Equestria's Ray of Hope

by The_Darker_Fonts

Disembarkment

Ray’s heart was in his throat as he sat on his bed, the ship rocking back and forth slowly. All across the deck and throughout the fleet, the cries of “Land ho!” were echoing back and forth. Some Fallen cheered at the call, some Fallen fell completely silent, but each of them moved quickly to their jobs. Ray rubbed a hand over his face, staring out the small porthole that provided him limited light and air. He needed air.

Tussling his own long hair, he stood up and pushed through the cabin door and out onto the main deck. In spite of a surprisingly restful night of sleep, he suddenly felt tired, unprepared for what today was bound to bring. Setting his jaw, though, he made his way past the bustling Fallen as they dutifully prepared the ballistas for a potential engagement. Yesterday’s victory made everyone move with a certain confidence, even in those who seemed notably shaken by what they may face today. Biting his inner cheek, he took the wooden stairs up to the wheel on the starboard side of the ship. He hadn’t really been up here much and had barely interacted with the ship’s captain, but upon arrival, he found the stallion already at attention.

“At ease, captain,” Ray dismissed, stopping short of the wheel itself. “How far out are we from the designated landing zone?”

“Ten miles exactly, and about four miles north of it,” the captain responded smartly. “We’ll arrive in two hours’ time, given the cast of the wind.”

“Approach the landing zone head-on, captain,” Ray ordered. Distantly, he could pick out where the sea ended and the land began. Pointing to the faded ridgeline that barely poked out of the horizon, he remarked, “We don’t know how well the minotaurs are prepared for us, but we do know how defensible their position is. If they have any sort of defenses on those cliffs, we’ll need to approach directly to suffer the least casualties. Besides, I don’t want to risk grounding any ships close to those walls.”

“Yessir,” the captain responded with a quick salute, instantly twisting the wheel to the side slightly.

His job done, Ray turned and left down the stairs, endless thoughts racing through his mind. For the first time in what felt like years, he thought about what he should be doing right now, what a normal human boy would be doing at his age. He would be learning to drive most likely, if his family could have afforded the gas. Mags would have been in high school by now, probably earning scholarships or something already. His face scrunched up as he realized he didn’t know how old he actually was. Was he still fifteen or was he sixteen now?

Running a hand through his hair, he shook his head. Hell, he might have a girlfriend if things were normal, but now, the thought of any romance now was… dead. This world had nothing that wasn’t artificial or impossible to look at in that perspective, let alone act upon it. Everything seemed foreign now, the world he had spent the past year and longer living in embedded into him now more than the old one had ever been. There was nothing that seemed normal now, and looking down at himself, not even the need for clothing had stuck. He had spent more and more time these last few months walking around in scarcely more than a loincloth.

He had lost his humanity in more senses than just his lifestyle. It almost seemed like Equestria was a whirlwind and Ray was caught in it, his body and mind stripped down to its bases the longer he decided to stand amongst it. He could barely recollect what he had been living for in his old life other than his family, the grating process of keeping his home afloat deadlier than what he had faced here in Equestria. On reflection, he considered himself lucky that he had snapped beneath the tension of Earth in Equestria and not at home. As strange as it was, coming to know Twilight and the world she was attempting to protect, he had completely forgiven her. However, beyond that, getting to know himself truly, beyond the hollow shell that stalked the tumultuous city in hopes to gain scraps, he had come to respect her for it.

“You’re in your own head,” Skalos softly informed Ray, appearing suddenly at his side. The Fallen grabbed his hand with a luminescent hoof and tugged him aside, back towards Ray’s cabin as he muttered, “And so am I.”

“Whaddya mean,” he asked the Fallen, ducking under the frame as he entered his small room. “What’re you getting yourself worried about?”

The stallion chuckled pitifully to himself, running a hoof across his smooth skull. After several long seconds of Skalos’ ashamed silence, he finally managed, “I’m worried about Zecora. It’s getting to me, and I can’t be facing that on the most important day of my life.”

“Well,” Ray began, though he quickly fell into silence too, not quite sure how to counsel his friend. “I’m worried about Skalos, and I’m sure she is too. We both know and love you very much, and we both know exactly the lengths you’ll go to defend us and the Fallen. I’m worried about who I’ll lose in this war more than I am about returning home myself, but that’s my flaw. I think that your flaw is that you’re concerned about the balance of love and duty. I haven’t had to face that yet, so I’m not sure what to tell you other than that Zecora will forgive you for however your fate turns out.”

