“Wow, this place is webby,” Tarnish said as he entered the spider cave, his horn lighting the way. He took a few more cautious steps forwards and then paused to have a look around.
“Your powers of observation continue to not impress me,” Maud replied. She took a great deal of satisfaction in Tarnish’s sour expression when he turned his head to look at her. She would make it up to him later… or maybe continue to tease him about it. She moved closer to Tarnish’s side. If something hairy and eight legged tried to grab him, Maud would punch it.
A bad smell wafted out of the cave. Something… rotten. Tarnish stepped forwards and used his telekinesis to push aside a glob of webbing that blocked up the entrance. As he tore away the webbing, he heard Maud sigh and then say, “Well, now they know that we are here.”
Staring at the webbing, Tarnish realised what he had done. There was no helping it, they had to go in deeper, and the webbing was blocking the way. If this was a warning system, the spiders now knew that he and Maud were here, and this wasn’t a social visit.
A disturbed part of Tarnish’s mind wondered what steamed spiders would smell like.
The cave was humid on top of having a gag inducing stench. Tarnish realised that he had changed. The pony that he had been a few months ago before his banishment from Ponyville would never have done this. Living on the road had changed him. Living with Maud had changed him. Living with the Pie family had changed him. Right now, he was either incredibly brave or fantastically stupid for doing this; he couldn’t decide, but he supposed the outcome would reveal itself in time.
He strode forward, the blue light from his horn illuminating the way, hoping that he was ready for trouble. Ahead, there was a strange sound, like wind blowing through piles of leaves. Tarnish didn’t much care for the sound, not at all, because it seemed to be growing louder.
Ahead, there was a pony skull laying on the stone floor of the cave. It still had some rotten bits of flesh on it, but not much. A few bones were scattered around, both pony bones and other types of animals. The spiders weren’t picky. At night, they would go out from their cave, find food, inject it with venom to paralyse it, drag it back to the cave, and eat their meal later, whenever the they felt hungry.
The sound of the wind blowing through the leaves reached a horrific crescendo. Hundreds of spiders, each of them the size of a cantaloupe or a pumpkin were scurrying along the floor, the walls, and the cave ceiling towards Tarnish and Maud.
With a toot that was almost deafening in the narrow confines of the cave, Tarnish released a scalding cloud of steam. The cloud wafted forwards, and as it did so, the spiders died en masse, boiled alive. The cave now glistened with dripping moisture. Maud stomped down upon the few survivors, putting them out of their misery. Each stomp made a horrific splat sound that made Tarnish wince. It was like somepony stepping down into a bowl of jelly with a whoopie cushion at the bottom.
“When we got married, this isn’t how I imagined our honeymoon, Honey Bunches,” Maud said in a low voice as she looked down at her now disgusting hooves.
“There’s that sense of humour that I love,” Tarnish replied as he continued forward.
Tarnish decided that he didn’t like dark caves. Horrible things lived in dark, smelly caves. Things like giant face leaping spiders with big shiny fangs and eight beady little eyes that glittered in the light. He cut loose with another toot, scalding an incoming mob with steam.
So far, things had been going rather well, which is to say that Tarnish was amazed that he was still alive and whole of body. Maud tap danced upon anything that got too close and her hooves were covered with twitching legs, hair, and gooey ichor.
The sound of many scurrying legs disgusted Tarnish. Lots and lots of little spiders had died so far. He let go with another cloud of superheated steam accompanied by a train whistle that echoed through the tunnels. He was feeling tired already, which worried him.
And then, when he saw what was approaching, Tarnish’s worries were forgotten, replaced with a new worry. Two big spiders were coming and he could see them in the faint glow of his horn light. Two very big spiders. Angling his head, Tarnish hit them with a jet of steam and tooted at them.
The two big spiders made a keening sound, kicked, and thrashed around, but did not die. They were slowed, but were still coming. He didn’t want them getting close to Maud, they were a bit too big to just step on.
Not knowing what else to do, Tarnish drew his new sword. It glowed with a vibrant pink light. A very pink light. He waved it at the spiders and then almost dropped it when a feminine voice screamed, “AAAAAAAAAH! It’s dark in here! I’m scared of the dark!”
