Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Plan B

“No!”

Soft Step panted as her body recovered from the spell. It had taken a tremendous amount of energy out of her, though the moon was doing a fine job of refilling her with His power. But she’d seized the moment of respite the green siren had given her in backing off to obliterate the smaller siren down below. Her spell had vaporized thousands of gallons of seawater in an instant, and the scalding steam that resulted would have been hot enough to burn through a siren’s armor and flash-boil her blood. Sure, her undead companion had been caught in the blast, but she was expendable. She always had been. And not even undead could survive their flesh boiling like that. Case in point, Soft could no longer feel the trickling draw on her magic that had been sustaining the corpse and letting her cast her own spells.

Now it was just a one versus one. The green siren looked down at the water in disbelief, unable to accept that Soft had abruptly murdered her friend with a single spell. Soft Step wanted to taunt her, to gloat over the other siren’s demise, but she held her tongue for the time being. Every second the green siren could only look on in shock was another second she could use to draw her strength back.

Eventually, that disbelief turned to fury, and she pointed it in Soft’s direction. She opened a maw twisted by fury and anguish and fire another beam of green energy at her, but Soft merely slid to the side, expecting as much. “She wasn’t a true siren, was she?” she asked, her horn summoning several javelins of moonlight and flinging them at her opponent. The siren dived low and to the side, dodging most of the javelins, save for one which stuck her in the shoulder. As she roared and shattered it with a bite, Soft casually gained altitude and readied another volley of javelins. “My thrall had some interesting things to say about her. It appears they met when she was just a pony. Perhaps she should have stayed that way.”

“I will end you!” the siren screeched at her, once more lunging back up to try and snap Soft in two with her vicious teeth. In response, Soft merely wrapped her magic around the beast’s head and twisted in an attempt to break her neck, but the siren rolled with the motion and lashed out with her tail, swatting Soft from the sky as if it was a big flyswatter. Wings spread, the siren caught herself, and once more slid into shadow before magic could strike her in retaliation.

When she appeared behind the siren, she revealed her fanged teeth in a smile. “How much longer can you fight me?” she asked, preemptively stepping through the shadows once again before the siren could attack again. “You must be getting tired,” she said, appearing off to the siren’s side. “My strength comes from His moon. Where does yours come from? Those songs you sing to play with mortals? How much longer until you’re completely dry?”

“Shut up!” Melody shouted, her voice slipping into a four note arpeggio that briefly made the air clap with thunder. Soft merely erected a shield to dissipate the sudden shockwave, casually discarding it when the siren stopped to take a few panting breaths. “I’m going to kill you, and that will be the end of your master’s plans!”

“And then what?” Soft Step asked, cocking her head to the side. “You’ve been here a long time, siren. He has known about your presence for decades. We know you want to leave. Have you told them yet what they have to do to leave?”

The siren gritted her teeth and growled.

Soft snickered. “You haven’t. I see. So what are you going to do, siren? Are you going to sacrifice them yourself? Or are you going to stay trapped here with them, forever? You must know that surely this is your best chance to escape. When again is another airship full of ponies going to crash on these islands and give you what you need to lower the barrier?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the siren protested. “None of it does.”

“Oh, it surely won’t matter for you when I finish with you here.” Soft Step began to casually fly circles around the siren while keeping herself to a safe distance. “I’ll at least give you His mercy and end you swiftly. After you tell me where your pegasi are, of course. Why don’t you save me the trouble and tell me now. I’m going to get it out of you, one way or another.”

“You won’t.” The siren scowled at her, her chest rising as she inhaled. “I’ll see to that!”

She began to screech a high note at her, likely to snuff out her magic, but Soft erected a wall of silence between the two of them, blocking the siren’s music. “Your screeching and screaming won’t get you anywhere,” she said, even though the siren couldn’t hear her from the other side of the wall. “You’re very tiresome, I’ll give you that.”

Once more stepping through the shadows, she emerged directly next to the siren’s large dorsal fin and delivered a sharp crossing blow to her shoulder. The siren’s magical voice abruptly turned into a cry of pain as the force of the punch sent her tumbling across the sky. By the time the monster righted herself, Soft appeared above her, bucking downwards with her supernaturally powerful hind hooves. She watched the siren fall and splash into the seawater below, watching the green body writhe its way back to the surface with an amused grin. “I’d end this quicker, but I do need you alive,” she said. “At least until I know where the pegasi are.”

“Then try looking over here!”

Soft Step turned her head in surprise at the new voice only to receive a mouthful of hoof. The sudden blow from the newcomer sent the alicorn tumbling horn over hoof until she finally righted herself some distance away. Glaring and spitting out a tooth, Soft tilted her head back to behold a rainbow-maned pegasus hovering in front of her.

“Where’s Rarity?!” the pegasus demanded, her eyes never leaving Soft Step’s face. “What did you do to her?!”

Soft worked her jaw from side to side as the moon regrew and repaired her damaged and missing teeth. “What an interesting development,” she murmured to herself. It was followed a second later by an evil smile. “I like it!”

Comments

[PonyDragon]

At least Squall is gone. Again. Hopefully she stays gone this time.

[Grey Goat Gal]

Dang it, Rainbow! You saved Melody, but now you're screwed!

[FloydienSlip]

8985669 Agreed.

...But since when could you nest spoilers?

[Merula]

Damnit Rainbow! Just why?!

[Aurora Dimmet]

Rainbow you gosh-dang fool. Even if you leave now you'd just lead her back to the others.

[PonyDragon]

8985742
I believe since the last big Fimfiction update.
The code looks like this:

[spoiler]At least [spoiler]Squall[/spoiler] is gone.[/spoiler]

[zaponator]

Player 3 has entered the game!