Shaking his head sadly, he complained, “You shouldn’t have let her join us in person.”

“Wait, I thought you were the one that let her on,” Ray refuted with a confused stare. Skalos looked up from the floor, both friends blinking at each other as they came to the same conclusion. Ray let out a little laugh while Skalos simply smiled, both of them outsmarted simply by the zebra’s inaction. Shrugging with an embarrassed smile, Ray remarked, “Well, I think that alone speaks volumes to her will to be with you.”

“Doesn’t make me any less worried,” Skalos sighed, sitting down. “It’s as if I’m only now realizing things that I came to accept a long time ago. For some reason, everything I knew would happen is happening and I’m completely unprepared for it. I want this all to be over with and the fighting hasn’t even truly begun. I know I’m most likely going to die in this fight, I believe every Fallen has come to that realization that the likelihood they will be the one to die is high. Now, though, I’m finally feeling the weight of the responsibility of my own life. I know you’re feeling quite the opposite, resigning yourself to be the leader I trained you to be months ago. It feels like I’m betraying the stallion from them and lying to the boy I made a general. My first task was complete, but now I don’t want to complete the mission.”

Grasping the Fallen by his shoulder’s Ray stared into the stallion’s milky eyes, the soft blue shine of his translucent skin lighting the cabin’s tight space. He remembered when he had once been scared of these eyes, this Fallen body that shone with ghostly light and bore the inner workings to all who looked. Now, he was familiar with it, accepting of the way their bodies had transitioned with centuries of darkness. Somehow, in a world like this, he only found himself as strange in the world, as if knowing that he was the odd piece of the puzzle. Without a word, he pulled Skalos into a hug.

The Fallen grunted slightly at the tight embrace, his hooves pinned beneath Ray’s arms. Still hugging his friend, staring at the grainy wood of the cabin, Ray told the stallion, “Down in the Harkening, you told me about your tradition of saying goodbye to people long before they had to leave so that it alleviated the pain when the day actually came. Well, you said your goodbye, but I never got the chance to say mine, for when either you or I leave this world. I want you to know Skalos that you have only done the best any creature in any of the worlds could have done. Whether you meant to or not, I got to know the stallion behind the Fallen, and the stallion there is the bravest, kindest, and most honorable person I’ve ever had the pleasure of befriending. Know that I speak from the heart when I say there is no other thing in these worlds that I would rather fight beside than you, Skalos. Goodbye.”

Clapping his hand against the Fallen’s back, he took a deep breath to withhold the tears he felt. They were the same ones he had sworn he had seen in Skalos’ eyes those months ago, glistening with forlorn joy at the past and hopeful, if darkened, continuation into the future. Pushing the stallion back and giving him a warm, searching stare, Ray patted a hand against his cheek. Skalos was past the point of tears, several wet streaks glowing from the shine of his smooth skin. His friend looked up at him and managed to choke out, “Strange how the more you encourage me, the more I fear going out there.”

“The fear of death is one of mortality’s many flaws,” Ray felt himself say from deep within, his heart thudding slowly as he said so. Those words had been his own, he had thought them and spoken them, but strangely, they felt compelled out of him. He brought Skalos in for a quicker, reassuring hug to take his mind off it, the stallion this time ready for the embrace.

As they parted, the door opened, Zecora walking through and quickly shutting the door behind her. Skalos attempted to wipe his tears away before his wife could see, but the zebra caught his hooves before he could remove the evidence.

Glancing up at Ray with a knowing look, she comforted Skalos, “I know the cause of your tears for I overheard your greatest of fears. Know this, love of my life. Living or dead, I will always be your wife.”

The words broke Skalos, the stallion reduced to tears as he melted into his wife's hooves. Ray didn’t know whether to smile or not for Skalos’ sake, but recognizing his friend’s emotional turmoil, he decided to leave the cabin and allow Zecora to work her magic on the stallion. Locking eyes with the zebra as she gently stroked her husband’s head, he nodded to let her know he was leaving them alone. She smiled at him and mouthed a quick thank you before planting a kiss on Skalos’ forehead. Clenching his jaw, he pulled himself out of the cabin, softly shutting the door behind him.