Tarnish didn’t know where the voice was coming from, perhaps from somewhere ahead, maybe a victim wrapped up in webbing, but the odd echoes in the cave made it sound much closer, like it was right next to him.
Holding the blade in his telekinesis, he swung it, taking a swipe at the closest spider’s legs. The sword sliced through the spider’s legs with effortless ease, chopping them right off.
“OH GROSS! IS THAT BLOOD? THAT’S BLOOD! OH MY STARS, THAT’S DISGUSTING!”
Undaunted, Tarnish swung again, bringing his blade down in an overhead chop, aiming for the spider’s eyes. The blade went clean through and then the blade sank into the stone, cutting through the rock like a hot knife through butter.
“EGADS! I FEEL ALL GROSS AND HAIRY! STOP! STOP! THIS IS HORRIBLE!”
The shrieking female voice was getting on Tarnish’s nerves. He jerked the sword up and made a sideways swipe at the remaining big spider. The pony sized spider. The blade lopped off several legs and then cleaved into the body, severing away the front half.
“OH! SLIMEY!”
Lifting the sword, Tarnish gave it a good shake. “Stop screaming!”
“You first!” the sword retorted.
“I refuse to have an argument with an inanimate object.” Tarnish shook the spider bits and ichor from his blade and then held it up to have a quick look at it.
“I am not an inanimate object!” The sword paused. “You ruffian!”
“You’re a sword,” Tarnish said, unable to believe that he was arguing with a sword of all things. “Swords are inanimate objects.”
“If you’d let me go I could wield myself!”
Tarnish looked at Maud for a moment and then back at the sword that glowed with pink light. “You mean if I let go of you, you could go and stab spiders for me?”
“OH YUCK!” the sword replied. “I am almost as scared of blood as I am the dark! And spiders… I am terrified of spiders.”
“But you’re a sword, you can chop right through them,” Maud said, finally saying something and attempting to come to Tarnish’s rescue. “Look, there is a little foal in here… we don’t know if she’s alive. We need your help to rescue her.”
“A foal?” The sword’s feminine voice trembled. “All alone? In a cave full of spiders?”
“Yes.” Tarnish nodded his head, not knowing if the sword could see him.
“In the dark?” the sword asked.
Tarnish nodded again, wondering if the sword could ‘see.’ He supposed it had to be able to see, otherwise, how could it hack and slash the enemy?
“Oh… that poor dear… I suppose I shall have to be brave… but I’ll expect a good, thorough cleaning once this is done… and some time in a well lit room, free of spiders and other vermin.”
“Deal.” Tarnish let go of the sword and much to his amazement, it continued to float in front of him. “Do you have a name?”
“I used to have wings… I had hooves… pretty hooves… and a wonderful tail. I had a name… a name… my name was… my name was Flamingo!” The sword sliced through the air, doing a little dance, and then floated near Tarnish’s head. “My name was Flamingo!”
Wings? Hooves? A tail? That was a mystery for another time, Tarnish supposed. For now, no spiders were attacking, but there was no sign of the larder just yet, and he knew that this wasn’t over. He looked at Maud. “Ready to keep going?” He saw Maud nod and he gave her a smile.
Flamingo whimpered in the dark, hesitant to leave Tarnish’s side. She cast a pink glow that brought more light than Tarnish’s horn, but for whatever reason, she was afraid of the dark. She had a short, broad blade that was almost shaped like a feather, or perhaps a long leaf. Her crossguard was a horseshoe, her hilt was twisted like a unicorn’s horn and her pommel was shaped like a hoof.
Reaching out his hoof, Tarnish gave Flamingo a little nudge, pushing her forwards. She let out a startled gasp at his touch, whimpered, and trembled in the air. Tarnish heard Maud snorting in frustration.
Ahead, something chittered. Tarnish did not care for the sound. Not at all. Chittering was bad. He heard a ‘sploot’ sound and then Maud gave him a hard shove. A second later, a blob of webbing hit the spot where he had been standing. He peered ahead into the darkness and could see glowing eyes. Many glowing eyes.
Scowling, Tarnish sent a jet of superheated steam forwards. He was rewarded with a keening sound, a high pitched wail. Then, the ground shook, causing dust to drop down from the ceiling. Something big was moving.
