Gallus and Sandbar Fight Giant Spiders
The Crown of Grover weighed heavy on Gallus’s head as he walked down the path. Something was watching them. It began as a slight hunch as they first entered the forest, but now he was sure of it. Something was watching them and it was only a matter of time before it revealed itself.
He hoped that the crown and the cloak by themselves would be enough. It seemed that the only times they had been used to ward off evil creatures and villains, it was in conjunction with four other artifacts that they didn’t have now.
It was just him and Sandbar. He hoped that their friendship was enough.
The path was beginning to widen, and as it widened it began to disappear little by little until there was no path at all. There were simply trees, and the shadows that filled in most of the blank space between. If they were walking without any clues as to where they were going, they would surely be lost.
It hadn’t been long since they first saw the wave of light coming from the deepest depths of the forest, rudely interrupting the nap they were trying to have by the lake. If it had been anything else they would have ignored it immediately, but the light was beautiful and vast, like the pictures of the northern lights by the Crystal Empire that they had seen in class before, and as soon as they saw it they knew, without a doubt, that the light was being created by the Amulet of Aurora.
The whole trip was Silverstream’s idea. It had only been a few months since they graduated from the School of Friendship, and she wanted to go somewhere that could offer them respite from the world in nature. A cabin by the lake in the Pine Needle Barrens near Mount Aris seemed like the perfect location.
The purpose of the trip was to: A) relax, and B) figure out the extent to which they could control the magical artifacts that they had been loaned by their nations.
And now Silverstream and the girls were in trouble. They ran into something when they had ventured out into the woods. They needed help.
Gallus and Sandbar travelled at a brisk pace, towards where they saw the light. Gallus would fly up ahead to scout and report back to Sandbar, and they would decide on a plan of action if they ran into any obstacles. They scaled fallen trees and travelled through nonsensical rock formations that opened up into tunnels (they always ran through those, because there was no guarantee of their stability), and once or twice they encountered ravines that Gallus would have to fly Sandbar over.
It wasn’t very long until they smelled the first wisps of smoke. Gallus shared a look with Sandbar when they happened upon it: Smolder was, or had been, nearby. And she had gotten into a fight.
Sandbar began to trot ahead of Gallus after that, taking extra notice of the trees and the forest floor, squinting if he didn’t examine one spot or the other for long enough. His dark green cloak swayed in the breeze as he floated from tree to bush to tree again.
Gallus figured that he was looking for any drops of blood, but he didn’t want to ask. If he found out that he was right, he would start to do the same, and that would eventually lead to panic.
At some point, about half an hour since they entered the forest, Sandbar stepped on a thorny vine with his entire weight.
“Ow!” he whined.
Gallus, not knowing that it was simply some harmless thorns yet, rushed to the pony’s side and put a wing over him. His deft claws reached out to hold Sandbar’s forehoof as they both examined the wound.
“Are you okay?” Gallus asked, fear penetrating his voice.
Red, silky blood was pooling in the center of Sandbar’s hoof, where his frog has been cut badly.
“I’m–I’m fine,” said Sandbar. He tried to put his hoof on the ground to keep walking, but as soon as it made contact with the wet leaves, he drew it back with a sharp hiss.
“It doesn’t look so good, bud,” Gallus said. Unconsciously, his wing squeezed Sandbar tight.
“Don’t worry.” Sandbar, steadying himself of Gallus, reached into a pocket in his cloak and pulled out a small vial filled with a bright green liquid. He opened the vial with his mouth and poured in onto his hurt hoof.
Gallus watched in wonder as the green swirled into the red like it was being stirred, until Sandbar’s hoof was entirely blood free. Then the liquid began to glow, becoming translucent, and Gallus’s wonder turned halfway to sickness as he saw the pony’s flesh mend itself back together.
When Sandbar was fully healed, he turned back to Gallus with a smile, and put his hoof on the ground pain-free.
“Shall we?” he asked.
Gallus nodded, and they kept walking. Above them, the canopy was beginning to become less and less accepting of light—a result of the trees in the area growing closer and closer together. Almost like they were huddling, or conspiring.
“I hope they’re okay,” said Sandbar.
“They are.” Gallus stopped to catch his breath. He hadn’t realized until then that for the past ten minutes, he and Sandbar had been jogging. “We should slow down a bit. Don’t wanna get ambushed by anything.”
“How do you know, though?” Sandbar asked.