There was serene quiet on deck as Ray began walking to the stern of the ship, his usual spot on the bowsprit beckoning him. The distance between the fleet and the coast had already closed enough that he could distinctly see the cliff wall that made up almost all of the new continent’s coast. While still distant, he could guess that the cliff faces were several hundred feet high, at least as tall as some of the mountains closest to Ponyville. They were imposing, certainly, but there was something so strangely unique about the rock formations that made Ray wonder how they had formed. Regardless, they served as a formidable defense against coastal invasions like their own.

It would have been impossible to mount this attack save for the small gap that appeared abruptly in the middle of the line. While small at this distance, it was still about as large a gap as there was between Ponyville and the base of the mountain that hosted Canterlot. The broad space, while limited considering the extent of the entire coast, was still large enough to land all of the ships at once if there were no dangers present in the space itself. However, the two ships from yesterday’s brief encounter gave them knowledge that there was at least some sort of naval presence in the small harbor area itself.

“Sir, we’ve sighted the coast for the first time,” a voice suddenly called from behind him. There was a certain grimness to it that Ray had never heard from Garish before.

Turning to face the stallion, he asked, “What did you see?”

“Well, they have something out there on the water,” Garish responded grimly, looking out over the waves at the gap. “We think it might be an incomplete ship given its closeness to the shore and the general dishevelment of its shape. From our vantage, we can’t see the actual lip of the cliffs, but that means that, at the very least, there aren’t any large pieces of equipment that can strike us from above. That doesn’t rule out the brazen individual but given that we’ll be landing in the direct center of the gap, we don’t believe they’ll present any danger on disembarkment itself. Our biggest concern is that there seems to be an established dock itself and what we can only assume to be tents nearby. We’re not certain if they have any equipment to see our approach either, so we may face any level of preparedness from the enemy.”

Ray rubbed his chin for a moment, his jaw and lip clean shaven thanks to a cut this morning. If he was going to die today, he wasn’t going to die with scraggly face hair. Ray shook that thought off as he quickly commanded, “Keep infantry ships in front, but bring some archers on each infantry ship to help with disembarkment. We can afford to have fewer soldiers on the ships to our rear. Keep every ship that we remove soldiers from out of the initial landings to cover the possibility of a naval flank.”

“Yessir,” Garish responded sharply, a quick salute given before he dashed off to quickly spread the word between ships. Clasping his hands together behind his back, Ray began to return to his trajectory, when he was stopped yet again by someone calling his name. Looking around, he couldn’t locate the source of the voice, confused as he was certain he had heard someone yell for him. Scrunching his brow, he looked around the entire ship, only to gasp in surprise as he saw the Matriarch’s head popping up on the left side of the ship, four of her eyes peering over the railing at him.

“Jeez,” Ray hissed, his heart briefly stopping at the sight. Around him, Fallen yelped profanities or obscure phrases at the giant spider’s sudden appearance, but recognizing the strange creature, they went about their own work quickly. Hurrying over to the Matriarch, Ray exclaimed, “You could’ve been a bit more subtle with that. You’re still a giant spider thing.”

“I’m the first of my kind, before we were known simply as spiders,” the Matriarch remarked as Ray jumped the rail, landing on one of the World Weaver’s prepared legs. He steadied himself on her hairy exoskeleton just in time for her to duck beneath the waves, diving deep into the water. Ray watched with mild curiosity as the air around him remained, a pocket in the water that he and the Matriarch’s head inhabited. Having completed the act and cleared out of the way of the boats, she finished, “It would be much the same as me calling you a child.”

“Huh,” Ray asked, confused at first. Recollecting what the Matriarch had said previously, he muttered, “Oh, right. My apologies. You’re just terrifying is all.”

“A useful tool against mortals that fear such things,” the World Weaver remarked with a confident nod of her large head. “I wish to offer my services to you, Ray. My mind has heard what you spoke with on your ship, the concerns shared between you and all Fallen.”

“Aren’t you already assisting us,” Ray questioned, lost amidst the constantly shifting subject of the Matriarch’s mind. There had been very little time to actually pick up on the Matriarch’s language ever since meeting her, and while it was easy enough to understand when Ray was leading the conversation, when the Matriarch began to explain her own thoughts, things quickly became confusing.

