Catalyst 2.0: Purity (pt2)(edited)

>Rainbow hummed to herself as she dipped to and fro, singing a tune all her own.  A smile on her face, mane hidden behind the civilian helmet.  The flight license glowed orange on her coat shoulder, the pseudonym within the chip sending out it's ping to wandering sky-cops.
>Flight suit beneath the LunaCorp. Coat, thick and thermally protected, was tight as skin.  It was cobalt, a darker shade of her own hue.  It was quiet gear, really.  Her tail was comfortable, hidden within temperate flight mesh. The loose sections of the coat that rippled over her covered flank even got a few offhand and impressed whispers from the armored pegasi that eyed her amidst the clouds.
>Those ellipses beneath her wings- the weapon sheathing.  Those needed the sensor shielding. Those had their own glaze of protective epoxy, absorbing the pulses from the contraband scanners the other city-sworn Pegasi had.
>No visible cutie mark, and brandishing a “valid” license.  A flowing garment that, despite it's aerodynamics, simply oozed the authority from somep0ny probably funding the officers retirement payroll for legal silence.
>On top of it, it wasn't like they really knew a shapely, blue, long-coated mare had any real function toward being dangerous.
>If only they adhered to her old units creed.  The most revered amongst them, with all the changelings and cowards.
>”It only takes one.”
>She chuckled to herself in the moon brightened azure sky.  They'd find out, soon enough.

>Even with the leisurely speed limit those stallions inflicted on the world above all the earths and unicorns, she was quickly approaching her target.  The world below was a sweetly glistening, voluptuous net of transport pod rails, street lights, and advertisements.  Rooftops under her flashed red with landing pads, circles of light encompassing the universal symbol of a rearing, maneless pegasi with outstretched wings.  The stars above were pale and bleak in comparison to the shifting ocular pollution billowing from far below.
>The neon flare of Twilight Firmware's logo, a trio of cyan hexes neatly against one another in an old diva friends oh-so-personal pattern.  The way they sat atop the violet star, the corporate named underlined by silver and glowing angles.
>The tower loomed.  She smiled.  Perhaps that was too strong a word...
>With all it's inner workings, the late-night crew appearing as wandering shadows in what windows were still lit, she felt no form of fear.  Why should she?
>She had no reason to hurt them.  They sure as hell couldn't hurt her.  The tower- It was only waiting.  Yes, that was a much better description of it.
>However restricted that place was to Rainbow, however significant it could be in threat, she didn't hesitate to puncture the security threshold it had.  Not a single ping of alarm, for herself or otherwise, arrived in her AR.  That LunaCorp. coat was a magnificently layered sandwich of techno-goodies, and the sensor camouflage seemed to be working quite well.  What a shame, she thought.  She'd wanted to at least meet a few of Twilight's guards before really settling in.
>The well-armed antibodies within that concrete beast's hollow flesh were still sleeping.  So, she waited.  Hovered in wordless thought, her wings flapping generously to keep her aloft.  She drank it in, floating serenely to the closest lit window.
>Rainbow tapped a booted, treaded hoof to the reinforced glass.  Clink clink.

>The p0ny she'd noticed inside looked out toward her.  Some janitor in a silly, pale violet jumpsuit.  He was wielding a mop when he noticed her, his hat spun backwards to let his horn stick out of the back and from a scraggly brown mane.
>Just as dumb and trusting of another pony as Rainbow had ever seen, he pointed.  She flapped at the other side of the glass, drooping between each gentle upward tug her wings gave her.
>He pushed something on the other side.  The window slid open, vanishing into a slit within the support beam.
>”You need some directions?” He asked.
>”Nnnnnah.” she cooed, her helmet turning her voice plastic.  She neatly landed inside, gentle hoofsteps squeaking upon his freshly cleaned floor.
>”Don't be emarrassed, cutie. It happens all the time, y'know?  All the buildings look the same.  Where you lookin' to go?”
>Rainbow took a single, deep, smiling breath.  She pinged her flight suit to open her helmet.  He was rendered dumb, and without air.  She heard him whimper.
>She understood why, of course.  There weren't exactly any p0nies with any *good* recordings with the sort of colored, glorious locks that spilled forth.  They swung to kiss the ground; a bit overdramatic, even in her mind.  The egg-heads at the LunaCorp. lab had done well in preserving those colors, though did not give thought to her preference at keeping it short.
>”It wasn't so much where I am,” she said.  “As to who I'm looking for.”
>With a single, swinging bump of her hips, she pinged the electromagnetic shields in her coat into an overcharge.  The safeties bypassed by simple, instantly exercised will through her uplink, the crackle of electricity sent him into a fit of teeth-chattering spasms upon the floor.  She reverted the shielding to a safer level, and moved onward from her freshly incapacitated victim.

