Shit was going down.

And it was going down.

Slowly peering out from behind a corner, Rainbow barely had enough time to throw her head back in and narrowly avoid a stray missile, which flew past her and shattered an observatory window into the room now in front of her as she hugged the wall and began hyperventilating. Had she been in better and safer conditions, she would have squealed like a school filly and yelled, "Awesome!"

Unfortunately, she was instead about to involve herself in a conflict between two apparently bad-blooded rival raider parties and possibly lose her life doing so. She loved it. Releasing Belle's sling clasp, she placed her hooves in the gun's firing-cuffs and once again repeated her action from before. Instead of a missile, she was met with a very peculiar sight.

The Atrium was in turmoil. On the side closest to the curious Pegasus, a large group of about seventeen men and women crouched behind overturned tables and desks, under fire by another party of raiders on the opposite side. Looking up, the mare found yet another set of raiders returning fire to someone across from them upstairs. Judging from the obvious fact that they were not wisely firing on their enemy below them, whoever they were firing at was keeping them distracted. And they were doing a damn fine job of doing so.

From her position, the two were neck-in-neck, neither daring to advance nor retreat. The way it looked, the winner could've been anyone. That is, until a loud yell met her ears. Looking down at a nearby bench lying on its side, her heart stopped. Grasping his throat was a man, crying out in pain as he furiously tried to stave off the blood that threatened to seep out of him lest he do so. Suddenly beside him was a weeping woman, whose discarded pistol lay a few feet away as she instead opted to help the injured man.

Noticing this, another man roared with rage, ascended from his cover, fired twice, and was met with a bullet, his head flying back violently before his body fell lifeless to the floor.

That was enough to set off the mare's fuse. Raising Belle, she took aim at the forehead of another rifleman across the room, held her breath, and squeezed the trigger. He fell without a moment's notice. The group next to her didn't have enough time to register what had happened until a light blue blur zoomed past them and over to their opponent's side.

Rainbow's head fell to her chest, reemerging with her knife as she flung herself, aided by her wings folded tightly by her sides. Crashing hooves-first into the chest of a Blastmaster, knocking him to the ground in a heap, his life ended before he even began to think about looking at what had caused his fall. Looking to her left in a flash, the mare threw out an elbow into the gut of an approaching Wastehound, who keeled over and was met with the same fate as he too fell to the floor.

Quickly hopping off the Blastmaster, Rainbow was left with just a second to swerve to the left and avoid an untimely death by a throwing knife, which cut deep into the back of a weathered bookshelf, almost toppling it. Looking back, she was met with the butt end of a hunting rifle. Unable to evade in such short distance, she twisted in the air and fell face first onto the floor.

As she struggled to rise to her hooves, she was met with the the raised boot of another Blastmaster.

"Rainbow!"

The mare turned to her right, searching for the source of the outburst. Looking to her right, she found it.

The red stallion rushed the Blastmaster, knocking him to the ground in a heap. As he struggled, the Earth pony atop him raised a hoof, crushing his head in a bloody mess. Big Macintosh looked over to her and gave a quick smirk, before he quickly turned to slam his hoof into the chest of an approaching raider who thought he could flank him. Grabbing a lock of his hair with his teeth, he threw the raider's head against the frame of the door he had tried to come through. As his head ricocheted, Mac took the back of his head and began to mash his face into the doorway.

Looking through her only good eye, Rainbow grabbed Belle up off the floor, just in time to score a hit into the forehead of a Wastehound, who fell backward and onto the floor behind Macintosh. Finally releasing his hold on the poor sod he had been beating, Mac nodded to her before he simply vanished.

Blinking her eyes, Rainbow shook her head, searching for the stallion. She was snapped out of her search when she heard the slow stirring of a machine spinning up a floor above her. Shouldering Belle, she quickly galloped further into the corridor, turning a right and ascending a staircase. A single Blastmaster at the top took aim at her with a combat shotgun, but, flaring her wings, she careened into him. Withdrawing Belle, she slammed the iron barrel and pushed it into his skull. Pulling the trigger, the mare began to hear screams coming from the atrium.

Someone cleared their throat behind her. Turning her head, she found a familiar red stallion looking her way. A combat shotgun was grasped firmly within his grip. Believing it to be from the raider she had just knocked over, she opened her mouth to ask where Mac had disappeared to, but he put a hoof up to her lips and motioned to the door to her right. Blowing an annoyed breath into a lock of her mane, she nodded.

Throwing her his shotgun, Macintosh proceeded to open the door with the switch to its right. Pulling the lever back on the left side of the barrel, Rainbow took aim at the door. As it flew open with a loud swish, the mare immediately fired a shot into the brains of a responding Wastehound, who fell over and took his friend behind him with him.

Sidestepping, the mare narrowly avoided Big Macintosh as he retrieved his shotgun from his marefriend's open hooves, practically flying into the room, its inhabitants turning their heads at the sound of his hooves clattering against the floor. As a Psycho-tic raised his hunting rifle to fire at the intruder, Rainbow raised Belle in kind, pulling the trigger and ending the raider's life. The Sadist next to him noticed this, however, and prepared to fire a magazine of lead into the mare's body. Thinking quickly, the pegasus unstrapped her rifle from her body and threw it into the skull of the Sadist, flaring her wings and swiftly flying into him.

As Belle clattered onto the ground, Rainbow grappled with the Sadist, leaning his upper body against the railing overlooking the middle of the Atrium. Using both hooves, she strangled him, and with a roar of defiance, flipped him over and watched as he hit the floor with a thud.

Sensing something amiss, the mare quickly sidestepped, in the nick of time to evade a vertical slash of a Chinese officer's sword, which cut deep into the railing. The Wastehound with the blade struggled to break his weapon out of its metallic prison, but instead ended up falling head first onto his own sword, aided by a winged equine's now bloody hoof.

Turning tail, Rainbow found Mac struggling with a chainsaw wielding Psycho-tic, who appeared to surprisingly be winning. Quickly swiping Belle from the floor, the mare took aim and fired a single shot into the raider's right arm, which went clean through, ricocheted along the wall, and scored a headshot on a Blastmaster approaching Rainbow's right side, combat knife raised for the kill.

Raising her rifle's butt, Rainbow slammed polished metal into loose leather and bone, knocking her victim to the ground. As he held his hand to the side of his head in near-death curiosity, he suddenly snapped out of it as he heard the revving of a chainsaw close to his ear. Gripping the raider's head with both hooves, Rainbow raised him over the spinning blade of his weapon, swiftly jumping into the air and bucking both hind hooves into his skull.

Rainbow ducked, narrowly avoiding a backwards-stumbling Blastmaster, who tripped over her body and fell to the floor. Deciding to let Mac deal with him, Rainbow found the source of the machine revving.

Walking calmly out from behind a corner was an armored raider, hundreds of pounds of metal attached to the Wastehound armor loosely fitting his very muscular form. Strapped to his chest were more than ten leather ammo belts, thousands of little bullets clasped to their lengths. On his back was a very large, rectangular backpack, with two metallic handles protruding from its center.

Most importantly, grasped within the man's hands was a huge, very dangerous looking box, with ten long tubes emerging from its body, all connected by crude iron fittings. Chuckling darkly, the raider fanned the trigger, causing the barrels to rotate in a very menacing display of firepower.

"Shit."

"Eeyup."

Author's Note

The quality went down. I know. I got Writer's Block, but didn't want to break a Pinkie Promise, so I just squeezed this one out to ya...

P.S. Accidentally hit Edit instead of Publish last night. So I didn't break my Pinkie Promise!