He simply wanted some reassurance. Gallus was happy to give him some. “Because they’re all stronger than us, and Yona’s built like a brick wall.”
Sandbar’s frown slowly raised itself up into a smile, and Gallus felt a tender satisfaction swell warm in his chest. He led Sandbar forward, and it was quite a while until they ran into another obstacle.
They could do anything, as long as they were together.
Unfortunately, they would have to split up.
They had found a structure of some kind. A castle, maybe. Or maybe it was some sort of monastery. Regardless, it was imposing and grand, but simple. There were no sounds within its great halls of stone, and in other circumstances they would have turned back, but there was an unspeakable feeling that settled over their backs as soon as they entered the place. Without a doubt, this was where Silverstream activated the Amulet of Aurora.
They walked together, sure that they would never split, until they reached a flight of stairs that ascended into a forked path that surely led into another network of hallways and rooms. Going together, it would take much too long to search the place. So they knew what had to be done.
“I really don’t like this,” said Gallus.
“Me neither,” Sandbar replied, nuzzling him. “But this way we can cover more ground.”
“But—”
“It’s almost been an hour since we saw the aurora,” whispered Sandbar. “There’s been nothing else, and I don’t think that this would be a very funny prank. Something might have happened. The girls—”
“They’re fine,” Gallus spoke over him, instantly regretting the annoyed tone to his voice. “But you’re right. Maybe we should go different ways for this.”
“Not for long,” insisted Sandbar.
“Of course not—”
“And if you find anything you’ll—”
“Call out and wait for you. You’re gonna do the same. We’ve been over the plan like twenty times, Sandy. I think we’re good.”
“Okay.”
They nodded like they had seen Rainbow Dash and Applejack do before starting a buckball game, but refused to part. There was an involuntary kind of stubbornness in both of them, tugging at their hearts. Like a wound they needed to treat with an ointment that would make it sting, there lay an inevitability at its core, but while time allowed, they were content to stand still and look idiotic for each other.
It was another minute before Gallus found the strength to move his legs. He took a moment to look at Sandbar’s velvety, hopeful smile before he turned away, and then he forced himself not to look back until he could no longer hear the pony’s hoofsteps.
Alone in the dark, Gallus wandered through the castle. The halls he entered were dark and wet, their rooms empty. His claws scraping slightly against the cold, gritty floor soon became the soundtrack to his inner thoughts.
He didn’t want to be there. That much he knew. He didn’t want to leave Sandbar either, and that was a decision that stung him still. He hadn’t been lying earlier, though—he knew that the girls were fine and waiting for him and Sandbar to spring them out of a tight spot. Smolder was likely getting more and more frustrated by the minute. Ocellus and Silverstream were likely trying to calm her down.
He wished that they were all still on the beach. The sun was past its highest point now, and getting lower and lower as he spent more time in this much too moist castle. A part of him wanted to leave. The rest of his being told that part to keep quiet.
But we’re on vacation, said the small, selfish, cowardly fraction of Gallus’s mind. It’s not right that the girls have to drag us away from vacation because something went wrong with their stupid little test of courage.
They’re our friends, said the rest of Gallus, which was bold and brash and loyal. Don’t be a baby. They need us.
He would have kept on talking to himself in his mind like that for a while, were it not for the spider.
He stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw it. A hulking, huge arachnid sitting on the side of the wall. Furry and brown, with eight, unfeeling eyes like giant black marbles and limbs that were nearly half the length of his body, and adorning its chelicerae were fangs the size of an average pony’s forehooves that ended in sharp, dripping points. One bite from this spider would deliver enough venom to take down a middle aged dragon, less so himself. Probably. Gallus was no toxicologist or arachnologist.
He stood very still. It did, too, probably because there was darkness just past it, and it thought that it was in the darkness as well.
Why the spiders? His entire mind whined at once. He went to take a step back, but kicked a small rock away with his back paw as he did so.
Immediately the spider’s legs moved up the wall. Faster than Gallus could register it had scaled the wall halfway and turned to look at him.
The skin under his feathers felt breathed on. He shivered.
The spider jumped towards him. Gallus sucked in a shocked gasp and quickly took his crown off, swinging the headpiece at the spider when it came close enough as hard and fast as he could. The spider sailed midair into the darkness. He didn’t hear it land.
Gallus tried to back away again, this time getting a yard or two further before he saw them.
Six spiders came out of the darkness, and they were all running at him.
