Valkyrie's Lament

Final day (part IX)

Everyone saw what came before them, they were over a hundred dog sized black hairy spiders. Their thin legs were covered with spikes, their grossly looking eyes swiveled around in unison as they looked from Tenma and then towards the building. Half of their body was a naked human-like creature, while the other half had the body of a tarantula. The human body was distorted, where its top half was facing the end, even running with its opposite end first. Ugly pinchers clacked greedily at the possibility of fresh blood, just looking at them made Silver’s arm have goose bumps.

She wasn’t a fan of spiders, centipedes, and millipedes. She wasn’t afraid of bugs, but these three were her top most hated insects. The reason is simple, the thin gangly legs, especially when it crawled on her body.

“Spiders?!” Tyler gasped in disgust.

“Not any spiders,” said Silver. These types of Arachnids were known for their deadly pincers that could crush a car in half. “Arachne.”

“Silver!” Jasper shouted towards her in a hurry. “The girl!” He pointed towards where Tenma was.

Silver snapped towards his direction and saw the fess pool of spiders, congregating on top of Tenma. They were eating him alive, bones were broken, skin and meat were being ripped through his body in pieces as shrills were sounded off all around him in hysteria. Their mouths were bloodied up with pieces of Tenma in their hands and jaws. Eventually, his voice was silenced as blood pools in his lungs.

Ariel shrieked, she stumbled up on her feet and ran towards the building, pooling behind a large group of spiders with her.

“She's bringing them in droves!” Rose hissed. “We need to stop her!”

“And do what? Kill her?” Tyler harshly spoke towards Rose.

“Well ... .no…”Rose's voice went quiet. She fidgeted.

“Set something on fire! We’re going to throw it at the Arachne!” Silver replied. She raised up her gun, and aimed. The rest of the group scuttled away, running around searching for something to catch on fire.

Ariel ran for her life, she stumbled and tripped as her hands went forward to brace herself. With a horrible thud, she fell forward and rolled a good number of times. Cuts, scrapes, and even more bruises could be seen on her arms and legs.

“Please! Someone save me!” Ariel cried out desperately, tears, snot, and dirt covered all over her face and body.

An Arachne lunged forward with both of its pincer like feet to skewer Ariel in half. She raised up her arm, trying to cover herself from being stabbed. With an aloud squeal, the Arachne legs snapped forward.

A high pierce whistling sound blew past Ariel’s head as the legs were shot through, leaving behind a small hole. Fire burst forth from the hole, appearing outwards like a blazing inferno. The fire licked and crawled upwards so quickly that in under ten seconds, the Arachne was at least covered half way up its body.

The Arachne swayed and thrashed around on the ground, screeching at the top of its lungs. It fell onto its side like a falling tree, trying to stop the burning inferno of fire that seemed to quickly engulf it into flames.

Ariel stared shocked at the burning inferno of fire before her, but even not a moment later, another Arachne came bowling towards her from the side. In fear, she desperately scrambled onto her feet. Her legs dug into the ground as she ran.

Silver kept on shooting the magical fire bullets that she had into her gun. Arachne dropped like flies as Silver kept shooting. Her aim hit true 90% of the time, while the other 10% sparked off the ground, causing the grass to catch on fire. She wasn’t a master in using guns, compared to a sword, but it was enough to do the job that she wanted.

“Hellllll Ppp!” Ariel screamed, she was halfway towards the building.

Silver shot another bullet as it hit the Arachne in the head that was about to jump towards her back, ready to crush her with its pincer. It fell flat onto the ground as it skid across the floor.

“Jasper! Sam! Go downstairs and open the door for her. I’ll keep them back as much as possible, so she can enter!” said Silver as she was concentrating to the best of her abilities. “Sam, don’t run out and kill yourself! There’s way too many out there and you’ll be committing suicide. I don’t want you to die on me!”

“On it,” said Jasper. He grabbed Sam by the air, half dragging him to the door that led downstairs.

“Are you worried about me?” Sam replied back. He tried to shake off Jasper. “Then how about a date when this is all over?”

Silver’s hand lurched forward as she twitched from his outspoken words. The bullet hit squarely at the Arachne on her left, it crumbled onto the ground, bursting into flames and rolled towards Ariel at full speed.