Tarnish tried not to wet himself, that would not be becoming. He settled for a little high pitched squeal of terror instead and watched as Flamingo hesitated, hanging in the air for a moment, and then the sword zoomed off, heading forwards towards the enemy.
“OHGOODNESSTHISISGOINGTOBESOGROSS!”
Tarnish kept on the move, trying to dodge incoming web bombs. He stepped on a stray strand and his hoof was stuck for a moment. It took some effort to dislodge it. Flamingo’s pink light illuminated the area and Tarnish let out another horrified squeal. There was a spider the size of a small house in the cavern, some kind of horrible cave spider queen, surrounded by her guards, which were shooting webs.
“WHEEE!”
Closing the distance, Tarnish ran towards the danger, cursing at himself, he leveled his head and blasted a spider with a scalding jet of superheated steam. The cooked spider kicked and writhed, its hairy body becoming wrinkled, and then Tarnish flipped it over onto its back with his telekinesis.
Hearing a loud squish, he turned his head in time to see Maud pounding a spider into pulp, boxing it with her front hooves. Each punch caused green ichor to go spurting everywhere and Maud was grimacing with disgust.
“OH IT’S SO HAIRY!”
Dodging a giant hairy spider leg, Tarnish ran beneath the cave widow queen and blasted her belly with steam as he kept running. The cave widow queen lept away, greenish yellow goo dribbling from her fangs as she soared through the air. She landed several yards distant with a ground shaking thud.
A sharp pain stabbed through Tarnish’s bad leg, almost causing him to stumble. He had put too much weight on it. He let out a pained cry and then something pink flashed inches away from the side of his face. Several spider legs fell in front of Tarnish and part of a spider’s front body. Flamingo had just saved him from being tackled. His hooves stepped on the spider’s cloven body and made it go squish.
“I NEVER LIKED SPIDERS!”
He let out another tea kettle blast, scalding a web shooter, and sending it scurrying away from him. Reaching out with his telekinesis, he didn’t flip the spider over, instead, he grabbed the four legs on the side closest to him and gave a hard yank.
All four legs were ripped free; Tarnish dropped them, horrified and disgusted that he had just done such a thing. It was an awful thing to do to something, but then again, so was scalding something with steam. For a moment, Tarnish felt guilty. The legs kicked and twitched as Tarnish lept over them and tried to land on his three good legs.
“BUGS ARE PRETTY DISGUSTING TOO! CREEPY CRAWLIES IN GENERAL!”
Looking around, Tarnish realised the web shooters were gone, and only the cave widow queen remained. The queen was running around, trying to get away from Flamingo. The queen was missing one leg, and half of a second one had been lopped away.
Looking around, Tarnish, almost panicked, looked for Maud. She was covered in webbing, green goo, and spider legs. Somehow, Maud managed to look both bored and sleepy, even covered in pulpy spider goop and assorted spider bits.
“Tarnish,” Maud said.
“What Maud?” Tarnish replied.
“Catapult me,” Maud commanded.
“What?” Stunned Tarnish stood there and stared at Maud while Flamingo continued to chase after the cave widow queen. “Are you crazy?”
“I am The Rock. I can be thrown.” Maud shook some goo from her legs and then kicked away a cluster of spider appendages. “Launch me, my love. Trust in me.”
“DIE FOALNAPPER!” With a lunging swipe, Flamingo chopped off all four legs on the cave widow queen’s right side, leaving the queen vulnerable. Screaming a wordless cry, the sword went to work hacking off the legs on the other side.
Tarnish, sensing opportunity, trusted in Maud. Reaching out with his telekinesis, he lifted her up into the air, hefted her, and then tossed her for all he was worth, launching her in a parabolic arc towards the spider.
Mid-air, Maud moved with easy grace, and placed all four hooves together. She braced her legs and her lip curled back from her teeth in a snarl as she began her descent. She realised that Tarnish was a good shot. From her aerial view, she could see Flamingo getting ready to chop down into the cave widow queen’s head.
Maud landed on the cave widow queen’s abdomen, causing it to pop like an overstuffed, throbbing boil. Spider guts exploded everywhere, showering everything in the room with warm, sticky slime. The widow queen, who had been the size of a small house, was no more.
“I feel unclean,” Maud deadpanned as she stood in the middle of a pulsating spider-puddle.