“Oh no,” he managed to say before the first one came within his grasp. He slammed the crown down on its head before it had the chance to pounce. White, semi-translucent lymph came gushing out of the spider like it were a rotten apple falling from a tree.
The second and third spiders came as soon as he drew back, and he batted one away with the crown before the other one jumped at him. He was quick, though, so he ducked underneath it and it fell in an arc over him. The earlier spider he managed to hit began to get up again, but Gallus wasn’t letting that fly. He went over to it, his legs making perfectly efficient, fast strides, and slammed his crown down on it again and again until it was no longer moving, and the other four spiders came to him.
Gallus took to the air, but apparently one had snuck up on him, and it tossed itself at his left wing and and pierced it with its giant fangs.
Gallus felt his entire body spasm with pain as he fell to the ground, slamming into the floor without an ounce of grace. Quick to recover, he shook the spider off his wing before knocking a pouncing spider away and stomping on the other with his free claw. The fourth one managed to glide across his chest and onto his back, but he jumped as high as he could and flipped in the air, getting it to lose grip and fall off.
It landed on its back, and its belly was subsequently pierced and wrenched open by the sharp triangular points that topped the Crown of Grover, getting lymph all over the ancient artifact.
There were two more spiders left. Gallus let out a roar and jumped away to give him a few seconds to prepare, but nothing else was coming for him.
He wondered if maybe they had retreated, but before he let himself relax he stood there, listening for any sound in the shadows.
After a moment he realized he was breathing too loud, and forced himself to slow down.
Nothing. He heard nothing.
What he saw was nothing for one second, and the next, there were tens of spiders all rushing towards him.
Gallus shoved the crown over his brow, turned tail and ran. His life depended on it.
His first instinct was to take to the air, but as he flapped his wings, there was a repulsive splattering of blood on the floor and sharp pain in his left side that reminded him of his earlier injury. He prayed his legs would be fast enough: to who, he wasn’t completely sure.
He ran back the way he came and back to the fork where he had split up with Sandbar, panting heavy. His eyes scanned every inch of the place, looking for those safe shades of beige and green and blue, but finding nothing but damp, grey stone. He ran up the twist where Sandbar had went, yelling the pony’s name as his did, and—
Gallus fell. His centre of gravity was plunged downward and in a moment of pure instinct he twisted his body and brought his claws forward as far as he could. Miraculously, they found purchase on a ledge.
His own bodyweight threatened to make his claws give out, but he gripped hard and screamed, kicking his back legs as he managed to pull himself up and roll onto the ledge. He breathed a couple of breaths before the skittering of rock from nearby made him turn his head. The spiders were coming. There were maybe sixteen, and he had forgotten about them.
Heat spread from his chest, pooled in his stomach and coursed through the rest of his body as he stood and ran. There was a single large opening leading downward at the end of the hall without railings, and he went full speed towards it, every fiber of his being focused on the task of getting there.
“Sandbar!” he called. “Sandbar! If you’re hurt I swear on my dead parents I’ll—”
He reached the opening and jumped, unfurling his wings, ignoring the pain that sprung from his still bleeding wound. He glided down the stairway, cold air rushing through his feathers and making his eyes blurry with tears. He was sweating so much it was like he had been submerged in water, which made him worry that his crown might slip off of his head.
He could only hope that Sandbar was okay. He didn’t know what he would do without him. Why, when he next saw that dumb, stupid earth pony he would wrap his legs around him and squeeze him until they couldn’t possibly be any closer, and he would...he would—
He crashed into something, and tumbled through the air, splattering blood and lymph and sweat all over the place. He rolled over himself again and again until finally he hit a wall. Then he was content to lay there.
There was a soft groan coming from a voice that sounded like the sun shining down on you at the beach, and the sea spray that came when the tide crashed against the rocks. Gallus let out a relieved sigh when he heard it.
Sandbar must have finally noticed his pathetic state, because he gasped loud and ran over to him.
Gallus felt hooves on his tender wing. He couldn’t be bothered to complain about the pain.
“Gally?” Sandbar asked. “What happened to you?”
“Spiders.”
“What?”
“There are…” Gallus stopped. He tried to get up, but couldn’t, and ended up sprawling himself out completely. “There are maybe...sixteen spiders coming this way.”
Sandbar gasped again, turning to look at the direction where Gallus had come from. “Giant ones? The monstrous kind?”
“Those. Yeah.”
Worry corrupted the gentle tones of Sandbar’s voice. “Are you okay?”