“Yes, but I mean to demonstrate to you and your army the truthful might of my spiderlings and I,” the Matriarch patiently explained. “Your soldiers have already greatly presented their attributes to me and my own, now we wish to return the gesture. Yesterday’s battle was a keen spectacle for my watching children, and such vivid action has… inspired a wholesale impatience amongst even the simplest of my children. They wish to be unleashed on the foe in the most spectacular of fashions and allowed to demonstrate their comradery, the one they built amongst the plains and caverns of Tartarus’ depths.”

“Of course your spiderlings can help with the fight,” Ray laughed, still perplexed by the Matriarch’s questioning. “Isn’t that why they’re all along with us anyways?”

“Hm, how do I explain this,” the Matriarch wondered aloud, reaching one of her feelers up to rub across the top of her head. “What I mean to say is that they wish to take the field alone, without the assistance of Fallen. They were presented with a spectacle and now wish to treat you to one as testament to their duty. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I think,” Ray responded, befuddled. The spiderlings wanted to fight alone on the very first battlefield in the new world? He could somewhat understand the sentiment, but the idea that his soldiers wouldn’t participate in the initial landing left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he was certain it would leave one in his soldier’s.

“Look, the offer is kind and honorable, but my soldiers won’t stand by idly while your spiderlings do all of the fighting,” Ray explained kindly. “After the excitement of yesterday, they’re thirsty for more, to do the job they were assigned to long ago. For most of them, yesterday was a surprising victory, one without consequence or loss. They want to use that momentum to launch a successful attack straight at our enemy and defeat them swiftly. They were expecting to never return, at least most of them, but now we all see that there’s a good chance many of them will return and become normal ponies again. So, while your offer is courteous and your spiderlings brave, my soldiers need to fight in order to feel like they’ve fulfilled their promise.”

“Perhaps a different arrangement, then,” the Matriarch pondered, looking back to the coast. “We’re not even three miles from the coast and surely our enemies have spotted your forces, but my spiderlings are hidden beneath the waves in their sarcophaguses. What if I took myself and my children ahead of the fleet to assault their forces at their… harbor… and cleared the way for the Fallen to land safely. From there, you would form ranks and march up the land to vanquish whatever forces may lay beyond my sight. It would provide the most effective and least dangerous course of action, fulfilling both our needs.”

Ray paused for a second, thinking about the prospect. There really seemed to be no negatives to taking the Matriarch up on her offer, and as the shore got closer, the quicker someone had to take action. With a quick glance at the ships above their heads, he agreed, “Alright, let’s do it then. Your spiderlings and you will clear that landing and we will clear the land. Now launch me, if you please.”

“Of course, lordling,” the Matriarch agreed with the most mirth Ray had heard the World Weaver allow in her sober voice.

The leg he was standing on suddenly extended upwards through the water, shooting him up alongside his boat. Thankfully, the Matriarch had learned from last time to drift beneath his ship, so now when he surfaced it wasn’t a nightmare of hopping between boats to return to his. The leg barely broke the water, droplets spraying from it and the nearby ship as it broke through the ocean. Wiping the seawater from his eyes, Ray only took a second to see he wasn’t too far from his ship. Shrugging to himself, he leapt from the leg and smacked against the side of the ship, his hands managing to catch the ropes attached to it as he knocked the wind out of himself. Wheezing slightly, he pulled himself onto the deck.

“Welcome back, lordling,” Garish greeted, though as Ray stood up, he saw the stallion wasn’t looking at him, instead staring grimly at the approaching landmass. The human glanced at it briefly, noting that the small gap had now widened considerably with the closing distance. “You’re just in time for the real action to begin. The ballitas are all set and ready for affirmative action upon arrival at the coast.”

Ray nodded at the stallion’s dutiful stoicism, a rarity that had become more common with the war they now stared at. Reaching down to rest a hand on the stallion’s prepared spear, Ray instructed, “Ease off, soldier. Prepare for a peaceful disembarkment after a wonderful show, courtesy of the Matriarch and her spiderlings.”

“What do you me-” Garish began to ask before the roaring of water interrupted him perfectly.

While unintentional and unexpected, the Matriarch emerged from the depths of the water several hundred feet in front of the fleet. The sea cascaded down her enormous body, her legs reaching out from below like some sort of insectoid kraken. With one large step, a singular leg crashed through the ocean, sending waves in all directions. The boats of the fleet rocked slightly at the massive arachnid’s movements, every Fallen watching in silent awe as their ally charged forward to the new world.

