“Hello, all of you worthless, disgusting, non-fliers!” she declared.
My gaze locked on the mare. That voice was very commanding and laden with hate. Hate for the poor students she was addressing… Hate for ponies she’d never even met before… It made me angry just thinking about it, much less listening to it… Looking into the eyes of the speaker, I could read nothing without my left… The rosy orbs seemed to blaze as she began a short, maniacal tirade about how everyone in the room was useless before this moment. They all had a special purpose… They would be helping the factory produce rainbows.

Slaves? These students are to be made into slaves...? No… No, not if I can help it!
I went to stand up again, but Aurora yanked me back down before I was even able to get to my knees.

“What the Hell are you doing?” I hissed lowly.

“Shut up and stay down!” she ordered.
One look into her eyes told me that it was useless to argue. She didn’t want me to be made an example of… These drivers were serious… But that didn’t explain what the machine was for…
Suddenly, several ponies backpedaled over Aurora and I, breaking my line of thought as a light yellow filly was hoisted into the air, bound at the wrists and ankles by rusty, wrought iron chains. Two bars, one between her wrists, the other between her ankles held her firmly in place. Some ponies shouted, other cried, and some simply remained silent as a motorized whirring filled the air and the bars began to twist in opposite directions. It wasn’t long before the sickening sounds of breaking bones sounded, along with a blood-chilling shriek of pain. I stared, slack jawed and terrified as her broken form hung, suspended in the air high above the rest of us… The mare said something about the machine working better when the subject’s ribs were broken, but I didn’t care. The poor girl was then lowered into the top of the machine, where a grinding sound filled the air. She didn’t scream… She’d probably passed out… The sounds grew louder as each part of her was consumed… Silence pervaded for mere moments before I heard the audible snapping what few strands of self control I had left. That mare had to die. RIGHT NOW!!!
Disregarding the warnings she had given me, I snapped my wings out and threw the young filly off of my frame, into the arms of a group off to my right. With hardly any effort at all, I took to the air. That sensation could not possibly get old… No! Focus!! My eye locked on the woman in the mask, fist already cocked and ready to cave that Kevlar face in…

“Get him!” the maniac executive ordered.
In my right peripheral, I saw two black blurs speeding in at a speed that most others would call a record. They were business ponies… No… No, the business pony from the tunnel was a guard…! The two had what appeared to be stun guns in their hooves… Child’s play…
With a single, powerful beat of my wings, I pivoted at my waist and shot a palm out, catching one at the wrist, changing his direction to have him collide with his subordinate mid-flight. The thud was loud as they connected, and one seemed to take to the desired effect, plummeting to the unforgiving grate floor below. The other, the one I had tapped, however, had other plans. He made a blind grab for my shirt and held on tight. His weight was enough to bring down a solid twelve feet before I was able to take hold of his wrists again. With a mad jerk downward, his purchase on me was lost. At the rate we were falling, I knew we’d hit the ground in another second, so I simply shoved him off and began beating my wings again.

“THIS IS WHERE YOU DIE, BITCH!!!!” I politely informed the masked mare as I hovered at her eye level upon reaching it.
The rosy eyes of the masked enigma had a certain glint in them that I had equated to insanity… It was a glint I was too familiar with… A glint I hated… With all my being and more, I hated that look…

“Now,” I breathed, having regained a level of composure and attempting to stay rational for just a moment longer. “Any more suits for me to ruin?”
I had already announced my presence and from the pained shrieks rising up from below me, it was clear the two guards were being slaughtered by the mass… There was no erasing my mark now… This was where my recklessness had landed me and where I needed to make my stand.
The mare didn’t reply but simply stomped a hoof. The doors to the catwalk flew open as what appeared to be a small army of suited guards filed in, armed with little more than handguns. A few quick glances revealed that the weapons were Ruger .9 mm semiautomatics. Small… Accurate… Good magazine size… There was no way I could take on this many guys by myself, regardless of how scantily armed they were… The Suits were at the ready, their weapons trained on me, when an idea struck me.

“Students!”
The tumultuous roars of the ravenous group came to a halt in an instant.

“Clear… Fly… Fall… Complete…”
That did it. Every filly and colt that could fly took to the air in a nanosecond, bolting for the nearest Suit. The sound of fierce battle cries and gunfire filled the air at that moment.
Madness. Sheer. Bloody. Madness.
That’s what unfolded behind me as I fluttered over the rail and touched my feet to the grate, the tap of my boots sounding rather ominous in my own ears. I was Justice. The Avenging Angel. I was Death. For this pony, at least… She could feel the fury emitting from my body, I was sure of it, for she took a hesitant step away from me.

“Not so confident without your little pawns, are you?” I asked, removing the gauze from my face to reveal the crimson eye beneath it.
Through her mask, I could see her eyes widen at this.
Assuming a crude stance, I addressed her one last time.

“You’d better fight back if you wanna last for long… You may be a mare, but I’m not gonna hold back on account of that…”

Why should I…? I’ve already killed two…
With that I made my move, rushing forward to meet her head-on, thrusting a straight left toward her throat. The strike was evaded with a quick side-step and countered by a similar strike. Blocking this with my wrist was easy enough, but I hadn’t been expecting the sudden knee to the gut that knocked to wind clean out of my lungs. She backed off for only a moment to allow me to recover. The look in her eyes spoke of a smile beneath that swath of Kevlar on her face. The whore was toying with me!
Once my posture was straight again, I threw a wing forward, obscuring her eyes for a blind-side maneuver that brought my fist straight into the right side of her ribs. The muffled whoosh told me she was stunned. Perfect! Pivoting on my heel as fast as I could manage, I introduced her jugular to my elbow in a downward strike. Her already off-kilter frame tumbled onto the grate at my feet. The pathetic sounds of hacking that slithered forth from her throat brought me a small measure of satisfaction… Hopefully I’d communicated just how serious I was... Still, I wasn’t done yet… I cocked my leg back and let it fly forward with all my might. Her shuddering frame left the floor for a moment as she choked out an unintelligible phrase. A sizable stream of crimson trickled from under her mask, streaming down her neck… Beautiful…

“Well… Looks like you would have been a good match for me, Bunny Boy…” she said upon righting herself.

Wait… Did she just call me…?
What I saw next made my blood freeze in my veins… As the Kevlar face before me peeled back, I had surely entered a nightmare… A beautiful face of Cyan… Rosy eyes… But something was wrong… I knew that face…

“No…”