The monstrous spider began to move towards Fayth in a lazily, slow manner. As it did, its form rippled and shifted as its four of its eight legs retracted back into its hideous body. The two front legs pushed and heaved itself upright onto its hind legs, with the long hairs on all four remaining legs growing shorter and revealing paled skin underneath. The same was happening to the body and its shape decreased to half its size as the enormous abdomen and spinnerets shrunk and disappeared into the now naked body. A lump formed around the eyes and swelled up until it vaguely resembled the shape of a human head. Long, brown hair grew from it in a wavy length, as the multiple eyes shifted into two rough bumps, which opened to reveal dark hazel and very human eyes. As the last stages of his transformation were completed, a creepy smile stretched across the person’s face, and the identity of their adversary was finally revealed to Fayth.
Danny Crumpus.
“I don’t like it when you keep me waiting…”, Danny purred as he stopped and stood in front of Fayth in his human form. There were several arachnids and insects upon his naked body, but they stayed there as if they knew that his skin was safe to be on. “I was worried that you weren’t going to show. But I knew you would. You wouldn’t leave your poor friend all alone, would you?”
Annoyance stirred within as Fayth remained helpless in her frozen and silent state, but it was not enough to loan her the strength to break free. She watched as the little man waffled on about something, and her mind connected it to the other times that Danny had tried to hit upon her at the university library without much success. The same creepy smile, the same egotistical attitude where only he mattered in this life, and the same perseverance of his attempts to impress and woo her. Fayth had at first kindly declined Danny’s offers of dates, but he kept coming back to her, with more unusual endeavours until she had to report him for harassment at work. However, she should have at least suspected that that wouldn’t be the last she would see of him; now he held her and her friends captive, all because he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“…and here we are. Let us seal the deal of our new relationship with a kiss…”. Danny leaned forwards and planted his chapped lips onto hers. He tried to force his tongue to part her lips, but thankfully, they were firmly sealed shut from the mental and physical paralysis.
Anger and hatred started to seethe when Danny’s dried lips touched her own and Fayth could do nothing but watch in revolt at the violation of her body. Fiery rage erupted in waves even though he had failed to use his tongue to gain entry into her mouth. But that hot wrath flowed through her and began to melt some of the malicious glee that froze her, and she could feel parts of her mind beginning to thaw.
There were loud stomping sounds coming from behind Danny, who had a pained expression flashing across his face with each stomp. The little man quickly turned his head behind him and Fayth looked past the tiny man to find that her companion was trying to fight back. Despite his height and physical build, the many spiders had started to weave webs around Travis, who was struggling to move or speak freely against it. However, they were not quick enough to completely restrict his every movement, so Travis lashed out at the arachnids and crushed some of them with either his big hands or large feet. Each splatter of several spiders brought about a momentary victory, but the void of space was quickly replaced by a new set of spiders. The arachnids were endless as more and more of them crawled from the weak webbing on the floor, but Travis continued to desperately battle with them.
“YOU! So you are the one who has been hurting my beauties!”, Danny cried out. He turned around completely and sluggishly staggered towards the tall man, and his body began to transform into another monstrous form. With Danny’s focus elsewhere, the malicious glee slowly eroded and Fayth’s own fury aided in dissipating the emotional energy that pinned her down. Her thoughts trickled back and her mind cleared itself as if she had awoken from a groggy naps. External sensations came back to her, and she picked up on something unusual….
By now, Danny had assumed the form of a gigantic praying mantis and he stopped in front of Travis, who continued with his never-ending war against the arachnids. The huge mantis lashed out with its newly formed front legs in a blur and plucked the man from the web bindings, lifting him up to face its head. Sharp spikes dug into the fleshy area between Travis’ chest and arms, who reacted by shaking and letting out a muffled, webbed scream in pain. Spiders continued to wriggle among his body, but they soon started retreating back to Danny via the mantis legs grasping the tall man.
“You are a pain!”, Danny screeched loudly in that unnatural sound again. “I wondered how you managed to bypass the sentries…No matter. You won’t live for much longer!”. It started to bring Travis closer and closer until his head was an inch away from the deadly mandibles parting open.
However, a large cluster of spiders quickly crawled up onto the mandibles and darted into its mouth, while other clusters spun a thin cocoon to bind the jaws together. More clusters moved in on reinforcing the webbing and some had started webbed the rest of Danny, with more spiders on the ground marching their way up his mantis legs to join the binding.
“Huh…what?”, a confused and muffled screech emitted from Danny’s mutated mouth. “What are you doing? My beauties…”
Release him, echoed a powerfully thought within both of their minds. It resonated with an authoritative tone that demanded the attention of both men to turn their heads at the owner. They were met by Fayth and her hand outstretched towards them, while she was on her other hand and knees. She was visibly shaking from the effort, but she kept her eyes intensely fixed upon them. A large cocoon of webs was being dragged towards her by clusters of large spiders, and the face of her unconscious friend poked out through a fragile layer of the webbing. The spiders that had clung to her body had scuttled off and joined the rest of the clusters moving towards Danny. “I said, release him”.
At that command, the spiders all over Danny simultaneously stopped in motion and began to attack him with their fangs. Their former master cried out in pain as they bit into him in all places, which caused him to release and drop Travis to the ground. Danny began to swat the spiders away from his monstrous mantis body; desperate to end the torment while taking care not to harm any of his “beauties”.
“Ho-how are you doing this?!”, Danny screeched in surprise.
Fayth didn’t answer as she focused upon the psychic link between Danny and his arachnids and insects. It took most of her concentration as her mind was immersed within that mental channel and she sent her own commands to the bugs while warding off Danny’s orders. She was also trying to not lose herself again as the connection itself was driven by that malevolent joy from Danny himself. Though his attention had been distracted with Travis before, Fayth now faced the mad will of Danny Crumpus. It was vastly overpowering and she could barely manage to keep his creepy crawlers at bay from her and her friends.
Danny let out a screeching sound that vaguely imitated a cackle, as he regained control of the insects and once more sent them scurrying towards Fayth and her friends. Fayth gasped as she lost the mental battle, but the fear she felt radiating from Travis and her desire to protect her friends urged her to renew her efforts. Despite her already tired state of mind, she grudgingly sank back into the roaring currents of Danny’s will. Instead of employing the same tactic of building a dam to block off his commands to the bugs, she swam upstream towards his exposed mind. It was tough and Fayth was nearly swept away several times, but the solid force of her own loathing towards Danny made her will relentless and unyielding. When she finally reached Danny’s mental barriers, it only took her a second to plunge through with the intent to lay waste to his pathetic mind.