>She went to the nearest table.  Putting both forehooves beneath it, the pre-molded surface began to groan at it's base as she started to lift.  A crack formed in the curve, letting out the shrill whine of tearing metal.
>Up it went, every kilo slamming into the ceiling and sending the lights into flickering malfunctions.  The few objects on it's surface shattered or tumbled violently in every direction before it met the floor on it's side, several factory made tiles crumpling and flying free of the adhesive and bolts which had kept them in place.
>”I'm looking for a certain woman.” She said, walking closer to the floored male.  She put a single hoof on another standing table nearby, looking for a good place to send it's accoutrements.
>To hell with it.  Anywhere would do at that point.
>As smaller, more solid objects embedded in walls, a holographic projector exploded into a cloud of luminescent residue. The puff was a fog of static in 3-d space, dispersing as it fell to the floor like tiny snowflakes of visual noise.
>”I probably should have asked the secretary, but you know-” Rainbow stood over him, literally, her legs outstretched over his twitching body.  His wide, fluttering eyes tried in vain to focus upon her consistently.
>She moved to pet some of his electrically frizzled mane from his face, using the tip of her wing.  “I think the girl I'm looking for will appreciate this way best.  Even if it messes up all your hard work...”
>Rainbow drew her tongue along her lips, and clicked it against her teeth when it retreated.  “Sorry about this... “Cutie.”
>On to table three!
>Well, would you look at that.  So neat, so tidy.  So clean and structured and ready for the it's next use.  And every ampoule, beaker, and dish upon it was made of glass.
–
>Gilda held up a trio of trays amidst half-bent wings.  White and plastic, they had clear tops with visible heat pouring from grated venting.  Inside there was food, fresh and hot, as the elevator approached the interrogation room.
>There had been better trained ponies for what she was about to do.  She liked adding that personal touch to things, though.  Besides...
>She rather wanted to see just how badly Scootaloo was taking the whole thing.
>It was a strange thing to reapproach the glass room.  Gilda had been lambasted in the place by Twilight.  With the two “musicians” inside, it would be Deja vu, only from the opposite set of eyes.
>Scootaloo sat at the end of the row of seats, the one closest to the room itself.  The two mares sealed inside it comforted each other as best they could.   Scootaloo watched them from behind her guards, still worried.  She was twitching every now and then, holding back outright shivers- everything useful, including her clothing, had been confiscated already.  The building was nothing, if not brisk.  She had a shock collar attached.  No doubt a house arrest device, she'd be feeling it if she even tried to leave the room.
>Gilda tilted one feathered wing, sliding one of the trays into Scootaloo's lap.  She caught it with a bit of a start, looking up from it through stringy pink locks.  “They've been nice, right?” Gilda asked.
>Scootaloo grumbled.  “Aside from the ones staring at my bare ass, yeah.”
>”Which ones?  I can hospitalize em and get away with it.”
>”Didn't get their service numbers.”  Scootaloo popped the tray open while she gave out protective lies.  She drearily took up a green disc, speckled with embedded flower petals, and began to nip away pieces of it.  It was one of her typical escapes to explaining herself to Gilda- stuff her face so she physically couldn't speak.
>The gryphon sighed.
>”Look, kiddo.  You know I only do what I need to in order to keep you safe.”
>Scootaloo nodded.
>”Those two, they're not good for you.  Hell, they aren't even good for me, either.  When I got the call after the trace went down, I had to make a choice.”  Gilda eyed the nibbling mare. “Put you in jail for the unlicensed freelancing, stir up shit between you and your employer, and get these two finally arrested for what they really are.  Or, bullshit you out of trouble, leave up the corporate shit to Twilight, and get these two finally arrested to take heat off of you.”
>”You didn't need to to anything for me.” she said, with one cheek stuffed full of the daisy-disc.  “It was my job...  And I owed AJ.”
>”I'm all for paying debts, but...”  Gilda let the two trays glide into an open palm, holding them aloft.  She grunted and slowly stretched the cramping wing.  “Only if it doesn't ruin you.”
>Scootaloo smiled, but didn't make eye contact.  “Heh.  Yeah.  Well now, I don't owe her shit.  And with you around, I wasn't sure I would get in enough trouble that you couldn't fish me out of it.”
>Gilda grunted, and rolled her eyes away.  Scootaloo always was just a little smarter than she got credit for.  ”I have to get to work.  Anything you need?”
>”Yeah.” Scootaloo replied.  “It was my fault they got dragged here.  Try and be just a little nice?”
>Gilda snorted.  Then, she replaced the two remaining meals back on her wing, and entered the interrogation room at a soft angle.  She sat down quietly as the door sealed behind her, shuffling one of the sealed trays to the gray mare, and keeping another in front of herself.
>The meal had been well prepared, so for Gilda, it made it all the more satisfying how savagely she tore into it.  The meat might have been a replication, but it sure tasted and tore like regular flesh did.
>She tapped the tray at one side with a single claw when she finished.  It slid to a smooth and angled stop near the edge of the table.  Gilda poked and slid her tongue around the curve of her beak, shutting it with a wet and final clap.  She held up her claws to both p0nies opposite her.
>Gilda had to take a moment, before interlocking her talons amongst themselves before the two.  Octavia hadn't even bothered to try and share with her companion- Did Vinyl even need to eat, inside that old chassis?
>Vinyl, without her glasses, had become a slick looking wreck.  She'd tried to keep her hair straight and her coat smooth.  The jagged winding of her obsolete, fabricated form revealed itself in a rubbery looking set of mathematically perfect line-scars, dimples at points along them that reminded Gilda of bolts.  She'd changed little in Gilda's many interventions between her and Scootaloo, though for the life of her, Gilda could not imagine why.  Even chassis had to age.
>Octavia though, having lost her access to the decadent make-ups, was showing her own age.  She'd eaten like the beast she really was, using the food to remain silently coy.  Is that where Scootaloo had picked up the habit?
>Gilda smiled at them.  She was happy, in more ways than one.  She finally had these corruptive, greasy fucks to herself in every legal way.  Only Scootaloo's request had kept her eager rage distant, and Gilda found herself rather thankful for it.  Perhaps she could actually apply some tact thanks to the restraint.
>The interrogation light scattered off the iso collar Vinyl wore.  She had the tablet next to her, and onto it there strolled out just a few simple words.  She held it up, facing it to the gryphon with a very flat, red eyed expression.

