A Natural Order to Things

"Runt!"

"Squirt!"

A group of Angel children surrounded the rainbow haired Angel. She was new and just wanted to make friends. She sniffled and stayed on the ground, not wanting to get punched again.

"How could you think we would accept you?"

"You're that bastard traitor's daughter!"

"Or did you hit your head one too many times, Rainbow Crash!"

The girl flinched at that name and their jeering. It was not her fault what her father did. He was doing what he thought was best. The Praetor accepted the duel. It did not matter now. She and her mother had been kicked out of Haven and now, even Astrous would not welcome them. One of the kids kicked her in the back. She howled in pain. The kids laughed at her anguish and her torment. Her skin began to sting and she realized they were throwing rocks at her.

"If no one else will do something, then I will do something about it myself," her father's voice echoed in her head.

Her blood began to boil. Her rage began to seethe. Her eyesight turned red.

"Dash!"

Rainbow Dash blinks.

"Decurio Dash!"

She turns around and salutes the angry looking Tesserarius. "Sir!"

"Get your men ready for scouting. Preliminary scans show smoke on the horizon. We need to know if we are too late. If we are, find evidence of the attackers. These attacks must come to an end."

"Yes, Soarin, sir!" Rainbow Dash salutes.

Soarin salutes and adds, "Be safe. We already lost contact with First Wing."

"'Safe' is no fun!" Rainbow remarks and takes off running.

Soarin sighs and shakes his head.

Rainbow Dash soars over Fort Nimbus, taking in the view of her station. She spots her soldiers in the courtyard training. She smirks. She folds her wings against her body and dives toward a sparring duo. She flares her wings out to stop above them and blow a gust of wind in their face.

She laughs and the other Angels laugh. She sets down on the ground and claps a hand on Lightning Dust's shoulder. "Ready for your first mission?"

Lightning Dust smirks, "I was born ready!"

The other members of her turma start to circle around Rainbow Dash at the word "mission."

"We are close to Wharfton. Wing One has not reported back which could mean trouble. If we do not catch these attackers, soon they will attack Seattle." Rainbow Dash informs her charges.

"Sir," Wind Waker speaks up, "What if we are too late?"

"Wing One may be engaged with the attackers, we can only hope our wings and the wind carry us fast enough to support them," Rainbow Dash says.

"Sir, how did monsters get this far west? Doesn't the Wall keep them at bay?" Surprise questions.

"It should. I don't know how they got this far," Rainbow answers.

"Isn't Legion Legate Spitfire's sister, Blaze, apart of Wing One?" Cloud Chaser voices.

"Yes. Primus Blaze leads Wing One. Which is even more reason why you have two minutes to gear up," Rainbow orders.

Her men scramble to the armory and she waits patiently for their return. In record time, her fifteen charges retrieve their gear and assemble front and center. Surprise hands a spear to Rainbow Dash, who accepts the weapon with a nod.

Rainbow flares open her wings and crouches low, ready for take off. "Wing Two, let's fly!" She shoots up into the air in a rainbow blur and her turma follows suit.

Half an hour of flying and Wing Two hovers above the remains of the front gate of Wharfton. Rainbow Dash immediately recognizes the tracks as being similar to the other three attack sites. Wolves are out of the question, these were too big, wargs seem likely but the tracks belong to a bipedal creature not a quadruped. No sign of Wing One and no sign of recent battle. Rainbow signals the turma to spread out and search the desolate town.

Lightning Dust lands in the middle of the gateway and swallows the lump in her throat. The monsters tracks were three times the size of her foot and they ripped apart the gate like twigs. Rainbow Dash had steeled her stomach but the torn bodies and littered entrails made her want to wrech. More than a couple of her charges had spilled their dinner onto the bloody ground.

Rainbow Dash is gawking at the bodies hanging from the market place archways when she hears a blood curdling scream. She zooms into the air and heads for the scream. She freezes when she gets to the source of the scream.

