Leilani Seabell jumped through the next bush, pushing her way past the fronds and thorns as she got to the path towards the shed she saw from the beach. From down there, it hadn’t looked all that far away, but now that she was a good thirty feet away from the beach, she found that she was still nowhere close to reaching it.

“Whoever the Stand master is, their Stand has an incredibly long range,” she said to herself. “Much further than Jellyfish. But no matter what, I will save the others. It’s by God’s will that we have gotten to this island safely and it’s God’s will to ensure the safety of everyone TWI hopes to destroy. I will have to stop this Stand master, and I need to do it before we’re all burnt to a crisp without knowing it.”

In her studies overseas, away from home, Leilani had learnt how a frog could be cooked to death if the water was slowly heated up, instead of boiling from the beginning. That was exactly what the enemy Stand was doing, but unlike frogs, humans could better tell the changes in temperature. It was also feeding them a sense of calm, a way to keep them from figuring out anything was wrong to begin with. And before they know it, they’d all be cooked.

Living out on the islands for most of her life, Leilani guessed she was more used to the heat than her companions, and thus, it was why she was the last one standing and the one who had to give it her all to make sure they would all live to see another day.

This Stand must be quite powerful if it can do all this and stay undetected… She thought.

As Leilani was thinking this, something snapped under her foot as she walked, and there was a blur of brown from the side as a swinging log swooped down at her face. Leilani threw herself onto the floor as the log whipped over her. She could see that barbed wire had been wrapped around the wood, and the log slowly swung to a stop.

“Oh, what a shame! That had nearly been the end of you!” a voice echoed around her after a short electronic buzz. The voice sounded garbled and staticy, meaning it was coming out of a speaker of sorts.

“I take it you’re the Stand master behind this heat?” Leilani said, not knowing if they could hear her from here. “You’re the one with the Stand that can turn up the heat slowly, but steadily, while we don’t realize it because of the false sense of safety instilled in us.”

“Ah, that’s where you’re almost correct, lady…” the speakers buzzed around her; it was coming from more than one direction. “You see, my brother and I worked together on this one. I’m afraid you’re facing two Stands instead of one!”

“Quiet, Flim!” the other voice butted in, soft and meant to be unheard. The speakers must be of some high quality. “Why are you giving that away? It would’ve been more interesting if she only thought there was one of us!”

“Ohhh, right. Right. You’re right. That would’ve been good. Shoot.”

Leilani looked around for the speaker, but it was too well hidden in the leafage. She took another step forward. This time there was no trap triggered. However, she couldn’t move at this pace through the foliage, not if she wanted to stop these two lunatics before her friends all succumbed to the heat.

The main threat of a tripwire, Leilani mused, wasn’t in the trap that it triggered. Certainly that was nothing to ignore, but the presence of a tripwire meant that the enemy knew the area better than she did; she was the intruder here in uncharted territory. This duo of Stand users had probably laid out a number of nasty surprises for anyone who tried to get close to their hideout.

And she knew that only meant one thing: They were afraid to face her in direct battle.

That means I just need to get to them uncooked. If I can do that, I can save the others. Lord, give me the strength to press on.

Leilani spread out Jellyfish around herself, sending its tentacles in all directions as she knelt down and waited. “With my Stand, Jellyfish, I will be able to sense my surroundings and find the best route to the enemy.”

She found the speaker she had been looking for earlier and something metallic in the ground just up ahead on the path, probably a mine, but that was where she realized her plan had a small flaw. The tripwires were too thin and still. Jellyfish could only sense living and breathing things in the area, including electrical currents, not string.

“Find what you were looking for, lady?” Both voices chuckled on the speakers. “We’re ready. Come find us!”

Leilani stood up and frowned. The two Stand masters were still nowhere close enough for Jellyfish to find them. She would have to press on and hope she didn’t walk into a trap that would end their journey early.

“The dirt path is out of the question,” Leilani said and recalled Jellyfish. “I’ll have to get through the thicket. The shed I saw from the beach is in this direction. I’ll keep heading that way and do my best to avoid any trap I come across.”