Distantly, he could pick up the sounds of grunts and bleats, minotaurs on the makeshift dock that had come into sight scrambling. Many dotted the wooden shape in the water, and with the fleet closing in on the shore quickly, they could all see now it was a halfway complete ship, alone and isolated on the dock. Some brave minotaurs dared attempt to put up a resistance against the World Weaver, raising strange instruments in their hands and shooting miniscule projectiles at the hulking spider. Whether any of them actually could have done damage was questionable at best, the few that landed snapping against the Matriarch’s exoskeleton.

Without even glancing at the dock, the Matriarch swept a single long leg across the water, scattering the boat and dock like they were simply piles of sticks. The action sent dozens of minotaurs flying through the air, some even splashing into the water relatively close to the fleet as it approached cautiously. The sweeping leg of the World Weaver sent a large wave laden with broken wood and minotaurs towards the shore, which was quickly filling with minotaurs. The beach was rocky and gruff in nature, small tufts of rough grass poking out occasionally, which made the minotaurs have to spread out awkwardly in a scattered position.

The wave struck several feet up the beach, minotaurs crashing into each other or getting knocked over by the water. Several were impaled on various pieces of debris, their bleats of pain and gurgling death cries drowned out as the beach water foamed up. In an instant, several black pods as large as the Fallen’s ships washed ashore, bashing through the already scattered lines of the minotaurs, crushing those still flattened by the initial wave. The sound of tearing and skittering shrieks drowned out all other sounds as the pods burst open, hundreds upon hundreds of spiderlings of various sizes springing out. They swarmed over the ground, the smaller spiders rolling over the larger ones as the arachnid army charged the minotaurs.

The minotaurs attempted to fight back, swinging their large weapons at the swarm, but the large spiders were difficult to kill with their hard exoskeletons. Even when a minotaur landed a killing blow, there were still dozens of more spiderlings to deal with. In a matter of seconds, the entire beachhead was blackened with spiderlings, minotaurs that hadn’t managed to escape the cascade of arachnids falling beneath the swarm. Many of the spiders stopped to feast upon their kills, the sickening sights and sounds of their feasting disturbing and disgusting. Ray looked away from the visceral sight, as did many of the other Fallen observing from the railing.

Even the Matriarch indulged in the feast, reaching one large feeler out and grabbing several retreating minotaurs. They attempted to resist, thrashing around and clanging their weaponry against her hard carapace, but she simply squeezed them together, their snapping bones echoing across the battlefield. With a flick of her feeler, she tossed their broken bodies into her mandibles.

Ray didn’t watch the Matriarch finish her meal, instead turning to the bewildered crew of his ship and shouting, “Don’t mind the spiderlings, soldiers. Prepare for armed disembarkment. The Matriarch and her children are clearing the beachhead, but we need to still secure the territory around it. We only have six hours to make sure we aren’t booted off this continent the day we arrive.”

“Yessir,” the hundreds of Fallen on deck responded loudly, briefly overpowering the other noises on the beach. In an instant, the entire boat was moving, Fallen forming ranks as they had organized and practiced many times before. Ray quickly moved to the closest ballista to the gangplank that would let them off, where he would meet his arms bearer. He hadn’t really liked the idea of having a designated soldier to carry around his weaponry, but after a few times of legitimately needing someone else to bring him his weaponry, he had grown accustomed to it at least.

Surely enough, Kembil was making her way across the crowded ship, bow strapped across her back and kharamh in hoof. The mare arrived by his side just in time for the boat to grind to a halt, the bottom of it striking the rocky coastline beneath the waves. The boat shook as it stopped, but thankfully, it held firm, and there were no cries from below about any critical damage. Glancing over the side of the boat, Ray noted they were still something like eighty feet from the shore itself. While it meant an easy time for him, the Fallen would have to dive to the bottom and race across the seafloor weighted down.

Grabbing his weapons from Kembil, Ray slung the bow and quiver of arrows over his shoulder, keeping the kharamh in hand as the gangplank lowered. They used a piece of wood not built into the ship originally, the one used for boarding normally much too small and flimsy for a swift disembarkment. Instead, a broad plank of wood was made to slide out of the side of the ship, about twenty feet wide and as long as the boat was wide to decrease the otherwise harsh slant into the water. Taking a deep breath, Ray watched as the plank slowly came into contact with the waves, a mechanical clicking locking the plank firmly into place.

