I absentmindedly rubbed at the forming bruise on my neck as I walked back towards the gym to meet up with Windy, A.T. and Night to tell them the plan.
'Windy's going to kill me when I tell her that we are the ones taking care of the spiders,' I thought with a cringe as I continued my walk towards the gym, 'And how are even going to do that? Maybe rappelling down and placing explosives on their legs? Hmm. ' Before I could expand on that thought I arrived at the gym.
“You look like shit,” A.T. remarked with her trademark smirk as I walked into the gym.
“It's good to know that you think so highly of me,” I said to her before turning my attention to Windy and Night, “How are the foals?”
“Other than a few bumps and bruises they are fine,” Windy said as she finished on checking up on one of the foals, “So- What happened to you?!”
“Oh, you noticed,” I said nervously as Windy continued her fussing over the bruise on my neck.
“It is kind of hard to not notice,” Night said with a deadpan look on her face.
“How did it happen?!” Windy asked angrily after getting nose to nose with me.
“An arch mage animated some plants and choked me,” I said quietly and nervously while slowly backing away from my fuming marefriend.
“WHAT?!” She shouted before taking a calming breath, “You know what? I am going to let this slide. Now, what's the plan?”
“Well…..”
“If we survive this I am going to kill you,” Windy said angrily as we made our way out of the school and towards the battle spiders, “And where do you plan on getting the rappelling gear anyway?”
“I was actually planning on tying a piece of rope around my waist and having one of the dragons swing me from spider to spider.”
“….You can't be serious.”
“I am serious.” I replied.
My reply seemed to anger Windy because she stalked closer with a frightening look in her eyes. You know the look your mom gives you when you mess up and she can't kill you yet? Yeah, that look. Only ten times worse.
I slowly backed away from Windy, with my eras splayed back and my tail rattling with fear, until I backed into a wall and Windy leaned in until her mouth was right next my ear.
“I will let you do this. But keep in mind that one day I will come and make you regret this. Am I clear?” she whispered threateningly to which I could only give a little nod, “Good,” she said as she stepped away from me and looked at the other members of our little group of misfits, “Now, shall we go and squash some spiders?”
Her question was met with resounding agreement and we started walking in the general direction of the city walls.
The walk to the city walls was a relatively short one but the destruction around us was immense. There were houses that seemed to have been destroyed by some kind of crystal, some destroyed by conventional explosives and some simply burning down.
The houses weren't the only ones that have taken damage. Every now and then we ran into the bodies of soldiers, both Arcadian and from the Crystal Empire, and in one occasion even a group of Injured civilians that seemed to have been hit by a stray mortar shell of some sort.
“Nearly there,” I panted out as we ran the last leg of the trip to the city walls.
I skidded to a stop near one of the dragons defending the wall and quickly caught my breath.
“We're here to help.” I said to the dragon after catching my breath.
“You?” the apparently female dragon asked before sighing, “Better than nothing, I guess. I am Tohru by the way.”
“Spooks.” I said to the dragon with a small smile.
“So, Spooks, do you have a plan how to take care of the spiders? Because we pretty much threw everything we got at them.”
“I am going to swing down on a rope and place explosives onto the joints of their legs.” I replied simply which was met with only stunned silence from Tohru.
“…That is the most stupid plan in the history of plans. Ever.” Tohru said before grinning “I like it.”
“Glad you approve,” I said before turning back to my group, “Now, I think it would be best if you guys found somewhere safe to hide until this blows over. Oh, and here take care of Cue for me.” I said and handed the rifle to A.T.
“Give 'em hell.” A.T. said as she took the rifle from me.
“Make sure that you come back.” Windy said before giving me a quick kiss.
“I'll be sure to do so.” I said with a confident smile.
“Stay safe.” Night Heart said to which I nodded.
With our goodbyes said I turned back to Tohru,
“Now, let's take care of the spiders.”
Tohru only nodded and tied a piece of rope around my midsection.
“Make them pay.” Tohru said as she gave the rope one final tug.
I grunted in acknowledgment and jumped over the edge of the city wall. The moment my legs left solid ground I felt a rush of adrenaline and excitement wash over me. That is until the rope went taunt and painfully dug into my ribs.