Ariel screeched as she jumped over Arachne's tumble with everything she got. She flew with one leg in front of the other, she landed into a roll and once again pushed up onto her feet, sprinting at full speed.

“What the hell are you saying?” Jasper swore angrily, she was pulling hard with all his might to drag Sam away. “Are you out of your mind?!

Sam snorted, driving his leg into the ground as he held Jasper back with one leg. “I’m serious Silver! You and me tomorrow!”

Silver’s mark went off once again, this time taking another Arachne by its shoulder. A burst of fire erupted on its body, it lurched forward in a frantic flail as it screeched in pain. Ariel skidded to the right, barely dodging out of the burning inferno called Arachne that came at her in a wild frenzy. She had to refocus her attention to shoot it at its body as another burst of flames spewed out from its body.

“I’m not moving from this spot until you say yes!” Sam stood his ground. He even used wind magic to buffer Jasper from pulling him with all his might.

Silver’s cheeks twitched horribly, her quiet mind was disturbed by what Sam had said. “Hurry up and leave Sam.” The words were strained as she forced it out of her lips. “Or I’m going to shoot you instead.”

“It’s a yes then. I’ll come looking for you tomorrow.” Sam replied with an arrogant tone of voice.

“Are you mad?!” Jasper howled. “What about Brianna? How is she going to feel with your stupid outburst? Huh?!”

“She’s mine.”

“Exactly, you freakin player!”

“I’m not a player.” He growled. “I take care of my family, you stupid idiot, she's my half sister.”

“Hah?!” Jasper choked up, completely confused in what Sam had said. Even Silver slipped up in what she had just heard, causing another Arachne to stumble into Ariel’s path.

Ariel was rolling, dodging, and frantically running.

Silver felt really sorry for Ariel, because her hits made her do extra circus acts because of aim. She was starting to get a headache from the two of them, making her wish that they would both just shut up.

“For christ sake, go and open the door!” Silver whipped around, pointing her gun at the two.

“Woah! Woah! Woah! Silver! It’s not that serious!” Jasper rammed into Sam to hurry him along.

Sam held up his hands, staring towards Silver in complete disbelief. “He’s right, you know.”

“I know.” Her words were like ice. She pulled the trigger as a loud bang sound could be heard.

The two jumped in the air. Jasper looks down, searching for any possible holes in his body. Six more continuous shots were heard as Silver continued to shoot. Her aims perfectly hit the running Archness that was getting way too close as they burst into flames.

“Hurry it up!” She commanded the two, she snapped around, dislodge the empty magazine, and fluidly exchanged the old to the new. Both Jasper and Sam disappeared through the door, leaving her behind with the others.

Silver wasn’t the only one firing at the Arachne, Jamie had a long bow in hand as he fired from just as far of a distance as Silver. Even though he couldn’t fire off as rapidly as her, he was able to get just as many monsters to fall down and die.

“Rose, you have fire magic right?” Jamie called out in between his shooting, he stretched back his bowstring and let go as a twang like sound was heard. The arrow flew true to its target, lodging in the head of a Arachne as it reeled backwards dead.

“Yea?” Rose was busily ripping pieces of cloth and creating handmade molotovs. The others were helping her as well, while some were dragging up baskets of basketballs and baseballs.

“Light my arrows please!” Jamie slung his bow to the side, and pulled out a large bundle of arrows. He handed it to her in the hopes that she could do something with it.

“There is nothing to set it on fire.” Rose took the arrows in hand.

“Wrap something around it or douse it with oil!” Jamie got up and shot another arrow through the air. The way he pulled back and let go were all in a graceful motion, allowing him to fluidly move from one to another as he reached to his back to fit another arrow in place.

“Fine.” Rose grabbed a handful, dipped the edge of the majority of the arrows into the oil, coating it. She then sparked off the tip of her finger, and lit half of it. “Here!”

Jamie nodded and quickly replied, “hold it for me.”

“What?! I got more molotov to make!”

Jamie snatched an arrow, fitted it, and fired. “You lit them all on fire. I can’t control something like that!”

Rose was irked by what Jamie had said. “You only asked me to light them up, and I did.”