Thunderlane had been searching the houses for survivors when a sound catches his ear. He walks across the way to a church and pushes open the hanging door with his spear. The sound he had heard? Crunching. His eyes grow wide when he realizes what the grotesque monster is munching on: Primus Blaze.

He drops his spear. The monster fixes its red eyes on him. He freezes when the monster gets up. He screams when the thing jumps on him.

Rainbow Dash roars and charges at the beast with her spear, several of her charges do the same. The beast swipes their spears away and pulls in Surprise by her spear. Rainbow Dash digs her heel into the jaws of the monster and Surpise flies away. Rainbow slices one of its pointy ears off and lunges at its exposed throat.

The beast grabs the blade and snarls at Rainbow. Rainbow brings up her knees which connects with the lower jaw of the beast and makes it stumble back. Cloudchaser stabs her spear into the belly of the beast which only breaks in half. Cloudchaser backs away from the monster with her hands up and chuckles nervously. Screams catch Rainbow's ears and she turns around to see more of the monsters surrounding them and waiting on top of houses.

"Retreat!" Rainbow orders and shoots into the sky.

The monsters leap into the air and five Angels are caught in their grasps.

"Nooooo!" Surprise screams.

The monster above her opens its jaws to clamp around her neck. Surprise closes her eyes. She feels something wet splash on her face. She opens her eyes and sees a headless beast on her with its crimson blood dripping on her. She kicks the monster off her and hears fighting.

A heavily armored person is fighting the monsters and freeing the other Angels. This person's swords slice through the beast without difficulty. The beast charge at the new threat and are cut down one after the other. Within seconds, the twenty odd monsters had been cut down by the armored stranger. The stranger sheathes their swords and looks around at the Angels before walking off.

Rainbow Dash dives down to intercept the stranger. "Who are you?" she asks.

The armored stranger pulls back a bloody brown hood to reveal a mask. They take off the mask next to reveal the face of a woman. The woman's pale yellow eyes stare into Rainbow's soul.

"I am Shade Nìzī Kūàmírà Whulphe, Emissary of the Werewolves. I am on a mission to hunt down and kill these Ferals," the woman with short white hair informs.

"A 'Werewolf?!' They haven't been seen in centuries!" Cloudchaser awes.

"They only sent one of you to hunt the 'Ferals' down?" Rainbow questions.

"My hunting pack is on the heels of the Ferals. I came back when I noticed tracks heading back here," Shade answers. Shade cocks an eyebrow at the dark haired woman examining her and steps away from her.

"I thought Werewolves were supposed to be… taller?" High Winds says, while extending her right hand above her head.

"Not all of us are lucky to be seven feet tall," Shade growls. She puts her mask on and covers her head with the leather hood.

"Where are you going?" Rainbow inquires to the she-wolf walking away.

"To catch up with my pack," Shade replies without looking back.

Rainbow Dash watches the she-wolf jump on top of a house and disappear behind it. She heaves a heavy sigh.

"High Winds," Rainbow Dash speaks and the woman steps and salutes in front of Rainbow Dash, "Return to base and inform them of the situation. We will stay here and clean up."

"Sir!" High Winds salutes and takes off.

"Cloudchaser, Surprise, Wind Waker, Lightning Dust, gather the remains of Wing One and Thunderlane. The rest of you, find as much of the townspeople as you can so they can receive a proper burial," Rainbow Dash orders solemnly.

"If Shade hadn't come to our rescue…" Lightning Dust begins.

"We would've ended up like Wing One," Cloudchaser finishes. "We got lucky."

Rainbow Dash watches her new recruits walk away. She bends down to examine a 'Feral' by her feet. The beast is easily eight feet tall. She draws her sword and pokes at the hide of the Feral to no avail. Her steel sword did not penetrate it.

"No wonder the spears had no effect," she thinks to herself. She stands to her feet, sheathes her sword, and flexes her wings before helping the others with the grizzly task of rounding up the dead.