She crashed her way through a trio of ferns, keeping herself low as she tried to blend her body in with the environment. The Stand masters could see her, that much she was certain. That meant that they had cameras out here as well. She hadn’t felt their electrical signatures from where she was, so it was reasonable to deduce that they were further away or high up. The latter made more sense. That way, they wouldn’t have to set up so many cameras. Two three-sixty cameras would do the trick here.

She had only just gotten a little glimmer of hope that she would conquer this when her foot touched something under her. She looked down to see another tripwire and she looked back up just in time to see a row of sharpened branches come up from the ground right in front of her.

Leilani hurled her body backwards as far as she could, the branch tips just missing her nose and left eye as she slid in the dirt. Unfortunately, sliding back triggered another trap, which sent a large tree branch falling from above her.

“Jellyfish!” Leilani raised her hands as her Stand appeared around her, wrapping its tentacles around her body like a shield, deflecting the branch to one side.

But that wasn’t the end of it. From her left and right, arrows shot out of the trees in a vertical line, flying straight for her. Jellyfish flailed its tentacles around, bouncing arrows away, but one got through and pierced Leilani in the right shoulder. She clutched at her injury as she staggered back, keeping her eyes out as she dived through another plant to avoid the rest of the arrows.

“There’s no end to these traps!” Leilani lay on the ground for a second as Jellyfish surveyed the area with its tentacles spread out. She couldn’t pinpoint the traps made of wood, but she at least hoped to avoid anything that had electrical signatures. “Mechanical devices would likely be more dangerous and harder to deal with.”

Leilani attempted to get up after this, but all of a sudden, she felt a wave of weakness and she dropped back on her knees.

“The heat must be getting to me now…” she let out a deep breath. “Being from the islands, I’ve grown up under the sun and I have a little more tolerance to heat than the others. But even that seems to already be fading. There has to be something I can do against this ability. Maybe I just need to lie down and have a quick rest… No! I cannot. If I do that, it’ll be the end. I need to… fight!”

“Just give up. It’s easier,” one of the men’s voices buzzed out from a speaker. “The faster you die off, the faster we’ll be back to Equestria. This world is really too hot.”

“You got that right, Flam. I mean, boy, your world is in a mess, lady,” the other voice said. “Our world is so much better than this, maintained by Princess TWI. It’s just a shame she doesn’t let us capitalize on found fortune.”

“That’s right! She put us in prison for seventy-one years! Just because we charged ponies for using the Fountain of Youth!”

“Yeah, we found it. It’s not like we stole the fountain or something. It should’ve been our right to earn money out of it. But the princess wasn’t having any of it.”

“The Fountain of Youth?” Leilani repeated, stopping in her tracks. “Such a thing does not exist. It is merely a fairy tale told to people as a bedtime story.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Oh yes, that’s right, she’s still alive. Trust us, lady, it’s no tale. There’s a reason we’re still alive after so long.”

“I see,” said Leilani, adopting a thoughtful stance. Then she came up with an idea. Jellyfish had one tentacle float up to her head. Now she was ready. “If you are telling the truth, then you must be quite competent and powerful people. Why, I think I respect you more than TWI herself.”

There was another moment of silence before one of the men spoke again. “Really? I mean, of course. We are the Flim Flam brothers, the greatest entrepreneurs of Equestria. We bring improvement and innovation to all of Equestria!”

“Too right, brother,” the other one said. “Is it a crime that we want to make a little money off making ponies’ lives better?”

“TWI seems to think so,” Leilani told them. “And she’s your leader, right? She knows better.”

“Oh, she’s our leader. For now.” One brother cleared his throat. “Being here reduces our prison sentences. The faster we’re done here, the faster we’ll be back home and away from this disasterpiece of a world.”

“You never thought to fight against TWI with the powers you have?” Leilani got to her feet and kept to the shrubs. “You are right of course, this world is a disaster. TWI wants to kill all the people in charge to improve it. But now that I’ve met you, I think you can do a better job fixing it. And the people in charge would give you so much money for it. You are the greatest entrepreneurs of Equestria, aren’t you?”