I only had a chance to let out a small hiss of pain before being swung towards the legs of the nearest spider. Once I was within reach I firmly latched onto one of the spiders left legs and made my way to the middle joint of the leg into which I crammed a hoofful of semtex along with a detonator.
With this leg done I made my way to the leg opposite to it and repeated the process before moving on. Within a minute or two I had placed explosives onto four of the spider's legs and jumped off it and towards the next spider.
As I swung through the air I pulled a remote detonator from my pocket a pushed the spider's off button. With a resounding boom of the explosives and the sound of shattering crystal the spider peeled off the city wall and fell towards its demise.
With a victorious grin I returned back to work on destroying the other spiders which was somewhat more difficult thanks to the fact that the crews of the other spiders focused some of their fire on to me instead of the dragons on top of the wall. But thanks to me being such a small target none of the incoming fire hit me.
As I swung from spider to spider I noticed one spider that seemed to be hanging back. This spider seemed to be more armored than the others but lacked most of the armaments the other spiders had.
'That must be the commander's spider, ' I thought as I finished off another spider.
I have no idea how long it took but between me attacking the spiders from close and the dragons targeting them from afar the spiders were all destroyed. All except one: the command spider.
I looked back up towards the top of the wall where I saw Tohru give me which I returned and swung towards the last spider.
As I careened towards the spider I felt the rope tied around me suddenly go slack and my speed of descend rapidly increase. Twisting around in the air I looked back up and saw the tattered end of the rope and Tohru's shocked face.
'Well, shit.' I thought and twisted back around just in time to slam chest first into the body of the spider with the remains of the rope landing nearby.
I slowly rose from my landing spot and coughed up a small amount of blood. Putting a hoof onto my ribcage and applying a bit of pressure rewarded me with a sharp stab of pain. Also, I am pretty sure I felt something move underneath my skin. My self-assessment was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a hatch opening nearby.
“Foul creature!” An extremely self-centered voice called out, “Your days of terrorizing are over! For I, Commander Astral Hammer of the Crystal Army, shall smite you for your crimes!”
“Oh, piss off.” I growled out as I looked at him.
This so-called Commander was an extremely sparkly stocky unicorn clad in a full suit of battle armor and carrying a big war hammer in his magical grip.
“HOW DARE YOU?!” the unicorn roared out and swung his war hammer towards me.
Ducking underneath his attack I pulled out the Safe Twins and fired two bursts at him to little effect as the 9mm Makarov rounds simply bounced off of his armor causing him to laugh and swing his hammer back around.
I ducked once more and rolled off to the side and aimed for another burst but the unicorn swung his hammer back much faster than before. This time I wasn't fast enough and the hammer slammed into my side further damaging my ribs and knocking the wind out of me.
I laid on the ground wheezing and trying to regain my breath as the unicorn slowly made his way towards me, monologuing the entire time.
“Is this the best the Black Queen has? This pathetic creature that crumbles after one blow? Hmph. It---“his monologue was rudely interrupted by a swarm of bullets hitting him in the visor of his helmet. Luckily enough one of the bullets found its new home inside his head.
I wheezed as I held Keep Safe up, the pistol's slide locked back signaling the emptiness of the magazine and the end of this small battle.
“I told you to piss off, didn't I?” I said, holstering the Safe Twins and making my way towards the nearest leg of the spider.
The process of placing the explosives was a slow and painful one but I managed to place the last of the explosives and crawl back onto the top of the spider where I sat down on my haunches and pulled out the detonator once more. I looked at the detonator for a while before smiling sadly and pulling the trigger.
The explosives did their job and destroyed the spider's joints along with sending thousands of crystal shards into the air. I screamed out as I felt multiple od the crystal shards dig into my flesh. However, my scream was overshadowed by the groan of the command spider as it peeled off and fell from the wall, taking me along for the ride.
Darkness was slowly creeping into my visions as we fell towards the ground that is until I felt two clawed hands grab a hold of me.
“Gotcha.” I heard a familiar voice say.
“Tohru?” I asked weakly, “Did we win?”
“That we did.” Tohru answered as she carried me back up to the top of the city wall, “Now stop fidgeting. You are hurt pretty badly."
I only smiled in response and let unconsciousness claim me.