Gallus felt guilty. He brought his limbs to him and forced himself to stand, waving Sandbar off when he tried to help. “They’ll be here soon. I killed two and had to run. Still don’t know where the girls are.”
“I do,” Sandbar said.
“What? Where are they?”
“It can wait. They’re—Gallus! Spiders!” Sandbar announced, turning towards the other side of the hall. They looked like fragments of shadow breaking off from the dark parts of the hall, clustering up and moving towards the two creatures at a breakneck pace.
Gallus tried to come over and stand beside Sandbar, but his legs gave out from underneath him. He landed flat on his stomach, groaning pitifully. He tried to resist his body’s wants, but his legs no longer wanted to listen to him. He was useless. Weak, and useless. Sandbar was going to have to face all those enemies on his own…
A hoof reached out to stroke Gallus’s face. He turned his eyes upwards to Sandbar’s kind, smiling face.
“Don’t worry,” said Sandbar. “I’ll get rid of them.”
“But—”
A vial was placed against his lips. Gallus eyed the light green liquid inside, and recognized it as the same potion that Sandbar used on himself earlier.
“Your body’s gonna fall asleep,” Sandbar explained. “But you should heal completely. Drink it all now...this is my last one. No arguing either! That means no rebellious glares too. I’ll be fine, Gally. Trust in me.”
Gallus downed the potion quickly, and true to the pony’s word, his entire being slumped down against the ground. His head landed on its side, but slightly facing up, so he had the perfect view to watch Sandbar square off against the many enemies approaching them.
He knew he could close his eyes—the potion hadn’t sapped him of the energy to do that—but he didn’t. He was going to watch, and cheer his friend on with every fiber of his spirit.
I trust you, Gallus wanted to tell him. I know you can do it.
Sandbar straightened his cloak, and when the spiders got within five ponylengths of him, crouched down, tensed his muscles, and jumped into the fray.
He extended his front legs, trying to get a nice arc over the general crowd. Several spiders jumped at him, each missing him as he travelled midair, save for one that managed to grab hold onto his cape.
Somehow, he landed on the other side, and spun on his hooves, directing his momentum so his cape swung round his body fast and hard, slamming the stray spider into a wall. Its legs lost their traction, and as soon as its body touched the ground his hoof pressed against its underside and ground it into a pulp on the floor.
Two other spiders made for Sandbar, but he backed up, rising to his hind legs, and brought his entire weight down on them. Two bursts of repugnant cracks and squishes echoed out in quick succession, but Sandbar didn’t have time to reflect on the distastefulness of his task. The crowd has noticed, thankfully they left Gallus alone, and he was now cornered.
Gallus watched from his spot at the floor, his heart beating so hard it was starting to hurt. He could make out the faint glow and wave of Clover the Clever’s cloak—magic coursing through every thread to trigger the luck magic that it was imbued with.
Sandbar, his rear against the wall, closed his eyes and took a breath. The best way to channel the cloak’s abilities was to go with the flow, or at least that’s what Headmare Twilight had said, when she first lent it out to him. On paper, he was an obvious choice to synergize with its unique temperament, but being calm in general and staying that way in an emergency situation were two different things.
He had a lot to worry about, for instance. He had to worry about any rebelling spiders that would go after Gallus, and he had to worry about taking too long and putting the girls in danger as a result, and dying. Dying was a big worry of his that he hadn’t had any time to stop and think about yet.
But he was needed. Sandbar exhaled and opened his eyes. He would answer the call to duty for his friends. He’d do anything for them.
He cast a glance to Gallus, and jumped into the air.
Instinct. Instinct was the most important thing to listen to. Thinking was for smart people. Clover was clever. Every heroic deed he had managed to pull off was thought of in a few seconds time. So, Sandbar yelled, and reached upwards.
His hooves found purchase on an old torch holder attached to the wall. He kicked both legs upwards, swinging up until his hind legs touched the wall, and he bent them to get closer and flipped his head round and kicked off.
Sandbar looked as graceful as a soaring falcon as he jumped over the crowd of spiders, to the other side of the wall. He landed on all four hooves and turned around to face the crowd, which was already coming for him again. He crouched and bucked hard against the wall, rattling it and causing a few stray rocks to fall from the cracks in the ceiling.
Nothing happened at first. Sandbar wondered if he had listened to the wrong instinct. But then a torch nearby flickered to life.
