Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Delaying Actions are Hardly Glorious

Soft Step cleared the dais with a wave of her magic, scattering the papers the minotaurs had laid over it. All around her, the ponies that would soon fuel the ritual lay motionless, the fight throttled out of them. With any luck, they wouldn’t wake before Soft had sacrificed their hearts and completed the ritual. She had everything she needed and all the peace in the world to work on it.

Her magic adjusted the statuettes on their pedestals, leaving each one perfectly aligned and centered. She would need their energy to manifest Him into the world, rejuvenated by the blood she was about to offer them. Her eyes momentarily lingered on the crystal pony statuette. She had no crystal ponies with her, so she needed to offer it a fitting substitute. Thankfully, the blood of an alicorn would work just fine.

It would be a honorable sacrifice for her Lord. She couldn’t be angry about that.

She began to sort out her sacrifices, using her considerable magical power to make sure that their coats were clean and presentable, not stained with sand, dirt, and blood. The unicorns she left by His statuette, the pegasi by the Usurper’s, and the earth ponies by the common soul of the Ponynesian civilization. She had two of each race, and even three in the case of the unicorns. Two hearts from each would be more than enough to bring Him into the world. The shrine would run red in pony blood in the twilight of the world of light beyond.

Soft pulled a knife of moonlight out of the air and admired the ceremonial snake-like curve to the blade. As a mortal mare, she would not have known how to do any of this, would not have known what she needed to do for the sacrifice. But His knowledge flowed through her, giving her the wisdom she needed to undo the set of locks keeping him bound to another plane. She was the key to opening the divide between the worlds, and all she had to do was turn the pins out of the way.

“In the foaling of the world, there was only dark,” she said, speaking in an ancient tongue as if somepony else spoke through her. “The world was perfect and pure as the black of the night. The cold cleansed the worthy and the fire of the moon burned the impure.”

Her magic picked up Ratchet, who still twitched and muttered after she’d shattered his mind earlier that night. “Then came the Usurper, wielding light between his wings, and searing away the tranquil purity of the night. Through his hubris came the sins and tragedies of the sun, laying bare the defects and horrors of the impure to scar a perfect world.”

She placed Ratchet on the dais and spread his limbs out. “The ponies of the earth were the first to arise in this horrific world. They dragged themselves from the sands of the seas, where they set about marring the world with grotesque constructions of their own creation. By their sins, the foundation of the Usurper’s power was established. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the first of your binds.”

The knife plunged through Ratchet’s sternum, vaporizing bone and flesh by the awful power of the moon. The stallion writhed in pain on some primal instinct, but Soft held him in place with her magic. The blade danced around his heart, and all it took was a little more work to sever the organ from his chest and hoist it out. Soft examined the twitching organ for a second before she ignited it with a spark from her horn and let the flames consume it. In mere moments, the heart turned to ash, and the earth pony figurine on the pedestal began to glow.

The body breathed its last below her, and Soft unceremoniously deposited the corpse on the other side of the room. She still had the other earth pony, but she didn’t need to use him just yet. He could wait until the end of the ritual in case something had gone wrong. Instead, she reached for a unicorn, dragging one of the stallions onto the dais. After positioning him and shedding the blood from her moonlight blade, she continued. “The unicorns emerged next, stealing the blood of the gods from the world below, blood they could not have found if the light of the treacherous sun did not illuminate the veins of the divine. They consumed this blood and used its power to further twist the natural world. What the earth ponies could not accomplish through toil and labor, the unicorns achieved through their stolen gift, cursing the pure world to scream as they molded it to their own twisted desires. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the second of your binds.”

Once more, her blade plunged into the chest of her next victim, cutting out his heart with relative ease. As she burned the organ away, Soft looked at the older face of her victim. The little mare still clinging to existence inside her skull recognized him as a doctor, but she paid her no mind. Doctor or not, the unicorn was a means to an end, and nothing more. Once she’d taken his essence and imbued the unicorn statue with it, she discarded his body as well, dumping it next to Ratchet’s corpse. Two down, one more to go.

“Yet that would not be the end of the Usurper’s sins,” she continued, and her magic dragged over a pegasus mare and positioned her on the dais. “It was only the beginning, for the true mockery of the natural world would arise with the pegasi. Jealous of the skies and the home within which He slept, they stole wings from the birds and defiled the clouds. Their jealousy and their hatred of His lofty domain drove them skyward, away from the filth of their compatriots, but carrying it with them all the same. By this one’s sacrifice, I undo the third of your binds.”

She readied the knife to slice out the mare’s heart only for her eyes to begin to open. The alicorn hesitated, momentary surprise staying the blade, and that gave the pegasus all the time she needed to understand what was happening. “No! No, please, please! Soft!” the mare wailed, trying to thrash herself off the dais in a futile attempt to break free of the alicorn’s magic. “Please! I don’t want to die! Soft!”

Soft grimaced and tried to force the blade down, but the desperate remains of the mare she once was conspired with all their strength to stop her. Perhaps motivated by the pitiful pegasus’ cries beneath her, she fought with a surprising ferocity that stalled the twisted alicorn. But she could only last so long, and little by little, the twisted blade of moonlight descended toward the struggling mare’s heart.

