted down toward her. “Ya'll okay, sugarcube?” she asked. Rainbow started to nod, and then doubled over as fresh pain racked her shoulder and arm. “Roseluck!” Applejack yelled. Another girl, smaller, and younger, ran in from the door. “Help the girl, and Ah'll carry Dash. Think ya'll can hold her okay?”

The young assassin tested the weight of the limp Aviator. “Yeah, I can carry her.” She lifted the girl up in both arms. Carrying her over to where Applejack had dropped her cloak, she set her down again, covered her body with the cape, and picked her up again. She had been shamed enough.

Rainbow Dash looked around. The other attenders of the gathering had fled, the other girls were nowhere in sight. “Don't move too much, Rainbow, we gonna get you home. Fluttershy c'n help ya. You good, Rose?”

“Yeah! Let's go!”

“New kid,” she explained to Dash.

Rainbow smiled, and then passed out.