He knew what to do. He ran towards it and grabbed it off the wall, but just then another spider jumped from behind and high above at him. He turned, hearing his neck crack from the speed of it, and swung the lit torch at it.
The fire melted it away like it were butter on a pan. The spider horde was closing up on him yet again, but as he backed away he realized that there was a reluctance to their movements. They were nervous. They were clearly, and extremely, flammable.
Sandbar smiled and pulled an orb out of his cloak. It was made of glass, and filled completely with a light green liquid. He threw it into the air, and when it was over the centre of the crowd of spiders, he thought the word Now to himself, and the orb’s glass melted away, leaving a single, suspended ball of liquid. Then it exploded.
Light showers of healing potion rained over the spiders, coating them equally. Sandbar threw the torch onto them.
Joining the sudden, brilliant flash of flame was a chorus of a million tiny screeches that swirled up, building into a single, agonizing whirlwind of pain. Sandbar closed his eyes and tucked his head in, looking away to cringe from sympathy, but it wasn’t long before he could open his eyes again. The spiders burned up like dry paper, reduced to black, acrid dust in a matter of seconds.
Gallus watched the pony catch his breath, look around for any enemies he may have missed, and run over to him, a relieved expression on his face that Gallus was sure he was mirroring. When Sandbar came close enough, he sprung up and gathered the pony into his forelegs, lifting Sandbar up onto his hindlegs.
“I’m sorry for lying earlier,” Sandbar said, shock in his voice. “I was saving the last healing potion for a giant group heal, in case we all needed it later. It was gonna be a good moment.”
“Shut up,” Gallus hissed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up—just…”
Sandbar wrapped his legs around his torso, and on two legs they stumbled backwards clumsily. Gallus’s now healed wings curled forward to form a crude, feathery cocoon around Sandbar and he pressed him into his chest, breathing heavy all the while. Gallus squeezed Sandbar tight, like he vowed he would, and he dug his face into his mane. Sandbar was saying something, but he wasn’t listening. He was focused on the fact that they were both alive and fine and he couldn’t believe the terror he felt for Sandbar during that fight—he couldn’t believe the pride swelling up in him either.
“I’m not letting you go again,” said Gallus. “We’re not splitting up again either. That was a terrible idea.”
“For sure,” Sandbar said.
They fell backwards, with Gallus landing first, but he was squeezing Sandbar so tight that they might as well have been one being. Neither commentated on the impact or force of the fall—they were still enamored with the fact that they had escaped the previous dangers, and with each other.
Gallus sniffed Sandbar’s mane hard, committing every whiff of salt and custard and vanilla to memory, and making another vow to himself that he would never admit how much that he enjoyed the way certain ponies smelled.
“The girls,” Sandbar choked out.
Gallus loosened his grip, letting the earth pony pull away slightly and gasp.
“My bad,” said Gallus sheepishly. “Did you find them?”
Sandbar gestured to a great door at the end of the hall, engraved with a simple, but grand geometric design. Triangles intersected with hexagrams and turned into rectangles engraved with shapes of every kind, and it was hard to tell where one shape began and another ended, or if any shape in question was even there, and it wasn’t some kind of trick of the light. Underneath the door shone a dark, sinister light the same color as the dying embers of a fire.
“In there,” Sandbar said.
Gallus untangled himself from the embrace and stood, using a wing still wrapped around Sandbar to support himself. “What’s inside?”
“Giant spider.”
“How big?”
“Remember how big bugbears are?”
‘That’s not—”
“Five of those.”
“Oh.” Gallus sighed, glancing at Sandbar. “Are you still good?”
“I’m always ready to help a friend in need,” Sandbar chirped in response.
“Then let’s go?”
“Let’s!”
They approached the door together, hearts beating in sync. It wasn’t a long trip before they got there.
“Did it not see you?” asked Gallus.
“No.”
“Hmm.”
Gallus put a claw on the door and steadied himself. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, Gally.”
“Okay. On three. One. Two...”
“Remember, class!’ Starlight Glimmer said cheerfully. “Being in Equestria, there are many different kinds of creatures to look out for, and about a third of them are gonna want to do you harm. What do we do when we see one?”
“Run away,” Gallus said, in unison with his peers, though his tone was injected with fifty milligrams of boredom and not a cheerful acknowledgement of something he had known his entire life, like the rest of the class.
“And what do you do if you can’t run away?”
“Go for the eyes,” Gallus said with the class again, less bored this time.
