Chapter 106 – Two Evils

'I don't believe this!' Rainbow nearly cursed inside her mind, 'This Kkelmar guy, he's way too good.' She lowered her eyes to check her ship's condition once again, 'Shields at two percent? How'd he do that?' she asked herself, 'Even with Breeze not able to block them, he shouldn't have been able to lower my shields that much. A few shots at most, we weren't close long enough for him to get that many shots in.' She then looked up at the ship of Kkelmar, and grinned, "Heh, your gunner's pretty fast to have gotten that many shots in." she said.

"Gunner?" Kkelmar asked in confusion, and then smiled, "You'd think I'd trust anyone else with a task like this? No, little one, I'm flying solo."

'He did that all by himself?' Breeze asked himself.

"Bet that comes with some problems huh?" she asked with a grin on her face.

'Has she gone mad?' the stallion asked himself.

Kkelmar quirked his eyebrow in confusion, "Makes it hard to check your rear!" she finished. His eyes shot open wide before he shifted his focus, no longer was his vision tunneling onto her, so he quickly saw the mark on his HUD a red arrow pointing behind him and to his right. Before he could even react, he felt a ship slam into his side from the rear of his ship, the front was decorated with several claws on several circular disks that rotated around each other. The device was sunken into a tube that pointed out in front of him at the bottom like a sled and tapered into the middle. The wings looked as if they could easily retract into the ship itself and the earth-toned colors helped it blend into the surrounding environment. He heard the scraping and damage as one of his guns was ripped from the ship. He was pushed several yards as the bore on the ship simply ate whatever scrap fell into its maw.

"Git on yah yellah bellied coward!" they could all hear a Hok-Sai call out from inside the ship.

"Who are you?" Kkelmar asked as the two ships dislodged and faced each other.

"Tri-Tiner!" the Pilot shouted, "And yer picken on my friend, Aie?" Kkelmar squeezed the trigger on his controls, only one gun firing as the bore on the front of the opposing ship caught and swallowed the energy shots. The Sunik growled and started to turn towards the Rainbow Trail again, "I don't think yah want to face her now, Aie?" the Hok-Sai said, "Ye've got half of yer ship that can't shoot back, and all ye have to do is make a simple mistake, or Rainbow Dash could start to catch onto teh timin, then yer done." The Sunik growled a bit, a plan quickly forming in his mind, "And even if yah keep her on yer good side, I'm still gonna be on yer bad side, Aie?" This declaration caused the plan inside the Sunik's mind to falter, every plan coming up a failure now, except one. So, he turned around and sped off toward the finish line.

"He's getting away!" Rainbow Dash called out, only to get quickly intercepted by the Boring Rubble.

"Ye've got bigger problems. Ain't yah been hear'en yer friends?" he asked.

"Huh?" she asked in surprise.

"We've been radio silent so that we couldn't be tracked." Breeze explained just as Rainbow switched on the radio.

The two of them could instantly hear Syls and Tris as they shouted, "…I can't shake him!" she heard the shorter Dryskian callout, "He's too fast!"

"I can't hit him! Those…things keep getting in my way." Tris shouted.

"Wait…" Rainbow gasped and focused on her Meltackian friends.

Honor's voice instantly echoed into her mind, "She's crazy!" he shouted, "I can't hold her off much longer."

"I didn't know we could turn our side of the communion off." Breeze gasped in shock.

"But…" Rainbow hesitated, knowing she could only save one of them.

"You go save one, I'll go for teh other." Tri-Tiner said, "But ye've got to choose who yer going for, and choose quickly."

Rainbow lowered her eyes in thought, only to look up at him with determination and press a button on her console, "Twilight, Pilit?" she asked as the team quickly appeared on her screen, "Can you map out a fast route for me really quick?"

Syls slid around a corner before jetting forward, her ship's seams shining a vibrant lime color as she let her magic flow into the machine, "Leave us alone!" she shouted into her loudspeaker, hoping that the assailant would just back off. As of now, there was no ship behind her, instead, there was a swarm of little drones, the same ones that had been following her.