>”You're not stupid.” Gilda began.  “You know what I'm going to ask.”
>Vinyl Scratch:  So ask it.
>Gilda smiled.  She took the packet of herb from her coat, dusting the paper she'd brought with it.  Pinched between her claws, she rolled it tightly before snapping shut one edge with her beak.  When the lighter clinked shut, smoke flooding into the room from her nostrils, she sighed gratefully.  Still good stuff, she thought to herself.
>”What made you think you'd get away with it?”
>Vinyl had to trade between the tablet between Gilda and her own view each time she communicated.
>Vinyl Scratch: Nothing.  I never thought I would.
>Gilda tapped each talon against the metal table, tick-tick-ticking away as she rolled them along in succession.  She felt her gloves stretching, the only real impact being that of the bare foretalon, made for a better traction along a trigger.  “So,” Gilda said.  “Sitting here across from *me* was your plan?”
>Vinyl Scratch: Not exactly.  I knew what would happen.  Not the when's and how's.
>Vinyl Scratch: Just a matter of why, and what for.
>As the sharp white text burned against that violet rimmed background, Gilda let it brand into her eyes.  “Then tell me something.  Why Scoots?  She didn't need to get dragged into this.”
>Vinyl Scratch: That* is merely a matter of perspective.
>Gilda leaned forward, twirling a claw in the air.  “You'll have to explain that.  Why, on this green and metal Equestria, would you indulge her in what she did?”
>Vinyl Scratch: Because that was her perspective.  Like it or not, “mom,” she doesn't have the same view on Anonymous that the rest of you seem to.  She sees him for what he's become.

