Bright, golden sand sparkled in the harsh midday sun, forming a coastline that stretched for quite some distance before it arced behind the mainland and out of view. With strange, alien-looking palm trees on one side, and the blue sea lapping up calmly on the other, it painted a serene picture. The sound of the docile waves gently splashing against the smooth beaches was joined by a chorus of native animal cries coming from further inland. Some of them sounded harmless, others worryingly scary, but both seemed to be quite far away.
A bright blue foot dug into the fine golden sand. It belonged to a strikingly beautiful, slender, young-looking woman, who was walking down the beach slowly as though looking for something. She had bright - almost white in this sun - blue skin, and jet-black, shoulder-length hair which hung in loose strands around her in no particular style. Her eyes were a contrast to her skin; a bright red colour, full of life. She wore no clothes of any kind, though given the heat of this place that was not hugely surprising, but she was adorned a few items of exotic-looking silver jewellery, and a dark blue tiara, made from some kind of crystalline material, was perched on top of her head.
Her name was Delphi, princess of the Reapal. She was accompanied by a completely different manner of creature. With clammy skin reminiscent in shade of a Caucasian human, it was a short creature, only knee-height compared to her. He had small, stumpy legs, and his bulbous head was very much out of proportion to the rest of his small body - it was even bigger than hers. His large, blue/white coloured eyes with black, pin-prick pupils danced around rapidly, almost as though the small being was high on something. Given the way he was skipping along and singing in a high-pitched voice, he may well have been stoned out of his mind.
A 'Smartie', named Bim. The creatures were utterly, utterly harmless, though often dangerously clumsy, but they were so harmless that Delphi's people often had to defend them.
"What a jolly nice day it is!" Bim chortled. "It almost reminds me of yesterday. That was a jolly nice day too! Tum ti tum..."
The woman simply nodded and ignored his eccentric ramblings, continuing to walk down the beach, her pace necessitating the bizarre, short creature to jog beside her.
"Do you know that it was only yesterday that I was on this very beach!" he cried.
The woman emitted a sigh. "Yes, I know," she said. "That is why I am here now! Where is this camp you claim to have seen?"
"I know it's around here somewhere," the short fellow said, his bulbous head bobbing around precariously as he jogged. "It was sat there, happy as you like! They had a camp fire and everything. I bet you could've cooked a nice roast vimp on there... ooh... roast vimp... can we go hunting?"
"Once we have located the encampment, yes," Delphi said, hoping it would motivate the Smarty to remember where they were going. Smarties, so named because they were nature's calculators, were possessed of an impossible scope of intellect, which they completely refused to develop at all. They could calculate extraordinarily complex mathematical equations in their heads, when they put their impressive minds to it, but they were far more interested in hedonism. Delphi found them infuriating.
"Yay!" Bim exclaimed. "I think it's this way," he nodded, nearly toppling over with the weight of his own oversized head. He sprinted - or at least, came as close to doing so as his stubby legs would allow - ahead, pointing towards the tree line. "I think it was over there!"
Delphi broke into a jog to pursue him as he disappeared into the underbrush beneath the palms. Eventually they broke through into a clearing, and sure enough - the Smarty was right, for a change. The detritus of a camp site was laid bare for all to see; trampled foliage, the remains of a camp fire, litter, evidence of tents, trees knocked down to clear room... people had definitely camped here quite recently. A lot of people.
"By the goddess, you were correct!" Delphi exclaimed. She'd half-expected the Smarty to have seen a Ripper skulking around and imagined it to be a camp site, so jumpy were they. But here it was. She could clearly make out the imprints of tracked military boots in the dirt, which meant only one thing.
Land Reapers.
"Of course I was right!" Bim said happily. "Can we go hunting for vimp now, please?"
"Give me a moment," she told him, dropping to a knee and picking up what looked like a discarded rocket clip from one of the Land Reapers' 'RPG assault rifles', as they were commonly nicknamed. "This was a military camp."
An audible gulp came from Bim. "What? So close to our village?"
"Yes," Delphi nodded. "To what end, I am unsure."
The crack of a breaking twig caught Delphi's attention, and she span around to face the source. Her eyes scanned the foliage, looking for something that could explain it, but she saw nothing. The Smarty dove towards her, wrapping his arms around her left leg in fear.
"They're still here!" he whispered.
