Equestria: Kong's Dominion

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, surrounded the group led by Tailcoatl on all sides. With rifle on their shoulders and machete at hoof, they made their way through the dense vegetation, stepping over logs and rocks. They were now slowly descending a slope.

The air was filled with the buzzing of mosquitoes and sounds of creatures that those following her could not recognize.

In the front row, as said, was Tailcoatl, followed by Comet Trail, then Spike and Fluttershy, all with a weapon, except Jade Finder, who was trying to keep up with them.

The shadows of the trees only let a few rays of the mid-afternoon sun filter through to the leafy ground that crunched under their hoofsteps. The humidity was palpable, making the whole place feel like an oven.

“It’s called the ‘Hollow Faust Theory’, Twilight posited that beneath the surface there is a vast ecosystem inhabited by gigantic creatures…” Spike says, looking tired from having already walked several miles. “She was beginning to theorize about this even before Godzilla showed up.”

“That's why we're here, she needed to understand everything better to avoid destruction by these creatures…” Fluttershy added, also breathing raggedly from exhaustion.

“Although I'm not sure if she expected to meet something like that primate, she wanted to corroborate what many of her colleagues at Luna Nova considered nonsense… Even Starlight came to doubt this, even though her work was highly respected,” The purple dragon continued.

“She believed that this island was an exit point for those tunnels under the earth,” —the yellow pegasus added, while their guide listened attentively— “whatever lives down there, comes out through those, ancient species like this one could live there, unnoticed for millennia.”

Suddenly the lush tropical forest receded to give way to a wide, tall grassland that rose higher than their heads.

“This is Comet Trail, can you hear me? Over,” he tried to talk into the radio.

Static.

“Anyone there?” We're going north, to the extraction point. Over.”

Static.

“Everything here is too calmed. Over.”

Static.

“We’re out of range, soldier, leave it for when we get closer to the group,” his guide intervenes.

Their walk through the grassland gave way to a marsh of low grass and reeds. To the right, still grassland, to the left, a lake with floating log and a couples of herons perched on an islet.

Fluttershy took the opportunity to take a few more photos, fascinated by the rugged landscape around them.

The herons squawked and took flight before the island and the tree trunk began to move and rise from the water, alerting the group, who stopped in surprise.

Comet Trail immediately raised his gun, aiming at whatever was moving, Tailcoatl, on the other hoof, remained still.

From the greenish water emerged a huge bovine, almost thirteen meters tall; an extreme case of island gigantism, Fluttershy would say.

The bovine looked like a cross between a western buffalo and a yak, but extremely oversized, and it did not seem to have the reasoning that its evolutionary cousins on the continent have.

His brown fur was greenish due to the different types of moss, algae and aquatic plants that accumulated on his a body during his long days half-submerged in the island's marshes as an amphibious creature; that islet was his hump, pretty good camouflage I dare say.

The animal had enormous horns on its head, forking into three large branches, from which moss and algae hung.

“Comet, put the gun down…” Tailcoatl calmly tells the thestral, who was about to pull the trigger with his hoof, looking extremely tense.

“Calm down, buddy. We won’t do anything to you,” Fluttershy tried to say to the beast that approached them and was less than twenty meters away, staring at them with that cow-like gaze: slow and analytical at the same time.

His bovine growl further tensed Trail, who was on the verge of firing. Fluttershy, meanwhile, continued to direct kind words at the animal.

“Calm down, soldier, no sudden movements…” Tailcoatl told him, slowly approaching the thestral.

The soldier seemed was trembling.

“Shh. Put the gun down,” she said, almost whispering in his ear.

The animal came closer and closer, now less than ten meters away. Comet Trail closed one eye to aim.

The bovine was chewing the cud and was now looking at these new visitors with an inquisitive look. It blew steam from its huge nose and continued to chew the cud.

“Stay still, let's calm down,” Tailcoatl said calmly as she approached the soldier, while Fluttershy smiled at the animal.

Tailcoatl slowly raised an arm, placing her hoof on the barrel of Trail's rifle, who was extremely restless.

“Put your gun down, it's alright.”

The nervous thestral slowly complied with this order as his guide continued to tap the barrel with her hoof.

Fluttershy, now calm, took a couple of photos of that majestic bovine specimen.

The animal, calm and ruminant, softened its inquisitive gaze and slowly turned around, turning its back on them to continue with its day back in the water.

The group was finally able to let out a breath in relief.

Fluttershy said goodbye to the animal before the group continued on their way.

The shovel dug into the pile of loose earth, next to it a large mound containing several pilots and soldiers' helmets and two pairs of boots each, but not their rifles, those will be useful.

The minute of silence is over.

“These soldiers, our friends, did not die here in vain,” Peakard told the small contingent accompanying him in the impromptu funeral rites for their comrades, paying them their last respects; Twilight and Windy Claw watched from a distance, thoughtful.

“And I swear by Aris, that their deaths will not go unavenged,” The Major announced, causing his soldiers to look at him somewhat doubtfully.

Major Phin Peakard put his campaign cap back on.

“We needa find Trotland and the ammo, let's go.”

The thick jungle has now given way to a lush bamboo forest. A labyrinth of tall stems rustling in the wind, disturbing to say the least.

Peakard and Twilight at the head of the formation, scattered among the tall, thin green and yellow stems.

Behind them, the soldiers, with weapons drawn and pointing in all directions, looking up and down.

“Feel a whole lot like the place we just left,” Zash interjects.

“What do you mean?” Windy Claw says, almost whispering, his heart was deeply terrified by this place.

“Naugdaw, into crap.”

“I don’t belong here” —the hippogriff said, even more restless— “I’m a civilian.”

The zebra paused for a moment and turned to the hippogriff.