>Gilda laughed, using her food tray to clean her cherry.  “That's what it comes down to, huh?  Anonymous.” She shook her head.  “That's getting really old.  He's nop0ny special.”
>Vinyl Scratch: Not anymore.  That's the problem.  It's your boss that's the real worry.
>”So, what,” Gilda said, tapping the side of her own head.  “Twilight's the maniac?  The,” She drew out air quotes with a pair of talons on each claw. “Evil mastermind, that created the big bad Anonymous.  Paved the way for the great evils of our time.”
>Vinyl Scratch: Absolutely not.
>Vinyl Scratch: Her issue, is that she does not take credit for what she has done.  She tries to pawn it off on a fake face.  Her callsign, Moniker, has always taken the blame.
>Vinyl Scratch: If she doesn't consume every ounce of what she deserves, it isn't just me that's going to rot.  It will include the rest of the ponies like me, Anonymous especially.
>”So then, how exactly does that egg head need to be rewarded, hm?”
>Vinyl Scratch: That's not up to me.
>Octavia leaned back in her chair, wiping off her chin.  She had been distracted upon the tablet too.  She had also very suddenly lost her appetite.
>Vinyl Scratch: She has bypassed Celestia.  Luna.  Everyp0ny.  They defer to HER when the technology goes berserk, not the other way around.  And she herself doesn't think that deserves merit.  If she does not realize the good she has done, and do so soon-
>Vinyl had to pause.  The text had reached the end of it's line, and she had to revisit the tablet to finish her thought.  The ivory musician slapped the bottom edge of the tablet down on the table, letting it ring throughout the room.
>Vinyl Scratch: Every pseudo is going to die, and the infrastructure we've maintained is going to go with them.

>Octavia glared at Gilda.  She kept her tray still, hooves to either side of it, while she used her voice for the first time Gilda could ever recall in their encounters.  Her vocal chords were quiet. Her tongue wonderously practiced.  “The natural children, too.” She said.  “The first generation is going to suffer, and disappear, for the actions of two p0nies, misinterpreted as the pseudo's will by the eyes of the ones Twilight keeps ignorant.”
>Gilda held the roach between her talons, the length of ash crumbling away.
>Vinyl Scratch: Twilight, of all p0nies, has no right to keep secrets like that.  Not when we are aware enough to have a say in it.  Not when p0nies like Scootaloo are here.
>”What do you mean by that?”
>Vinyl smiled as she clicked away the next words. When she rotated the tablet, she tilted her head with a grin.
>Vinyl Scratch: There are more natural creatures that care for us than you think.  Here's an example.
>Vinyl Scratch: I know a headstrong gryphon.  Protective.  Powerful.  One that sacrifices her own damned future, for the sake of other p0nies around her getting a chance at one.
>Octavia whimpered.  She wanted to edge closer to Vinyl, but in staring back at Gilda, sat back and put her hooves into her lap.  Gilda watched her, picking out the hairs on her coat, and just waiting for her hide to queue up the signs of an attack. It never came.
>When Gilda looked back at Vinyl's tablet, she saw a distortion. She was holding the flat panel so tightly, it was bending at the center.  A stripe of bright white inverted what text passed through it like a film negative.