"How many are there?" Tris asked in annoyance.

"Too many!" the shorter Dryskian said in the same annoyance, "I didn't think drones were legal!"

"There's nothing in the rules about it that I've seen." the gunner announced, "My question is, how did he fit a shield generator on each one with them being so small?"

"I don't know." Syls said in response, "But he's kicking our tails, we can't get a clean shot on him and he's not giving us much time to maneuver." She was interrupted when a set of them started firing off stun bolts at her, a rain of energy that forced her to take some kind of shelter, only to find that there was no exit. "Oh no!" she called out, and turned her ship around. the drones slowly, but menacingly, lowered themselves to fill the way she had gone in, closing any gap she could have used to escape.

And then, they heard the laughter. A prideful, arrogant laughter echoed from the speaker on the drones. "I've had fun playing with you two, you know." Kklesstic announced, "Too bad it must end this way. I do wish the chase could continue. The data that you've provided me has been…" he paused in his gloating, "…Invaluable."

"YOU COWARD!" Syls said in desperation, "Have to send you little robots after us? Fight us like a true warrior."

The laughter once again started, only louder, "I'm not a warrior." he said, catching the two Dryskians off guard a bit, "Therefore I don't have to abide by your warrior code, and little things like this don't bother me." He reviled in their panic as they realized that there was no way out, only through a hail of stun bolts, and he knew they wouldn't make it, he knew they knew that they wouldn't make it. He had been keeping track of the damage he had done to their shields, "You label me a coward but I think the ends speak for themselves, you will be removed from the races and I'll thrive from this moment onward. I'll study the track and combat data you've so generously provided me and come out as the winner of the Terranuilian Race. My every wish be granted as my race conquers yours and proves just how weak you really are, goodbye."

"STUDY THIS!" Kklesstic heard a raspy female voice say from behind him, he barely had time to turn his head when Rainbow Dash bit down on her trigger, firing the last shot of her Mass Stun Pulse Cannon at point-blank range. His shields shattered into tiny fragments of light particles as the remainder of the energy surged throughout his ship, many of his electrical systems shut down, including a particular one called Remote Energy Teather.

Syls watched as the lights on the drones flickered for a second before shutting off completely, then the drones fell to the ground, lifeless. "NO!" Kklesstic shrieked as he started pressing buttons rapidly in order to get his systems back online.

Rainbow backed up as Syls rocketed her way out of the building she had taken shelter in, and found her way back to where the Sunik ship had been stalled. "NOT LIKE THIS!" Kklesstic shouted, just as Breeze pressed his trigger. A single bolt landed in the ship's hull, surging through it and shutting down a single thruster before the larger Sunik ship rocketed away, staying in front of Breeze's shots until he ducked behind a building and continued along the main path with too many obstacles in the way for anyone to get a clean shot. The seams on the ship changed to glow a rusty orange color as the Sunik general placed his magic into the machine, and raced away.

"What a bully!" Breeze said as he watched the ship disappear.

"You came…" Syls whispered in relief.

"Sorry, we didn't get here sooner." Rainbow apologized.

"We had a bit of an extra shadow of our own to deal with." her gunner continued, "These guys mean business."

Further in, Honor turned his ship to the right and came to a swift stop as he allowed Chivalry to take aim. She pulled the triggers on her sticks, aiming carefully, however, the Sunik woman momentarily ducked behind some rubble, and upon emerging on the other side, began firing on the two Meltackians. "You are stubborn, I'll give you that." the Meltackian Pilot complimented.

"She is rather clever." Chivalry announced as she deflected more of the bolts. She adjusted just as her brother took off again, "She's turned to anger."

"Do not invade her mind my sister." he scolded, "She may overwhelm you if she finds out."

Suddenly, a large earth-colored ship slid in front of them, the inverted bore on the front swallowing the shots that hit it, "OI!" the large Hok-Sai inside shouted, "What in the Great Forge's Fires are ya doin?"

"Tri-Tiner?" Honor asked himself.