"Shhh!" Delphi hushed the small creature. She wished she'd brought her sword or bow now. She could hear rustling from the trees, but couldn't identify what was causing it - it could have been Land Reapers, Rippers, or just vimp meandering around. It was impossible to tell. And then, it wasn't so impossible. A rocket-propelled grenade streaked past her head, narrowly missing her and impacting a tree on the opposite side of the clearing, detonating with a 'thooom'. She grabbed Bim by the arm and hurriedly projected herself away - using magic to propel herself at a colossal pace in the opposite direction. Once her projection was finished she hoisted the Smarty up onto her back and began sprinting through the foliage, Bim screaming the entire time.
Never breaking her pace, Delphi held her left hand up to her face and spoke into the blue stone on her ring, which doubled as a communicator. "This is Princess Delphi, I am under attack by Land Reaper forces, I believe a major incursion is underway - send as many forces as you can!"
The attack on the Smarty village was enormous. Thousands of Land Reapers had been assembled to take on the small settlement, their reptilian features flooding the area, and they were armed to the teeth and in full battle formation. At least a hundred Smarties had been killed by the time the Sea Reaper expeditionary force arrived from the nearby Star Cruiser Hangar. The battlefield was chaos; thousands of rocket streamers crisscrossed the village, blowing up buildings and leaving craters in the ground as their targets - the Sea Reapers - magically projected themselves around at random. Occasionally one of the blue-skinned women would project into the midst of a Land Reaper group, and take them by surprise with their blade before projecting back to safety. Meanwhile, a group of Sea Reapers armed with giant bows pelted the Land Reaper forces from afar with explosive-tipped arrows, while occasionally a magical fire attack would incinerate any Land Reapers foolish enough to stand close together.
Meanwhile, a small group of Sea Reapers, including Princess Delphi, were hurriedly evacuating the remaining Smarties on the other side of the village.
Though heavily outnumbered, the Sea Reapers had stalled the Land Reaper attack, and had thrown their lines into chaos. Unable to make any progress, the Land Reapers appeared to have altered their plans to simply kill as many Sea Reapers as they could - a plan that would have worked, had Sea Reapers been easy to kill. They were not.
With the last of the Smarties evacuated from the medieval-looking village, once homely and bustling but now aflame and deserted, Princess Delphi projected repeatedly across the village until she reached front lines, her form becoming a blur in the process.
"Majesty, I think they are preparing to pull back!" said her lieutenant, Vansi. Unlike the princess, Vansi was a dedicated warrior, and wore some manner of scaled armour over her otherwise-bare frame. Though it looked primitive, it was made from the same unusual crystalline material as Delphi's crown, and was impervious to most projectiles. This, combined with the Sea Reaper's ability to project, had simply forced Land Reapers to fight primarily with explosives, however. Vansi was with a group of Reapal who were hurling explosive arrows at the enemy, whilst simultaneously trying to coordinate their counter-attack via an arrangement of blue stones on the floor.
"I need more than that!" Delphi shouted, dodging an incoming rocket that exploded harmlessly behind them.
"We have broken their lines and divided them into three groups," Vansi said. "I estimate about 40% casualties on their initial force. My streakers are trying to divide them further so that we can pick them off with mana groups. But we have suffered... too many losses ourselves."
"We shall mourn them later," Delphi said, sympathetically. "But we must drive them back. Continue to divide them, and give me a sword."
"Majesty?"
"Give me a sword!" Delphi repeated. The Smarties may have infuriated her, but she loved them nevertheless. She wasn't going to let the Land Reapers anywhere near the survivors.
Vansi looked perturbed, but quickly grabbed a curved sword from a nearby archer.
Delphi nodded in thanks, and without another word she projected herself again, her blurring form arriving in the middle of a group of rocket-armed Land Reapers. Surprised by her sudden arrival, the reptilian barbarians tried to spread apart and took aim at her with their rocket launchers. Delphi looked to be about to attack them with her sword, but then immediately projected away again just as they fired at her. The explosions sent the group flying in all directions, as their own shots destroyed the group.
Without pausing she projected into another group, this time directly besides one of them. Before his red eyes could even express surprise, she cut him down, and immediately projected to the next soldier and dispatched him with her sword to, and repeated the process until the entire group was dead in a matter of seconds. Just as a hail of rockets were launched at her position she projected away, landing on the roof of a two-storey Smartie building. From there, she raised her hands and cast a powerful flame spell at the attacking group, engulfing them all in short order.