It was time to go now, to charge down the ramp, jump into the water and rush to the shore. Ray knew that as he took a step onto the plank, testing its security. Perfect, just as it had been a hundred times before. He lowered his kharamh and took another step, the air around him warm and thick as he slowly made his way down the plank. His head slowly looked up at the beachhead, which thanks to the fleet’s head-on approach, was perpendicular to the plank. It was only then that he realized the world itself was moving slowly, not just him alone.

The Matriarch had begun to devastate the camp, torn fabrics fluttering through the air alongside minotaurs flung aside. Some of the largest spiderlings as well were engaging the forces that had either survived or were absent from the beachhead assault. Their battle seemed frozen to Ray though as he slowly felt himself take another step. There were no thoughts in mind, the uproar of emotions and flurry of ideas from this morning dissipated as he relied solely on the skills he’d spent his life in Equestria learning and honing. Now, as his foot dipped into the warm beach water that surrounded the last of the plank, he felt in his blood the realism of it all.

Ray jumped from the plank and into the water, sinking with both the weight of the equipment he wore and the power of his landing. He allowed himself to sink until, for the first time in eight days, his feet touched the ground. Crouching, knowing he had to be at least fifteen feet below the surface, he launched himself off the ground, feeling the sand give as he did so. The rush of water filled his ears as suddenly, his head burst from the water, a great gasp for air escaping him. Knowing well enough how far off from the coast he was, he dove straight back down, landing on the bottom quicker than before.

Repeating the dive-launch technique a couple more times, he quickly found himself standing in the water, head, chest, and shoulders above the waves. Disregarding everything else, he opened his eyes as he charged kharamh first at the beach. He barely even noted the lack of enemies as he did so, everything he had been training for embedded deep within. In his eyes, he only saw the objective, to reach dry ground and push onwards. Grunting as he lifted himself out of the water more, legs sluggish as they cut through the ocean, he finally emerged completely from the waves. Roaring furiously, he stormed up the beach, charging past the wreckage of the Matriarch’s attack.

He ignored the scattered remains of minotaurs, empty husks or stripped bones left over from the spiderlings feast. Instead, his eyes scanned upwards, the steep slope leading up from the beachhead, a large hill at least a mile long to crest before it was at the same height as the surrounding cliffs. There were some minotaurs that remained, perhaps two hundred that gathered on the far end of the hill, but they were surrounded by spiders completely, the Matriarch holding them in their position. The enormous spider turned her head to him, a question in the wave she held two of her legs above the captured minotaurs.

Without any hesitation, Ray shouted to her, “No prisoners.”

With the command given, the World Weaver slammed her legs down into the bunched-up crowd, crushing the last of the resistance on the beach. Seeing the remnants of the minotaurs being quelled, Ray’s furious pace slowed to a jog as he turned over his shoulder. He hadn’t realized it, but his dutiful charge up the beachhead had led him a good ways into the land, leaving a considerable gap between him and his army. In fact, he stood exactly between the two different forces, the Matriarch’s spiderlings climbing their mother as she halted near the top of the long upward hill. Some of the larger ones, the eldest of the World Weaver’s children, stayed on the ground and collected their own children. Watching the gathering of the forces, he guessed it was their way of counting their dead, of which there were a few.

With a quick glance around, he counted four spiderlings dead in his vicinity, though the beach was dotted with spiders either crushed or split open. Much more frequent, however, were the remains of the minotaurs. Standing where he was, halfway up the beach, there were hundreds of scattered corpses or barren bones. To his right was nothing but the skeleton of a minotaur, while just a little to his left was one halfway crushed. It was almost startling to see the path the Matriarch had taken, large indents in the rocky ground often marked with death of some sort.

Having nothing more to assess from the initial contact on land, Ray allowed himself to finally come to his senses in the new world. The rocky ground of the beachhead was grayish, dotted occasionally with pathetic tufts of grass that looked as if it had died yesterday. The wind whipped through the gap and was probably the reason they had closed in on the landing zone so quickly. Save for the new wooden wreckages, there seemed to be no infrastructure to speak of, not even a beaten-out trail. It was curious, but ultimately, almost befitting of the brutish nature the minotaurs had displayed so far.