On the other end of the speaker, up in the shed painted to blend in with the trees around it, the two men sat atop deck chairs, watching an array of holographic screens projected from a small box between the two of them. They looked at each other, with one of them twirling a finger through his red mustache.

“She thinks we can do a better job, Flam.” The other one sat up in the chair and sipped from a glass of apple brandy with ice. He had a metallic device over his right arm, glowing with green energy. This was his Stand, Life’s a Bath. “What do you think of that?”

“Hey there’s no way we can beat her. I mean, have you seen her Stand, Strange World?”

“Of course, we were there together when we saw it.” Flim slapped his brother’s shoulder. “The princess is smart. It’s the reason she’s outsmarted us all these years, even before realizing our Stand power! She wouldn’t have brought all of us criminals over if we could just defeat her and flee.”

“You’re right. Not even Chrysalis has dared to face her…” Flam leaned back and looked up at the zinc roof above their heads. There was a hydraulic fan in the corner, keeping the shed cool from the outrageous heat on the outside. “But I have always wondered about ruling an empire.”

Flim nodded along. All they’d ever done was try to make a living off others. They had never once aimed so big. Since they were so good at managing businesses, perhaps being the leader of a country wouldn’t be so hard. After all, plenty of humans have done just that in this world. Then again, perhaps that was why this world was in such disarray.

Flam shook his head. “Whatever. We should just focus on the matter at hand. And that’s taking out that woman on Subterra’s team. Dam That River’s heat should already have reached intolerable levels out there.”

“And with Life’s a Bath working to make her feel at ease, perhaps one of our traps will get her. There’s no way she can maintain her concentration on avoiding our traps the longer she stays out there.” Flim rubbed his hands together. “Freedom, here we come. We’re smart. Perhaps we can build some inventions to help us take Equestria once we’re out of here.”

“Hey, Flim, where’d she go!” Flam whistled and leaned forward, pointing at the screens.

The Flim Flam Brothers scanned each screen carefully, looking for signs of Leilani, but she had vanished.

“Impossible. We have full view of the forest in front of the shed. Unless…” They both shared a look.

They turned around slowly, shocked to see a dark skinned woman standing behind them with her arms folded. Her skin was covered in cuts and sweat, but her face was that of determination and confidence.

“H-How did you get here? Through all our traps?” Flim fell off his deck chair and scuttled back like a crab. To his brother’s credit, Flam raised both arms up, fists clenched.

Leilani pointed to her right ear and turned her head to the side. Behind her ear, one of her Stand’s tentacles had its tip resting against her skin, occasionally vibrating. “I had my Stand jolt my brain with a layer of electrical shielding, keeping my senses sharp and your Stand’s commands away from my head. Like that, I easily made it through the rest of the traps while you two were discussing if you could take TWI down.”

“That’s a good one…” Flim chuckled, then shook his head. “That was a good one. I didn’t see it coming.”

“Nor did I. Oh boy, we’re in trouble now, aren’t we?” Flam put his hands together. “W-What’re you going to do?”

“Nothing personal.” Leilani raised both hands as Jellyfish unfurled around her, spreading its tentacles out in a web pattern.

From the outside of the shed, flashes of light could be seen, followed by the occasional scream or grunt of both Flim and Flam. In no time, Leilani was walking down from the shed’s aluminum staircase, dusting her hands as she looked skyward. She could feel her mind retaining its alertness without Jellyfish, meaning that their Stands must’ve stopped. As for the heat, the area’s temperature dropped drastically as though a strong wind had blown in.

“Hmm, I didn’t know I would be so pleased to be back in the usual heat of Polynesia,” Leilani said to herself. “But that means my mission is complete. The others are saved. I should head back there now.”

And with that, she did exactly as she said, though with a bit of care, because who knew how many more traps were lying around this place.

• To be Continued...-

Author's Note

Find the Stand charts here!