“Soft Step! Stop this!”

The new voice stalled Soft’s attempts to sacrifice the mare, and she pulled the blade away as she looked over her shoulder. There, standing in the doorway was a rainbow pegasus, her mane plastered to her face and dripping water. Her eyes were widened with horror, and when she saw the two heartless corpses lying on the side of the room, she swallowed hard but managed to keep her composure. “Soft Step,” she said, her voice quickly taking on a pleading tone, “please, please stop this. I know you’re in there, somewhere, beneath that fanged face. You can stop this, I know you can!”

“You still believe there’s anything left of her in here?” Soft Step said, raising an eyebrow. She started to walk away from the dais but kept Champagne pinned to it with her magic, who had fallen silent out of fear over what would happen next. Soft twirled the moonlight blade around and jabbed it at Rainbow, stopping it just short of her throat. To the pegasus’ credit, she barely flinched back from the glowing knife, though her muscles tensed nonetheless. “I killed her. My Lord killed her. He created me from the pieces He’d broken apart, rearranged into something perfect to suit his needs. Now, in the twilight of the world, I finally fulfill my purpose.”

Rainbow swallowed hard but managed to meet the alicorn’s eyes. “That’s a lot of bullshit coming from a pawn. That’s all you are. And that’s not the real Soft Step doing this.”

“Am I not?” Soft extended her wings to their impressive lengths. “This is her body. I was built from her mind. The only thing added was the horn on my head, imbued with the sheer power of my Lord. If you believe otherwise, you’re simply deluding yourself.”

“I’m not,” Rainbow said. “There’s still the mare I knew inside of you somewhere. You just have to fight off this moon god’s grip on you! You can break free, I know it!”

Soft Step winced as the mare began to struggle for control of her limbs, motivated by the pegasus’ pleading words. Soft’s focus faltered and she had to turn her attention inwards to try and push her away. Why was she suddenly so insistent?! She had been so weak before, but now, in the hour of His triumph, she seemed determined to collect the shattered pieces of herself and cement them back together into something strong enough to fight off His will and influence.

“You… are… wrong!” Soft screamed, and a burst of sheer force of will sent that little mare scurrying for cover in her skull again. Her magic clutched Rainbow’s throat and hefted her into the air, and the pegasus clawed at the intangible hand crushing her neck as Soft whirled around. She screamed in pure rage and slammed Rainbow against one wall, then tore her from the slick stones and smashed her into another. The pegasus coughed and cried out, but Soft didn’t stop. She was too enraged. How dare she question her loyalty to her Lord? How dare she speak about Him in such an irreverent way? She would be better off as a colorful stain on the wall!

When she flung Rainbow at the next wall, her body left visible cracks in the stone. Blood smeared the rock, and the pegasus gasped and sputtered for breath. Peeling Rainbow from the wall, she dropped the twitching pegasus to the ground and stalked over to her. “You nearly killed me earlier,” she said, letting the summoned moonlight knife vanish. “You nearly undid all of His hard work. You nearly ruined everything. Perhaps I should sacrifice you instead. You’re a fighter, and your blood will make His return to the world all the greater.”

Rainbow tried to kip up to her hooves, but Soft Step pushed her back down with her magic. Growling, Rainbow had to spit bloody spittle out of her mouth to breathe clearly again. “Don’t do this, Soft,” she croaked again. “You can do this… you can fight him…”

“There’s nothing you can do to stop this,” Soft growled, and her magic glowed around Rainbow’s wings. “And if you insist on fighting me, then I shall have to tear it out of you!”

Two pegasi pleaded with her to stop: one on the ground beneath her, and one inside her mind. But she did not stop—not even when the screams of pain reached a feverish pitch.

Comments

[RoboRed]

gooooooooooooodddddddaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnit

Pegasi forcibly losing their wings (especially if it's a main character such as Rainbow Dash or Scootaloo) is one of those things that really fucks with me. Goddamnit, 24.

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

9018965
couldn't say it better.

[N4rwh41]

Oh thank God, for a second I thought that you were going to kill Jolly.

[Archangel of the Silent]

So our leader's dead, doc's dead... nopony's really gonna get out of this, are they?

[PonyDragon]

I've got a feeling there won't be an happy ending in this story arc.
The best possible ending at this point would be if anyone survive, but even that isn't guaranteed at this point.

[Aurora Dimmet]

... Channeling a bit of George R. R. Martin there, aren't you?

[Toiwat]

9019161
I'm starting to get the feeling there won't be a happy ending at all

[Eroraf86]

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[Sir Budginton]

Why didn’t rainbow just charge in at full speed and cave her skull in while she was doing the ritual. Even if she saw it coming and dodged it’s better than talking!!!!!

[Sidetrack]

9019040
He's the one dude I'm okay with dying.

[PonyDragon]

9019240
That is an realistic possibility.

But don't forget this isn't the first time they are in an "difficult" situation, and the other times they somehow made it.
On the other hand this time things are even more difficult than usual...

One way or another, it seems this story will be over soon.

[Mocha Star]

Jesus.

[KingSombraTheTyrantRuler]

There's not gonna be a happy ending.