>Vinyl Scratch: What will that gryphon think when she sees a mare she calls her daughter, a mare she gave blood and bone for, crying in a corner over losing just one p0ny like me?
>Vinyl Scratch: Imagine the reply of ALL those supportive p0nies, when WE are forced to accept the consequences of what Chrysalis and Nightmare Moon have done.
>Vinyl rolled her hoof about the tablet before turning it back.  Octavia moved to hold her.  Gilda, tick-tick-ticking away, allowed the embrace.
>Vinyl Scratch: Not one of us outside of the Chrysalis incident has been recorded to damaging violence against the real p0nies.  Not one.  Not until recently.  Not until Anonymous.
>Vinyl Scratch: In all you've seen and done, and every single thing you've killed, can you truly say you have seen that sort of commitment in what you call real?
>”Yes.” Gilda said.  “Just once.”
>Vinyl Scratch: And now she's dead.  Right?
>Vinyl laughed, and Octavia squeezed her tightly.  “Vinyl, don't-”
>Vinyl Scratch: And whose fault was that?  Because it certainly wasn't the pseudo's, despite how primed we are to take the blame.
>Gilda stood straight out of the chair, sending it into a violent tumble.  The push of her claws on the table held her tall, her laser-sharp eyes peering from behind the styled feathers atop her head.  Her chest puffed out, still aching along the scar, the downy feathers fluttered between the zipper of her coat.
>Vinyl Scratch: So I guess now I get to ask you something, since you're paying attention.
>Vinyl Scratch: At Anonymous' side, seeing his daughter and what she is, knowing full well the kind of things he's trying to shield himself from,
>Vinyl Scratch: What will HE do, when Twilight herself continues to reject what she's done?  When the reals and the pseudo's openly solidify that hate for each other?

>Vinyl Scratch:  Where will YOU stand, right now, knowing full well that neither side had to be here in the first place?  If only they listened to each other?
>Gilda blacked out.  There was slamming, she remembered later.  Claw marks on metal.  There was no blood.
>From either side of the cracked door, the guards stepped back from her outburst.  Hidden in helms, the faceless, smoothly goggled stallions watched her burn.  Feeling like she would melt a hole in the floor, her head shot to the only other source of movement in the room.
>There was Scootaloo.  Her magenta eyes were not cowering.  The rest of her body from where she was slumped, however, was visibly shivering.  Pitiful and naked, save for a few diodes stuck to her joints for the distribution of the electricity prepared in the collar, her lungs shivered out frozen and terrified breath.
>The pegasus then thought it was her turn with “mom.”
>Gilda leaned down.  Scootaloo squeaked as the claws went dragging over the collar, talons snipping the diode wires.  She clutched it, the sharpened portion of her claw digging into the metal. With one sizzling grab, she sheared the collar clean in half, and shattered it against the wall in one long and careless swing.
>No words went between them.  The guards had their weapons drawn, ready, both of them moving to angle safely against Gilda.  So, she thought to herself.  Were those the orders you gave them, Twilight?  Just in case?
>Or was it just another pair of assholes against their perception of a gryphon?
>Fuck it.