Tossing his long, wet hair out of his face, Ray watched as Skalos and several other generals approached him, all panting from their own rushes up the shores. Down on the beach, the Fallen who had already made it to shore were helping their comrades up onto the beachhead. The entire coast was bubbling with the movements of thousands of Fallen swimming to land. For a brief moment, Ray was worried about how many might not make it, weighed down by their equipment or stuck in the sand of the shore. However, inspecting the Fallen as they began to form ranks, he noted quite distinctly that they were, in fact, completely intact as a unit so far. The five different divisions were forming a few hundred feet from the shore, granting enough space for new arrivals from the ships.

“Well, Ray, it appears Celestia’s on our side,” Yarem called out cheerfully, stepping up towards the human commander-in-chief. “Not a Fallen lost on arguably the most dangerous stretch of our journey.”

“Of course she’s on our side,” Ray responded, stone-faced as he watched the armies arranging. “Alicorn aside, she’s still a pony. Skalos, report of the first division?”

“Zero casualties on disembarkment to report so far,” the stallion promptly addressed. “Minimal equipment losses as some Fallen dropped their weaponry from their persons in order to avoid drowning.”

“Replaceable losses, then, and only provisional,” Ray summarized, less of a question and more of a presumption. Noting all five generals had gathered around, he ordered, “Prepare all ranks and units for combat post-haste. We crest this hill in fifteen minutes’ from the last Fallen reaching shore. Understood?”

“Resoundingly, sir,” Harbor answered for the group, the Fallen each sharing a look.

“Soldiers,” Ray began, catching their attention before they could turn about face to fulfill the orders. Having their attention solidly, Ray crouched down to them, restarting. “Friends, it’s truly been an honor to learn from each of you. I look forward to fighting beside you now. I’ll see you all on the other side.”

“Yessir,” all five saluted in tandem, grim determination etched into each of their faces. Without hesitation, they turned and ran down towards their respective divisions. Ray let out a breath.

It was happening today. He had found himself thinking that a lot recently. It was true. One day, it was leaving Equestria, the next it was fighting minotaurs, and today, it was landing on the new continent. Still, as true as it was, there was always something new brought along with the thought. Excitement at leaving Equestria and fulfilling his promise and the Fallen’s destiny. Fear of loss when facing the minotaurs at sea. Today left a bitter taste in his mouth, though. He wasn’t afraid or excited. In fact, he had a distinct identification for what he felt. Ray was simply afraid of naming it.

Today, he dreaded the future. Not the fighting, not the killing, not even the losses. He dreaded what he may have to face. Loss? That was inevitable. Killing? That was his job. Victory… a goal. But now, with two massive victories behind him and the prospect of another just over the hill, he had to ask himself a question Fluttershy, Apple Bloom, and even Twilight had asked him. What afterwards?

Gripping his kharamh firmly, he began to trudge uphill to where the Matriarch and her children awaited reinforcement. Twilight had told him that the future changed with his every action. He was the independent variable in the entire makeup of this universe. Befitting that he could only hope for the best when the planned future ended, when the road no longer ran but he had to keep walking.

“I could be your future,” the Spectre spoke from somewhere within his mind. It had been very prevalent before casting off, but it had grown strangely silent once they had entered the open waters. Still, Ray did his best to remain unnerved by the Spectre’s haunting voice at such an inopportune time.

Taking a deep breath in, he muttered, “Shut the hell up. If I wanted something both unknown and dangerous in my head, I would have invited you to this mess of a party.”

“Now now now, lordling, such brash ignorance isn’t usually tolerated,” the Spectre chided distantly. Its voice was strangely far off, like someone shouting from a mile away. Maybe it was just imagined, but something about the Spectre where to shove it seemed to make it less of a pressure and more of a nuisance.

“I mean, you’ve been ignoring me saying no for a couple months now, you prick,” Ray muttered under his breath. “You’re a persistent bastard, I’ll give you that, but a bastard regardless. Now let me go about my naive, mortal business.”

Based on the lack of response, Ray guessed either the Spectre had given up or was simply too annoyed by his admittedly childish reaction to its return. With a smirk, Ray looked up to the Matriarch, who had undoubtedly heard his side of the exchange. She leaned down curiously towards him, though thanks to her immense size, her head still hovered a few feet above his.

“The enemy speaks to you again, hm,” the World Weaver questioned knowingly. “Tis a strange dealing, its, but one that you are wise to set aside. I had thought that, mayhaps, my mere presence and the objective I represent would have warded it off further. Alas, I’m incorrect.”

“For once, yes,” Ray agreed. “Disregard that, though. It’s not important yet, and boy do I hope it stays that way. Now, what do you have to report?”