“I know.” He gritted his teeth and fired again.

Salphie, Brook, Rook, and Brianna rolled in another basket full of sports equipment that they could find.

“We found some more equipment.” Brook stated proudly.

“Yep. Yep. Though this is all there is, in which case it’s bad,” said Rook, shaking his head up and down.

“Really bad.” Brook replied with a nod, finishing his brother’s sentence.

Rook examined from side-to-side and noticed how bad the situation was. Even though Silver and Jamie were putting down a large handful of monsters, they were still surrounded by many more.

Brook reached in and grabbed a baseball, he twirled around and shouted at the same time. “Silver! Move!” He flung as hard as he could. Silver dodged as the Arachne came from behind, the ball hit an Arachne by the face, causing it to lurch backwards and off the side.

“Thanks.” Silver replied, she got up and noticed the Arachnids were coming dangerously closer, especially from Jamie’s side. She couldn’t just turn away from Ariel, especially because they were closely chasing after. It was like as she put down one Arachne another two took its place, though on the bright side, the fallen Arachne will be eaten up by its brethren,slowing them down by a little, but not enough in Silver’s case.

“Keep them back! I can’t keep my eyes off the girl!” She shouted towards the rest of her group that was chucking flaming basketballs and baseball. Honestly it was quite a sight to see, everybody throwing flaming balls over the side, in an attempt to keep the Arachne back.

Silver monitored both sides as best as she could, but she could only do so much. Especially when there was a whole 360 degrees of possible attack, making this very difficult.

Ariel huffed and puffed as she desperately ran towards the building. Jasper and Sam were waiting with the door open, ready to bring her in and push back the Arachne that was trailing after her.

“Run faster!” Sam shouted eager for a clash against the Arachne. Wind started to blow around both his wrist.

“You can do it!” Jasper cried out, motioning to her that she was almost there.

Trails of monsters fell like flies or burst into flames, behind Ariel as their body slammed into the ground. Their horrible clicking was nerve wracking where it sounded off like an annoying cicada like wails.

“Come on!” Sam rushed forward, his hand pulled backwards, pulling with him a large quantity of wind into his hand. When Ariel ran past him, he punched forward and the blast of pent up wind shot forward.

The Arachne that was trailing behind her was thrown backwards into the air, and flew a good distance away. There were a couple where the Arachne escaped the blast and attacked Sam with its pincers and arms.

Sam sidestepped out of the way and did a back elbow hit, digging his elbow into its stomach. A loud crunch of shell breaking could be heard as bug juice squirted out from his arm. He then followed it up with a roundhouse kick, causing quite a devastation of Arachne's skull. Black greenish goo seeped out from the Arachne as he shuffled backwards into his fighting stance.

“Sam! Hurry up and get in!” Jasper yelled as Ariel flew through the doors until she collapsed onto the ground completely winded.

Sam didn’t reply and created a wind sword, he swung with a large overarching slice, causing him to cut a second one without much difficulty. He then turned around, and raced back into the building as Jasper slammed the door behind him. With a hurried expression, he grabbed the broken metal and stuffed it through the door handle.

A loud slam of body against metal could be heard from the other end as the Arachne attempted to break through the door.

“Kyaah!” Ariel shrilled off in horror, when she saw the dent. She curled up into a ball completely in fear.

“Oh for crying out loud. Shut up!” Sam growled, he stepped backwards from the door and roughly grabbed Ariel by the arms. “We need to move and regroup.”

Ariel flinched backwards in fear as she was roughly handled by Sam. Jasper smacked Sam’s hand away, annoyed at Sam’s rough behavior.

“You’re scaring her!” Jasper replied vehemently.

“No time to be courteous. Move!” All three of them scurried up to meet up with Silver.

Silver was glad that Ariel made it safely without getting eaten, what was more surprising was Sam’s power. It wasn’t like last time since she saw him fight with Jasper, she could tell that he had leveled up quite a bit, possibly even bordering between Z+ to and Y- just a few steps back from her. She felt a bit jealous of male’s genes, especially the superior genius ones that took large leaps and bounds with barely much struggle.