“Y'know what a civilian is, Mr. Claw?” He said, taking the second rifle from his back and handing it to him. “Just a soldier without a gun.”

The hippogriff took the rifle without a word as the zebra walked away.

“Great, I’m a civilian with a gun.” As he analyzes the AR rifle in his claws, resuming his pace. “This thing even shoot?”

“Sure zing,” Thrax said, whispering to himself.

The green camouflage helmets blended in perfectly with their surroundings, some had written messages, others had mesh over them, and one or two had an ornament.

The group meandered through the stems, birds singing in the background, creating an echo among the bamboo.

“You ever heard sie story of sie mouse, ze lion, und sie thorn?” the changeling asked his hippogriff companion.

"Yeah."

“Zere you know that, in case vee see ze primate again.”

“You do know that the story is about the mouse making friends with the lion because he took the thorn out of his paw, right?"

“Nein…” Thrax says, stopping. “Sie maus kills sie lion vith sie thorn.”

Rain Docker stared at him confounded, swatting a mosquito on his cheek.

“Who told you that?”

“Mein hive's queen,” he said seriously, resuming his pace.

Docker stared at him a few seconds more, and resumed his pace.

“That actually explains a lot.”

Suddenly the birdsong fell silent, leaving the place in a deathly silence.

The forest was now silent.

A soldier, a unicorn, opened his canteen and began to drink from it, looking up. But he saw something terrifying.

The sound was swift, like an arrow striking the ground at terminal velocity. The canteen fell to the ground, spilling the precious liquid inside.

Everyone heard it and slowly turned back.

Twilight turned around too and her stomach sank at the sight.

The soldier had been impaled from snout to neck by a bamboo stalk, his body motionless, a look of terror in his lifeless eyes still there.

Windy Claw turned green with nausea, while Twilight, containing herself, looked up, following the bamboo stalk that had stuck into the ground.

Seven meters above the ground was a huge, colossal arachnid that emitted a clicking sound that reminded the alicorn a lot to Manehattan.

Eight long legs that raise an enormous cephalothorax, eight eyes, small capillaries and two large extremities, pincers.

Her heart began to beat faster.

They all saw the same thing above their heads, bewildered and terrified by it.

Suddenly the impaled soldier rose slightly from the ground as the trunk of that bamboo rose and pulled out what was once his spinal nerve, trachea and jaw, leaving him inert on the leafy ground.

That was definitely not a bamboo.

Suddenly the spider's legs began to stomp here and there, putting everyone on alert, trying to avoid the arthropod's sharp limbs.

Confusion spread like wildfire, and therefore, chaos.

They all zigzagged, avoiding the legs.

Thrax was the first to fire his AK rifle, a souvenir from Naugdaw, at the creature above his head.

Twilight casts a few spells as well, but this only enraged the creature, who was now screeching.

Anyone with a gun shot at the spider.

The spider continued to attack, sending out tentacles that attached themselves to Rain Docker's uniform, quickly lifting him off the ground.

Zash tried to take him, but it was too late, he was already too high.

Writhing, the hippogriff pulled out his combat knife and desperately began to cut away at the tentacles climbing up him.

“Hold on!” Thrax said, pointing at the tentacles, but it was either hit the tentacles or hit his friend. He chose not to.

"Ich cannot get a shot!"

Docker looked at the arthropod's pincers and fangs that came closer, he cut off everything he could, but remained stuck.

On the ground, Thrax kept trying to shoot at those tentacles, but it was in vain; however, he saw the spider's leg move next to him and he had an idea.

“Cut ze legs! Cut zem off!”

They quickly unsheathed their machetes and knives, Twilight continued trying to hit the target with the spells between the trees.

One severed leg after another, bleeding a viscous liquid, the spider lost its balance, but continued to attack, launching its legs like arrows at the creatures below.

Zash leapt towards and narrowly avoided one of the limbs, but it rose again and lunged at him.

He managed to dodge it as well, taking out his machete and cutting it with a clean blow.

Docker watched as the claws and fangs of this thing came towards him.

Leg after leg was cut off.

Desperate, he managed to free himself from the tentacles with his knife, falling to the ground hard, but still alive.

The soldiers then fired again at the cephalothorax, and also at the opisthosoma, wounding the arachnid.

The insect bled out, dripping a reddish, viscous liquid onto Docker below.

The spider collapsed to the ground, Docker got moved from the spot by his changeling companion just in time.

“Hab dich!”

The spider's belly hit the floor first, then its cephalothorax.

The eight-eyed red creature makes clicking noises and tries to move, but without its legs it doesn't get very far.

Peakard came up from the side and pulled out his gun and with eyes full of rage fired five bullets into the arthropod's head, finishing it off once and for all.

It was over.

The grassland outside the bamboo forest was quiet, everyone present was quiet and thoughtful, most probably traumatized.

Docker, one eye red from an ocular hemorrhage, looked up at the sky, exhausted. The hippogriff was tired, and viscous.

Thrax, the changeling, still bruised and cut with his green blood, removed his helmet and turned to the ground and sighed in relief as he put his hooves on his head and meditated.

Zash, with uncertainty in his expression, looked at his Major while sitting in the tall grass.

Twilight's nausea had subsided, but she could never get that image out of her head, she sat for a while with a thousand-yard stare.

She wanted to go for her friends, she wanted so much to go and find them, but remembered that, in this jungle is a death sentence to walk alone.

She could just hope and pray they were OK, hopefully Tailcoatl is guiding them.

Peakard, a veteran of a thousand battles, was already accustomed to this, he was just standing there letting them rest for a minute, his only thought was revenge right now.

The alicorn's thoughts were interrupted by the Major.

“Snap it, let's move,” he announced.