>”Visiting hours are open.” Gilda said.  She held up a bare foretalon, waving it between the guards.  “Not one fucking hair out of place when I get back, you hear me?” She gripped the floor, the talons of her free claw sinking into the metal floor.  Even the feline half extended it's stiletto's, the leathery sheath of the undersuit splitting to let them mar the floor.  Confused, the guards stared between each other.
>”We don't have a goddamn thing to worry about with those two.” She said.  “Scootaloo isn't getting charged with anything. If I hear you dweebs tried to keep her restrained, I swear to whichever goddess you worship, there won't be enough to bury unless they use a sponge.”
>Scootaloo, utterly confused, looked up at Gilda with a malaise of concern.  A tug of war with her her own conscience, she was looking between the open door and the gryphon.  “Well?!” Gilda sneered toward her. “What are you waiting for? I know you want to talk to them.”
>”I...” Scootaloo replied weakly.  “I...”
>”Don't make me repeat myself, Scoots.” Gilda said.  She gave the pegasus a fake, diseased smile. “I'm tired of being so fucking scary to you, Scoots.  Just,” She couldn't bear to look in those quivering eyes. “Do what you want.”  She had to summon every iota of ability, every throbbing wire of strength in both her implants and meat.  “I won't stop you.”
>Scootaloo had no words.  There was a moment of intense, writhing quiet.  After that, she was gone, inside the room.  Gilda heard her laughing before the door slid shut.
>Gilda sat for a while.  She listened.  Partially cheery jabs coming from Scootaloo's familiar voice, the sound of her relief an incoherent burble.  The three actually hugged each other.
>She fucking *hated* Vinyl.  Not for being a pseudo, she had to remind herself.  Gilda did so simply for the mare being herself.
>For being the individual she was...  Even though she was just a program...

>Gilda had to cope the only way she knew how when she juggled dissonance.  She roared as she passed the guards.  The secondary security door opened as the guards flinched and flattened their flanks to the wall, their breaths so deep the helm microphones picked up the frothy static.
>As the elevator door closed behind her, there came a blip.  A ping.  She ignored it for as long as she could.
>The sound of Scootaloo's laugh replayed in her head.  That was it, wasn't it?  The fucking future, living and breathing and happy, and Gilda hadn't even known she'd raised her to be that way.
>Be practical, be strong, be violent.  Be what you need to be to survive.  It was everything she herself tried to stay, and in one conversation with some poisonous bitch, had lost her footing.  Why then, did it feel proper?
>Why then, did she again feel so insecure at being...  What was the word?
>Free?
>She could have had a chance again. If only she hadn't signed up.  If only she hadn't taken up arms, to survive, underneath a violet and tunnel visioned flag.
>She realized, as the security ping turned a bitter and bloody red, that beneath the corporate creed, a very important life had passed her by.  Her own.
>At least there was the ping.  It was on the aerial bay- the landing pads for the pegasi employees.  It was some fuckhead, unknowingly on the turf of the enraged monster she knew she was.  Their invasion was going to be her release, and thanks to every trespassing law she could come up with, Gilda would probably get away with whatever design she plucked from her list of favorite violent activities.
>A message came.  Priority one, probing, and with a high ping from distance.  “Gilda?” Twilight asked. “What's going on? The security is going nuts.”
>”No idea boss.  I'm heading in to find out.  I'll call you back in a few.”
>Gilda hung up.  Then, she sent the security announcement through her nerves, the musky matrix of biology allowing her to almost taste the ping that burst from her.  “Get the injured out of there, and move to seal off the deck.” The weapons beneath her wings slid free of the sheathing rails, and she moved a talon into the chest of her coat to find she had several magazines for her PS-17.  Perfect. “I'm on my way.” she said into the comms, between the organized storm of chatter.  “And you better get the FUCK out of it, because I am in no mood.”
–
>Rainbow smiled.  She looked away from that rear hoof of hers, in all it's treaded and sandy plainness. Beneath the armored stallions chin, pinning his throat to the wall, he'd fallen unconscious in what her biomonitor assessor had gleaned was an admirable 1.3 seconds.
>Then again, those monitors did tend to be just a little off.
>After all, on number four, it had been a heartbeat alarm.  The two of them hadn't even done anything together when they spotted one another.  His pulse had jumped so high the computations said that, with his body weight, he was going to have a heart attack.
>Rainbow liked to think she was pretty.  Especially with how long her mane had been allowed to grow.  She knew that she wasn't pretty enough to cause a heart attack, though.
>Still, it was a pleasant thought.
>As she took her hoof away from him, he slid with the plastic clatters of his armor into a pile against the wall.  His limp head bounced on his neck before swinging, and stopped.  She looked to the balcony, the wind cutting divots into warmth.  The ceiling gave way to the openings, orange lights firing in sequence to connect and repeat the cycle.
>She walked to the pad, and over the pegasus landing symbol etched into the metal.  She peered over the ledge.  Still many, many stories up, she had a view she hadn't been privy to in... What? Minutes?
>No, that was unfair.  She hadn't paid much attention in traveling here.  So, the sight was still fresh to her.  She let one eye zoom in, the square of it's focus appearing at first as large and immature blocks.  They softened into a picture.  The brilliant pod highway was lit in yellow so bright it seemed like dingy white.  A few p0nies walked and chatted, though she could only imagine what they were saying with only a view of their backs and heads.