Gallus pushed the door open as soft as he could, and surprisingly, it barely made a sound. The entrance gave way to him slowly, until he could poke his head through to survey the scene, his heart racing.
The inside of the room appeared to be a former dining hall. Great, long benches were upturned and covered in cobwebs, or completely broken into pieces. Stoically engraved stone made up the walls, and Gallus had a feeling that they could have been tall enough to house giants once, but the ceiling was now replaced by one that was much lower, and made entirely out of immaculately white webbing.
In the centre were his friends, cocooned in the same sort of material. He saw Smolder first, covered from snout to toe and glaring at the giant spider with a thick, caustic hate in her eyes.
Oh boy, Gallus thought. Sandbar was not joking.
The spider was huge. That much was true. But what the earth pony had failed to mention was, well, the rest of it; It was beautiful, in a terrifying sort of way. Its legs and carapace were criss-crossed with trails of glowing orange that evoked lava, and its eyes were glowing as well, but they glowed a hateful, sickly yellow that gave Gallus a headache. The spider was patrolling its territory, walking up the walls and coming down again, examining one of the girls before going off to do whatever its primitive brain set out to do.
The rest of the girls were beside Smolder, covered as much as she, but they all had fear in their eyes—a cold, terrified fear of death that clawed at Gallus’s heart. He breathed out shakily before entering the room as silent as he could.
The eyes. How could he get to them quickly and quietly? He could fly, but griffon wings were large, and he wasn’t trained in the art of stealth flying. He could try and hit hard and fast, but that would be risky, as well. Alternatively, he could creep up on the spider, but he could only see so much, and he might kick a stray rock or something.
Gallus looked to Sandbar, who had crept up beside him, and gave him a questioning look.
Sandbar understood immediately. He winked at Gallus and gestured to his crown, then to his cloak. “Trust me,” he whispered, so light that Gallus nearly didn’t hear. “I’ll distract it—you get on the eyes and leave before it can touch you.”
Gallus had no time to argue, because as soon as Sandbar said the words he left, crawling fast towards the spider.
The Crown of Grover seemed to sense its imminent use, and became warm on Gallus’s head. He snorted, and reached up to fasten it tight. The magic in the crown was less subconscious than Clover’s cloak. Sometimes, Gallus wondered if it was completely sentient.
He focused on Sandbar, and after a few seconds, his entire field of vision changed.
The only thing that stayed the same was the darkness, but the girls, and the spider, and Sandbar all became alight with glowing energy: the magical fields that all living creatures in the world possessed.
Sandbar’s was a beautiful shade of yellow, like sunshine on a field of flowers. Gallus focused on it, reaching out with his mind…
It was like grasping something alive. He had to be delicate, but firm, and he had to be prepared for it to resist.
Luckily, it didn’t. Gallus reached out with his mind, feeling an impossible calm at first, and then kindness like he had never known, and then a taste like saltwater taffy glided over his tongue as he successfully grasped Sandbar’s field.
Gallus relaxed, focusing on the magic that the pony was emanating, and then commanded it to become stronger. The Crown of Grover was a tool of inspiration and empowerment, and in the right hands, any group of friends was unstoppable.
Sandbar’s magical field seemed to jump for joy as it exploded outwards, stretching so that it almost matched the size of the giant spider, whose magical field was a mean, nasty orange, and was as big as its host.
Sandbar was facing away from him now, but when he smiled, Gallus could feel it. His heart grew warm, and he smiled as well.
They could do this.
Gallus refocused his eyes, turning the sight in front of him into a normal one, though he maintained his connection with Sandbar.
Sandbar began to run, his own enhanced personal magic melding and enhancing his cloak’s.
“Hey!” he called loudly.
The spider was on him in seconds. Further off, Gallus nearly gave himself away by shrieking in shock. It moved disconcertingly fast for something so big, and without any rumbles in the ground.
Giant fangs three times his size came down on Sandbar, but he was already moving. He rolled to the side, narrowly dodging the spider’s fangs. He stood up again near one of the spider’s giant, column-sized legs, and bucked hard, channeling every ounce of his inherited earth pony strength into the movement.
There was the smallest, daintiest crack of an exoskeleton, and a loud whine from Sandbar as he withdrew his sore legs.
But there was no time to lick his wounds. The spider attempted to crush Sandbar under one of its gargantuan fangs once again, but missed, with a single, shiny black fang missing him by a couple of inches, burying itself into the ground.