Sam and Jasper were both cases of superior genes that she didn’t have. She had to squash her jealousy and made it an effort to keep working harder to grow stronger. There was always a chance the two would bypass her one day, making her frustrated, but even still she pushed back those negative thoughts and attempted to change them into more positive thoughts.

She had more of an edge against the two because of the wealth of information in her head, especially clues on rare items and abilities, sometimes in areas where she could use for her advantage. These were all pluses, giving her the edge she needed. Shaking her head of unwanted thoughts, she focused back onto her task.

The Arachne stormed towards them in one large wave. Her finger was actually getting slightly tired from pressing the trigger repetitively the whole time since the start without cramping up. Very soon, she felt like her trigger finger would start cramping up, even though she took out at least fifty of those spiders.

Even though she single handedly took out fifty by herself, they were still probably more than sixty from the looks of Arachne streaming towards the building. What was worse was the boss monster wasn’t even here yet, meaning she needed to kill faster before the boss monster came storming in and wiped them all out.

Her teeth gritting, she fired point blank range at the Arachne that crawled up the side, blowing up its brain into mush. Her right foot came up and viciously kicked at its body as it burst into flames as it fell down to the side.

The others were fighting back just as furiously as Silver. Brook and Rook were playing ball with the oncoming Arachne’ denting their thick hides as they infused the ball with their magic. It was like seeing a swirl of ice and fire magic perfectly in sync with one another, and each throw they would break through the shell and leave behind a large hole.

Brianna and Tyler were working together back-to-back as they slugged their way full force with metal bats. Tyler would even laced the bats with earth magic, creating a spike up and down the bat itself. While Brianna looked really frustrated in Silver’s view as she bulldozed her way with sheer force. She got a feeling that it might have to do with Sam, but she didn’t attempt to ask. The sound of bats swooping through the air, making a dangerous sound didn’t sit too well with Silver.

Amy, Salphie, and Ren were in a triangular position as they pushed back a couple of Arachne that crawled up the wall. Salphie bravely fought with just a dagger in her hand as she lunged forward and stabbed at Arachne's body. She was then pulled roughly back by Ren who viciously kicked it over the wall.

“What are you doing!?” Ren angrily shouted at his sister. “Stay behind me!”

“I can fight!” Salphie replied with resolve in her heart. “I’m not weak! I’ll get stronger!”

“This isn’t the time!” He hissed, bashing a spider with a metal pipe until it became flat.

“We don’t have time to argue! Even my help will cut down the numbers!” Salphie kicked Arachne in the head as it flipped over. She used the momentum of her forward fall to thrust the blade into its body, causing it to convulse underneath her small body.

When Ren saw his sister kill another spider, he angrily but proudly shouted at her. It was a mixture of fear, pride, and anger for not listening to him but accomplishing something that she would normally never do. “Damn it, Salphie! Fine! Stay close!”

“I know.” Salphie pushes herself up, and gets ready for another.

Jamie and Rose were helping each other out, one lighting up fires and even throwing baseball size fireballs. While Jamie uses his archery like he was some kind of woodland elf who was born into archery. The way he handled the bow was almost superhuman, the fighting technique his musters were a combination of using the bow as a staff and firing it at point blank rage all in one fluid motion.

Silver would love to just watch him fight, but there was no time. What was worse was that she didn’t find Ronfonoso, he was nowhere to be seen in their group. At first confusion filled in her head, then annoyance, followed by confusion again.

Where was Ronfonso? Why wasn’t he here helping out with this mess? Then she felt stupid for even pinning a bit of hope on him in helping with this whole predicament. She should’ve known that Ronfonso wasn’t going to participate in this skirmish, especially when she needed every available person to fight against a swarm of Arachnes. At this rate, they were possibly going to get swarmed.

Then she heard the high whistling screech of the boss monster voice in the darkness. Silver knew then and there, they needed to change plans fast.

“Everyone go towards the first floor, now!” Silver shouted, her finger was repeatedly shooting without a single remorse at her enemies.

Everyone heard her command and started to inch towards the door, covering each other’s back. They all fought their way, trying not to get eaten in between their scuffle. Jamie and Silver were the last ones to the door as they covered the others' backs. Silver shot three Arachne down before it could jump on her. Then she saw the monster that was rapidly running towards them.

Silver knew instantly what monster it was.