Rainbow Dash barreled into Soft Step’s gut faster than the eye could blink. She led with her shoulder and felt a solid impact on the other side—the mare had not been unable to turn to shadow. But she didn’t stop flapping her wings just because she’d run into a wall of alicorn. They continued to beat at the air, the crimson streak in each blurring by as she turned her charge into upward momentum, carrying the alicorn with her.
Soft roared and grunted in pain, but Rainbow slammed her against the far wall of the shrine. The sudden blow once again cancelled any spells the alicorn may have been trying to cast, but Rainbow didn’t give her a chance to recover or catch her breath. Instead, she wrapped her forelegs around Soft’s neck and flew in the opposite direction, spinning in place until she’d slammed the mare into the ceiling. Loose pebbles and dirt fell on the dais from above, and the stone splintered from the sheer force with which Rainbow had flung Soft into it.
Rainbow blinked in awe. She thought she’d merely been energetic after… whatever it was Chirp did to her. But this? She felt like she was her own demigod now. The moon god had his avatar, and maybe now she had the sun god’s blessing to be his champion.
Her momentary distraction in awe of her abilities cost her. Soft dropped off of the ceiling and fired magic from her horn, clipping Rainbow’s wing. But instead of knocking her out of the air, the notched blue feathers quickly regrew as the red feather embedded among them glowed. This time it was Soft Step who faltered in the face of the powerful magic now fighting on Rainbow’s side, and Rainbow smirked at her.
“You’re not the only one with a god looking out for them now,” Rainbow said. Instead of taunting the alicorn further, however, she simply charged straight into her with her hooves outstretched. Once again, the glow of the world outside of the shrine prevented Soft Step from sliding into the shadows like she’d done earlier, and Rainbow managed to catch her on her hooves and pummel her across the room. Stone shattered and Soft’s horn sparked as it glanced along the walls, but the alicorn managed to kick Rainbow away.
Sweat beaded on Soft’s forehead as she tried to counter the pegasus, but Rainbow was much too fast—by far faster than she’d ever been during the fight over the open sea. She was only able to fling a hoofful of simple mana bolts before the pegasus was upon her again, leading with her hoof into a savage uppercut that sent the alicorn reeling. Soft briefly felt stone slam against her back, but the pegasus once more fell upon her… only this time the forceful volley of her punches and blows sent the alicorn out of the gap in the shrine, away from the dais and her sacrifices below.
“Party’s over!” Rainbow squawked as she spun about and bucked Soft Step further into the air. “I’m sorry if this hurts, Soft, but I gotta do what I gotta do!”
Soft whirled around and brought magic to her horn, but again she was too slow to cast it before Rainbow fell upon her. This time, Rainbow locked Soft onto her shoulder as she carried the helpless alicorn skyward. The island blurred into a speck behind her as she flew faster than she’d ever flown before, and soon the icy chill of high altitude began to prick at her coat and her tears froze to her eyelashes. The blood staining her coat froze into tiny crimson marbles, and they fell to the ground far below. But still, she climbed upwards until she found her limit.
Soft Step choked on the thin atmosphere, and even Rainbow found it hard to breathe. But way up there, high above the island and the horror of the world below, she could actually see around the horizon to the sun lurking just beyond. Only a sliver of that amazing golden orb danced far to the east, but it grew by the second, albeit ever so slowly. Rainbow couldn’t help but stare at it as gravity stole her momentum away and dragged her closer to momentarily weightlessness high in the sky. Daylight was coming. She just had to finish off the night before it did.
Pivoting about in midair, she wrapped her limbs around Soft Step and began to dive. The alicorn’s skin hissed and popped as the sun burned into it, but Rainbow ignored her shrieks of pain as best she could. This would end one way or another, right here and right now. And she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. It had already nearly cost her everything; she couldn’t afford to lose it all twice in one night.
The island grew and grew, and once more, Rainbow Dash felt herself poking away at the sound barrier as she picked up speed. For the second time that night, she would utilize a Sonic Rainboom against Soft Step. Hopefully this one would put her down for the count, but she didn’t know for sure. The alicorn had proven incredibly resilient to everything she’d thrown at her, but maybe now that the sun was coming out she wouldn’t be able to recover.
It was time to find out once and for all.
-----
Rarity stopped singing when she saw two figures streak out of the cave so fast she nearly missed it when she blinked. It took them all of a split second to fade into a tiny speck in the sky, leaving behind a rainbow trail streaked with more red than usual. She craned her neck back, back, back, but soon she couldn’t even see the two anymore.
“Holy crap, I think that was Rainbow!” Gyro shouted from halfway up the hill. The gray mare jumped for joy and cheered. “She’s alive! I knew she’d be fine!”
“Did she take Soft Step with her?” Rarity called back. She kept her eyes sky and pulled herself onto the sand when the tiny speck began to dive down again.
“I think she did!” Gyro hobbled to the gash in the hill as quickly as she could and gasped. “Rarity! They’re still alive down here!” She emphatically waved a hoof to the siren. “Get over here and help! Make some stairs or something so they can get out!”
Rarity started to move and readied herself to fly, but before she did, an explosion of light and color blasted through the sky above her. Both she and Gyro flinched and looked up as a line of color pierced the expanding ring of light and continued to streak downwards.
Gyro cried out in alarm and jumped out of the way when it went straight back down into the shrine below in a blur, and a thunderous crack of stone broke through the morning.