Sandbar sucked in a breath of air and jumped backwards, getting out from underneath the spider, and he began to run.
This was Gallus’s opportunity. He had been creeping closer to the spider as Sandbar was distracting it, and when it turned to chase Sandbar, he sprung into the air, flapping his freshly healed wings.
Normally the spider would have heard him, turned around again, and ate him, but Sandbar was yelling so loud that it was distracted. Gallus flew up so he was above the spider, and shot down, landing just above its many eyes. He then tensed his shoulder and slashed the nearest eye with a razor sharp talon.
The spider, almost on Sandbar, stepped back and made a loud squealing sound. Its chelicerae rubbed together irritably.
Gallus’s heart pounded. He only had a few seconds left. He flapped his wings and flew parallel to the spider’s head, dragging his talon hard against two more eyes before darting away.
Confused and hurt, the spider skittered about aimlessly, still shrieking in pain.
Sandbar took that as an opportunity to run ups its legs and jump onto its remaining eyes, quickly stomping on one until it was a disgusting, shiny mush.
Before he could jump off, though, the spider tensed its legs and extended them, throwing its head back and effectively throwing Sandbar off of it. He grunted loud as he fell, dropping down to the floor and landing on his side. He didn’t get up.
“Sandbar!” Gallus yelled.
The spider ignored the pony on the ground and brought its wounded, agonized attention to Gallus, who was still hovering in the air.
“Oh, crap,” he said.
Giving out another repulsive squeal, the spider backed up into the corner of the hall and crouched down. Then it began to glow.
The stripes of orange on its legs and body shone bright as the spider’s sounds of pain grew louder. All of a sudden, it seemed to calm down, staring blankly at nothing, and then it focused on Gallus, who was on the ground now and was trying to help the dazed Sandbar stand up again.
Gallus watched in horror as the spider’s glow became brighter, and above its carapace a ball of energy began to grow, getting bigger and bigger until it was clear that it was some kind of fire magic.
The giant ball of fire shot towards Gallus and Sandbar—too fast for Gallus to think, much less react, but Sandbar’s cloak was glowing, and he pushed Gallus away from him and lay flat on the ground.
Gallus staggered away and turned around, falling to the ground and covering his head. The ball of fire hit the spot where he and Sandbar had been just moments before, dissipating streams of flame that extinguished upon hitting the stone walls and the webbing stretched over the floor.
“Gaw, I love that cloak!” Gallus yelled, words blending into a manic laugh.
His elation was short lived. The spider was already preparing another fireball.
“Turn the crown up to 11,” Sandbar said.
Gallus did so. He focused on Sandbar’s magical field and poured himself into it, laying his emotions bare for the crown to use as an appropriate channel. He shivered as magic ran cross his body and extended outwards, tethering his own field to Sandbar’s. The connection grew stronger.
Thoughts flowed into Gallus’s mind, like someone was whispering into his ear. It was incoherent at first, but slowly Gallus recognized that the new voice in his mind was Sandbar.
This kind of connection couldn’t be maintained for long. They would have to work fast.
“Get me up there,” thought Sandbar.
Without looking, Gallus knew exactly where and what he meant.
The spider charged another fireball. Gallus unfurled his wings.
The spider shot its ball of flame towards Gallus. Gallus waited until it was nearly towards him before dashing in the other direction, flapping his wings madly. He was in front of Sandbar in seconds, jumping up and wrapping his forelegs around the pony’s middle. He carried Sandbar upwards, towards a specific spot in the ceiling of web, before tossing him towards it.
Clover the Clever’s cloak glowed faintly as Sandbar reached out, managing to tangle his hooves in the web enough to stick. He hung from the ceiling as Gallus caught up to use his talons to rip a hole in the web for him to crawl through.
Then, Gallus darted away, narrowly dodging another round of fire from the giant spider.
On the other side of the web, Sandbar was standing upright. He surveyed his surroundings, looking for anything that could help, anything at all…
Gallus smiled when Sandbar did. The connection didn’t have much longer, but with some luck, they no longer needed any more time.
Good thing that they had luck in spades. The spider skittered across the room to get a better angle on Gallus, and crouched down as it conjured up another ball of fire.
“Come here,” Gallus heard Sandbar think.
He obeyed, flying over to where Sandbar was and angling his body so his claws and paws were on Sandbar’s hooves. They were like two sides of a reflection; Gallus standing upside down on the webbed ceiling, and Sandbar standing rightly on the other side. Perfect sync.