>Though, her imagination in that regard had no kind words to put into their mouths.
>Whatever, she thought.  The assholes in that myriad would get theirs, eventually.  Not my place to say.
>There was another stomping of armored hooves. That strange feel of one eye operating out of synch, a floaty sensation with all the plush of a cloud, had to fade in order to pay attention.  The door to the flight deck of the tower opened, and she took to trotting behind a console.  It would slow the bullets enough to avoid the real intensity of the pain.
>Then, there was the voice.
>That delicacy in Rainbow's memory, brightening her eyes and filling her chest with almost erotic breath.  The feline snarl, swept into a clean cruelty which rolled from that inelegant tongue.  Beautiful.
>”Alright you son of a bitch!” Gilda screamed.  “You have ten seconds before you get sent home over the course of a month.”
>Fucking. *Beautiful.*
>Rainbow stepped out from behind the console.  It took only an instant for those magnificent eyes to find her.  And when they did...
>Rainbow took quick and nimble steps into the center of the landing pad, leaving one hoof lifted when she stopped.  She couldn't help reacting; her blue wings flared, and fluttered back down.
>”Hey baby.” Rainbow said, the voice of her chassis barely able to speak it.  Her last words sanded and rough, she spoke again. “Did you miss me?”
>Rainbow could see it in Gilda's eyes as the pupils opened, flooding the corneas in a way that threatened to leave those gold jewels black.  Her breathing tightened, and so did her shoulders, her claws puncturing the panel she stood on.  The rippled sheen of those reflective depths formed two dots, sharpened beneath an angled brow.
>All the rage of that time apart from one another, alone and still fighting, was palpable.  When Rainbow had been taken out on the street in the other chassis...  That must have felt so very unfair to poor, vindictive Gilda.

>Rainbow turned and backpedaled.  Feeling the rim of the pegasi landing bay, she let her flank lift, mocking the gryphon's ass end with a cat-like crouch.  “Come on Gilda.  Come on!”  Through teeth welded shut, the words made her own head shake.  “Just you and me!”
>Gilda's beak was open. Rainbow saw it through the flash of the landing lights, illuminating her face in a burnt view that was only glossed by the sheen of her beak.  Gilda turned around.  Without a sound from her, her purple coat rippled as she tore the door from it's internal supports.
>Flinging it at her like a jagged, hissing frisbee, Rainbow hopped over Gilda's first reply.  The door bent and ricocheted, spinning off into the sky behind her.  She landed in the gouge it left on the balcony, and heard the crash of shattering glass.  A momentary glance over her shoulder, and Rainbow saw that the door had cleared the street, entering the opposite building with all it's weight.
>Gilda let out a fantastic roar, her claws sparking thick gouges into the floor and landing pad.  Her bounding approach was too fast, too sudden, to allow Rainbow to completely dodge.
>As she felt the claws dig against the armor, the concussion of Gilda's considerable weight flinging them both from the pad, Rainbow grinned.  Her whipping, colored hair framed the Gryphon's enraged face as they fell, and Rainbow lifted a hoof to meet Gilda's claw when she tried to bring it back down on her throat.
>”That's it,” Rainbow said.
>As they struggled in the air, the highway falling upward to meet them halfway, Rainbow finally manged to cackle.
>”Just like when we were soldiers that meant something!”
--