Rarity writhed away from Squall as soon as Melody broke the block of sand holding her in place. Her face ached and dribbled blood from where Squall had used her knife to pry off scales and cut at the soft flesh underneath. At the very least, she still had both her eyes. Squall’s knife had gotten dangerously close to them by the time Melody finally realized what was happening.
The two sirens backed up while Squall reformed her sandy platform to stand on. “This is going horribly!” Rarity hissed to Melody as the two drifted away, warily watching their opponents as everyone took a few seconds to rest. “How long has it been? Has it even been an hour yet?”
“It hasn’t even been half that long,” Melody said.
“Really?” Rarity grimaced and rubbed at the bloody spots on her snout. “It feels like it’s been a lifetime.”
Melody took a deep breath as the standoff continued, her eyes sliding back to Soft Step as she rose out of the water looking none the worse for wear. “The moonlight is powering her,” she said. “I scalded her with steam and dropped her for a few seconds before I saved you. She already looks like she’s back at a hundred percent.”
“So what do we do?” Rarity asked. “How do we stop her?”
“We can wear her down briefly if we keep the pressure on her,” Melody said. “That’s how I got to her the first time. Then we rip her limb from limb before she can recover.”
Spikes of sand burst out of the water, nearly impaling the two sirens while they talked. Bristling, Rarity turned her attention to Squall, who casually strolled towards them on an ever-lengthening bridge of sand. “What are you two doing?” she asked in disbelief. “This is a fight, not a tea party! We don’t have time to socialize over anything other than murder!”
Rarity and Melody darted in opposite directions as more sandy razors and blades tried to slice them to ribbons. This time, Rarity threw herself into the air to at least get a little more warning against Squall’s attacks so she couldn’t get pinned again. After all, the sand had to come from the seafloor, and the higher she was above the water, the longer it would take to reach her. It gave her more time to counter anything Squall attempted and hopefully end her altogether.
But now it seemed like she not only had Squall’s attention, but Soft’s as well. She nearly let herself get shot full of moonlight arrows as her attention was turned below her and not toward her surroundings, but a quick song from Melody saved her before she could be hit. Rarity’s breath caught in her chest as she realized she also had to pay attention to the sky, not just the undead pirate below her, and she immediately backed up before Squall could capitalize on her momentary surprise. Soft Step turned her attention back to Melody, attempting to lance her with a beam of darkness, and ultimately succeeding in clipping the green siren’s dorsal fin as she tried to throw herself out of the way.
Rarity dove back down on Squall, legs outstretched and beak ready to cleave the pirate in two, but she once more used the sand to obscure herself and barely slip out of Rarity’s grasp. Still, that didn’t stop Rarity from quickly writhing about, spotting Squall, and closing in once more even before the pirate’s hooves could really settle on her next sandy platform. She knew that the key to winning the fight relied on taking down the pirate so that both she and Melody could take on Soft Step with a numbers advantage. So long as Squall remained a threat, Rarity knew she could never concentrate her efforts on Soft Step alone.
Easy to say, but taking out the undead pirate… that was another matter entirely.
-----
The boom of otherworldly thunder roused Gyro from her weary stupor. She sat bolt upright on the raft, wincing as she strained her still-weak back, and looked around. To the north, the fading light of some cataclysmic spell dimmed out of the sky as a plume of water began to rain back down on the sea below. The hissing of the sudden unnatural rain carried to her ears a few seconds later, so great was the distance between the raft and the fight.
“What in the shit is going on out there?” she murmured to herself, awestruck by the simply unbelievable spectacle she now bore witness too. The almost casual display of such horrifyingly powerful magic truly, deeply worried her. She felt like an ant clinging to a twig in the middle of a tsunami, utterly powerless to do anything except hope that somehow she would survive when the storm was over. She was just thankful that the raft continued to drift away from the archipelago and the fighting. If it had gone the other way, well…
She decided it was best not to think about that, and instead turned her attention skyward, where the pegasi continued to try and extend the cloud cover over the raft floating below them. She saw Champagne and Stargazer hard at work pushing and shaping the cloud, while Rainbow took up more of a supervisor role off to the side. All three pegasi were extra careful not to expose themselves to the moonlight for fear of what might happen. Though none of them knew for sure exactly what might happen if the light of Luna’s moon fell upon their heads, they all had enough suspicions that they didn’t want to risk it.
But as she watched, she noticed Rainbow’s attention seemed to be less and less on the clouds and more and more on the fight happening far away. It was hard to tell, given how far away the pegasi were and how little light there was to light up the night, but she thought she saw Rainbow turn about in place several times. She knew that Rainbow didn’t like sitting on the sidelines either. If she decided to leave… if she decided to intervene…
“No, no, don’t do it, Rainbow,” Gyro whispered to herself. “Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan!”
To her horror, Rainbow began to back away more and more. But it wasn’t until another boom of magic echoed off the clouds that the pegasus abruptly turned tail and began to fly off in the opposite direction as fast as she could, leaving a rainbow trail in her wake. Champagne and Stargazer squawked in surprise and momentarily gave chase before realizing they had no chance of catching her. She was simply too fast and too far gone for them to stop.
Gyro sighed and put a hoof to her forehead. “Damn it, Rainbow!” she hissed. “Why do you always have to be the fucking hero?!”