Sandbar’s thoughts flowed into Gallus’s, and together they formed a plan. They stood with bated breath as the ball of fire above the spider got bigger and bigger.
Finally, the spider was ready to attack. Gallus and Sandbar moved, together.
They ran a couple of yards away before the spider fired its shot. They waited for the fire to get closer…
When it was only a few ponylengths away, Gallus pulled himself closer to the web and ripped a hole in it with his talons. As soon as he did, he bundled up the web and pulled hard, widening the hole just enough so—
The fire passed through the webbed ceiling. On the other side, Sandbar watched as it hit a broken column, sending it crashing down.
Gallus and Sandbar ran to the side, narrowly avoiding the long, thick piece of stone as it fell through the webbed ceiling, completely destroying it, and crushed the giant spider under its weight.
A final, dying shriek rang out from the gargantuan arachnid as Sandbar fell from the ceiling, only to be caught by a cheering Gallus.
He flew to where their friends were cocooned and still safe, somehow, and he placed Sandbar down before he sat down to catch his breath.
Sandbar tackled him in a crushing hug.
“You were amazing!” said the pony.
“I’d beg to differ,” Gallus said, squeezing back. “It’s only ‘cause of your cloak that we could pull off any of what we did.”
Sandbar laughed, and so did Gallus, and they laid there on the ground sighing in satisfaction. And they would have stayed like that for a long while were it not for Smolder, lying cocooned a few feet away, burning a hole into them with a furious glare.
Sandbar glanced to her, then looked back to Gallus. “We should probably free the girls, huh?”
“Probably.”
So, reluctantly, Sandbar got off of Gallus and they went to work, ripping open the tight prisons of web that each of their friends were trapped in for what nearly amounted to four hours, altogether.
They started with Yona, who greeted them with strong, crushing hugs, then moved on to Silverstream, who immediately flew into the air and began to regale them with a telling of their battle from her own perspective. After her was Ocellus, who quietly thanked them, and then Smolder, who immediately smacked Gallus upside the head.
“Ow!” he whined. “What was that for?”
“For leaving me there to watch you get all the glory, you jerk!” Smolder snapped. “You could have at least freed me so I could watch over the rest of the girls.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but we didn’t exactly have all day to plan.”
“Oh, you couldn’t have taken the two seconds to figure out that leaving us defenseless was dangerous?”
“Guys?” Ocellus said.
Gallus rolled his eyes. “The monster didn’t even pay attention to you!”
“Yeah, but it could have!”
“Spiders!” Silverstream cheered, landing beside them.
Gallus and Smolder turned to see a live, angry, skittering wave of black heading for them from the hall. There might have been hundreds, but neither could count exactly.
At their sides, their friends stood proudly at their sides, artifacts at the ready. The Sceptre of Mirage, the Helm of Yikkslur, and the Amulet of Aurora all glowed softly as Ocellus, Yona and Silverstream bent down into athletic poses.
Smolder grumbled, having left Knuckerbocker’s Shell back at the cabin.
Gallus felt his crown grow warm, but before he did, he turned to his left, where Sandbar had just happened to turn and look at him as well.
Gallus desperately wished that their connection was still in place. He was sure that no words or actions could describe what he wanted to tell him.
Well, maybe one, quick action, before they rushed off into battle.
Clumsily he sidestepped closer to Sandbar. His face was immediately burning and red, he was sure that he was visibly red despite his coloration. Oh, but what if he didn’t—no, Gallus shook his head. He had to. And then they could never talk about it again if he wanted. He’d probably go for that.
The spiders were nearly to the doorway, now. Smolder was yelling out orders, but Gallus wasn’t listening.
He turned his head and pecked Sandbar on the cheek, immediately turning back, so he didn’t see how Sandbar smiled in response and touched his face.
Gallus engaged the crown and grasped for the magical fields of his friends. One by one he felt connections take place. A laugh rose up from his chest as he tethered to Silverstream. Vindication like he had never felt before made him flap his wings when he got to Smolder. He felt his muscles flex, feeling as strong as they ever had as the crown brought him to Yona, and pure clarity came over his vision as he felt Ocellus’s field.
Then there was that taste. The saltwater taffy kind of taste, and the open, resolute, and safe feeling as Sandbar connected to him, the best for last.
Gallus scuffed his claws on the ground as the spiders came.
Everything would be fine, as long as they were together.