“Seventy three of my children are dead,” the Matriarch informed mournfully. “All of them are of the smallest and youngest of my spiderlings’ and their spiderlings’ children. There are no wounded; any wounded are consumed to sever their mortal pain and reuse their strength. However, beyond this hill, there is something of concern. Two hostile entities exist there, a large group that currently is residing in a deep hole I know not the purpose for, and the other inhabits the plains in their tents.”

“How far apart are they positioned,” Ray questioned, raising a hand to his chin. Two different enemy bodies would be difficult to deal with unless they split their troops, and even then it ran the risk of a singular enemy escaping and informing whatever controlled the minotaurs of the Fallen’s arrival.

“The tent dwellers are but over this hill, on the plain that stretches from this point. The ones within the earth, however, are perhaps four miles from where I stand. Their distance from each other is great, however. A large hill obscures one from the other and broadens the distance between the two immensely. By my sight, I would say seven miles distance them from each other.”

“Then I would say that, if your spiderlings are ready, you take your forces and attack the ones in the hole in the earth, whatever it may be,” Ray instructed. “My Fallen will attack the nearby army, since we haven’t quite centralized yet. Worst comes to worst, you finish off those within the whole and circle around to assist my forces in finishing off the other army. Can you give me a number?”

“Mmmm, I would say three or four thousand minotaurs dwell among the tents,” the Matriarch guessed. “It is hard to say; they are moving about quickly. They may have heard the sounds of their brethren falling here and are preparing for conflict. I would advise quick action before they too are prepared for conflict. I shall move right away so there shall be no such preparation from the ones within the earth.”

“Thank you, and good luck,” Ray responded, giving the Matriarch a salute as she stood up to her full height. Without warning, the enormous arachnid began trampling forward, her footsteps each shaking the ground slightly and leaving small indents in the rocky earth. The World Weaver was practically sprinting, over the hill in seconds and off to the distant, unseen conflict.

Turning around, Ray was greeted by the sight of the Fallen, ranks formed and prepared, the very last of them already running to their places in their divisions and units. Spears glittered in the burning hot sun, the wind whipping the flags that flew from the ships still. This was the sight he had been preparing a year for, the sight of his army, equipped, ranked, and most importantly prepared for combat. They were marching up to meet him, gradually closing the distance as he simply admired them. He could remember when he had first seen them, the large crowd of glowing ponies sitting in the Harkening’s mausoleum. He remembered thinking Skalos was a ghost at first, of being furious at his appearance. How the times had changed, he reminisced as the stallion approached him.

There were no words shared between them, a simple meeting of their eyes telling both all they needed to know. Ray reached his kharamh out and tapped the spearhead of it against Skalos’ spear, a salute he had learned in the Harkening. Now, the touching metal beamed in the sunlight. Silently, the human stared out over the grand army, all of which had come to a halt now that they stood behind Ray. Raising his kharamh as high into the air as possible, he began whipping it around in the air over and over. Finally, his heart in his throat, he turned to the hilltop and thrust the kharamh at it. With the order, they began to march.

There were no voices, a nervous tension filling the air as the drumming of hooves against the rocky ground and clanking of metal reigned supreme. Beside him, Ray could barely hear Skalos muttering something under his breath, a prayer for him and Zecora. Tightening his jaw, Ray set his gaze up, to the hilltop that was approaching much too quickly. He felt his jaw begin to quiver as each step made the hill begin to even out, plateauing and giving him a firm view of the new world.

For as far as the eye could see, yellow hills rolled gently across the plains, unbroken completely. His eyes flitted towards a black patch moving quickly, the Matriarch and her kin distinctly approaching a wide, visible hole in the ground. He wondered if the hole actually mattered, if there was something in there contrary to the unexpectedly mundane scenery of the new world. Golden grasses and rolling hills, an obscure reflection of Ponyville, as he saw it, save for the distinct lack of distant mountains.

That, and the minotaur army amassed near the gentle slopes of the hill across from them.

Author's Note:

Now this one was a treat to write and a threat to my resolve, for certain. This chapter in specific I have been dreading, much like Ray himself. I hope I depicted the new world and the arrival of our protagonists both to your liking and to your surprise! As always, questions, comments, and concerns wanted and welcome.

Comments

[Bronyshot2020]

Time for war

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It is pointy stick time lol