Sighting another Sea Reaper struggling with a group of soldiers advancing on her from all positions, Delphi projected herself straight down to her side, and with a cursory nod they took a back-to-back position. Holding out their hands, they each cast a powerful wind spell and slowly turned, keeping their backs together. Land Reapers all around them flew up into the air, blown away by the powerful gusts and landing - hard - dozens of metres away. The other Sea Reaper turned and nodded a thanks, before projecting away from Delphi. Just as she did so, Delphi heard footsteps thumping into the sand and turned just in time to block a melee attack with her sword. She effortlessly parried the menacing, spiked blade away with a twirl, and gave the Land Reaper responsible an amused look. Four more ran to his side, and he returned the look with a victorious roar.
"Get a move on, then!" she told them, flourishing her blade and keeping a hand behind her back. They all charged at once, and she projected behind them, immediately dispatching one Land Reaper. One of the survivors realised what she had done and span on the spot, but she quickly pulled her sword from the back of her victim and deflected his attack away with a 'ching'. While he was still recoiling, she dropped to her knee and span around on the spot, her blade slicing straight through his leg. He collapsed on the floor.
The remaining three attackers, by now realising what had gone on, turned and engaged her. She skilfully deflected their blades one after the other, knocking two of the soldiers into one another as she danced on her toes. The third lost his sword as she blocked him, and a slash across his neck caused him to lose his life. The remaining two recovered and charged once again, but she simply leapt above their heads and, mid-way through the somersault, plunged her blade downwards, piercing the skull of one of them. He was down before she daintily landed on her feet and turned to face the remainder. She offered him another flourish of her sword, swinging it diagonally in each direction, and he simply turned and ran. An explosive arrow met his chest and blew him to pieces before he could get very far, though.
Delphi soon projected away and took care of another group, and another, and another. Their numbers seemed endless, and even a skilled warrior and powerful magic user such as she was beginning to grow exhausted and drained. But finally, just as she felled another group of Land Reapers, she heard the distinctive sound of a horn bellowing across the battlefield. The remaining Land Reapers all turned in unison and began running back towards the palm forest in a panic.
"We are victorious!" Delphi heard Vansi shout from the other side of the battlefield. It certainly seemed that way. Most of the Smarties had survived, the Land Reapers were in retreat, and the Sea Reapers watched as the surviving soldiers ran.
Delphi looked over at hear and yelled, "Vansi, pursuit! Don't let them leave!" They couldn't have stragglers regrouping and trying again. Vansi nodded at her, and quickly two groups of three Sea Reapers began projecting after the sprinting Land Reapers.
Dropping her borrowed, and by now stained with blood, sword onto the sand, Delphi took a look around the battlefield and finally had chance to catch her breath. It was strewn, as far as the eye could see, with Land Reaper corpses. The golden sand was stained blue with blood. Parts of the beach had turned to glass, where rockets had exploded and scorched the land. The nearby Smartie village, from which the battle had since moved, smouldered, pouring black clouds into the bright blue sky.
This is not a typical attack, she thought to herself. Dusting her body off, she made her way back to join Vansi, who was now trying to coordinate recovery efforts. Before she'd made it half-way, though, a roaring sound bellowed across the landscape, deafening them all. Delphi saw the source almost straight away - streaking across the sky, a Sea Reaper Celestial Cruiser had emerged from one of their land-based hangars further down the beach, and was heading almost directly upwards - into space. Though large, roughly three hundred metres long, it was a graceful, blue-green vessel, designed with forward-swept wings and no harsh angles, rarely used but always kept in working order. And now, it was flying into space. No launches were scheduled today.
"Majesty, this is Eastern Hangar Two - Land Reaper forces just attacked us!" a voice came from the ring on her finger.
She lifted her hand to her face, exclaiming: "What?!"
"After our defence force departed to assist you, majesty! They stormed the entrance and boarded our Celestial Cruiser!" the panicked voice elaborated. "Only a few of us survived!"
Delphi's heart sank as she watched the Celestial Cruiser disappear from view. This was the worst thing that could have happened this day.
With a sigh, she spoke into her ring; "I understand, Hangar Two. Please prepare your second ship for immediate launch. I will be there soon."
Under Land Reaper control, the Sea Reaper ship broke free of The Island's atmosphere and engaged its faster-than-light drive, disappearing off into the distance as it headed to a neighbouring star system.
