Family Begins With You

by Jmaster49

Arc VII Episode V: Creepy Crawlers!

“Ugggh…” Pinkie groaned as she hit the ground. She didn’t go through the glass, but it had left her with a severely injured back. “Owowowow….can’t…move…” That’s when she realized…

Her geode had popped clean off her neck from the impact, so she couldn’t make use of her explosive abilities.

Pinkie’s coworkers rolled out to see what was wrong and picked her up off the ground.

“Pinkie!” one of the ladies cried out as they both picked her up, “Are you alright? What happened?!”

Moments later, the entire restaurant’s worth of patrons had run out to the front of the building to see what had happened--Tiara and Keiji included.

“What’s going on?!” Now wearing regular shoes instead of skates, Sonata squealed as she ran out and looked down at the injured, and temporarily paralyzed Pinkie, “Who did this to you, Pinkie? Where are they?!”

Pinkie coughed a few times and weakly pointed a finger down the street. “S-spider…l-lady…m-monster!”

“You’re hurt, Pinkie. C’mon,” her other coworker had grabbed her geode off the ground, “We’ll take you inside.”

“N-no! M-monster!” Pinkie sputtered aloud in a panic as she kicked her legs, “She’s here!”

Everyone looked up…

Clickclickclickclick--

And sure enough, a giant spider-like creature rounded the corner. Its legs were the length of human bodies, and its abdomen was the size of a car! However, the key difference was that unlike regular spiders…

This one was part human.

More specifically, the torso of a human woman was present where its mouth normally was. A spider “monster-girl” so to speak. However, unlike most humans, this spider lady’s face eerily lacked normal eyes and instead had spider-like eyes all around the side of her head with nothing but a mouth visible on the front of her face.

Needless to say, everyone was reasonably scared shitless--immediately flung into a panic.

“AHHHHHHH!”

The crowd of patrons immediately tried to fan out and run off in various directions. That is, until…

SWISH!

A wall of thick webbing was generated from the spider monster, creating a wall that was impossible to pass through and locked off the streets to prevent escape.

By now, Pinkie was in too much pain to speak, let alone fight back. But you know who was ready to fight back?

“I got this!” Sonata stood in between the crowd and the arachnid creature with her hands sparking, and looked back at her coworkers. “Tip Top, Sunny--get Pinkie and everyone else back inside. I’ll handle this.”

The two women weren’t in a position to argue. They started to usher everyone back inside the building as quickly as possible.

However, someone wasn’t moving…

“...Keiji?” Diamond Tiara turned her head when she realized her classmate wasn’t beside her, “Keiji what are you doing?!” she ran up to him and attempted to pull him by his arm, “This thing is dangerous! Do you wanna die?! C’mon!”

But the boy had been staring down at the ground the entire time, hiding his eyes from her. Out of nowhere, he yanked his arm away, and gave her a command, “Get back inside. Now.”

“But--!”

“Now,” he repeated himself, “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’m more than capable of handling myself…but this hideous thing looks too strong for Sonata to handle alone.”

“...”

At the same time, while they were talking, Sonata had shot a few bolts of electricity from her hands at the spider while running to the left. “Over here ya big bug bimbo!”

…But each and every one of her bolts were blocked by web-like shields that appeared in front of the arachnid behemoth. It was ineffective to the point where she mocked Sonata by pretending to yawn.

“W-what?! It’s not working?!”

SWISH!

More webbing was shot out from one of the spider lady’s legs, which bound Sonata in a sticky gray substance.

“Grrrh! Can’t…break…out!” she grumbled while struggling against the webs.

“...” Tiara shot a vacantly fearful look in Sonata’s direction whilst slowly backing away. Her body trembled as she moved. “...D-don’t die, alright?”

He flashed a toothy grin beneath his hidden expression. “You should be more worried about her than me…” He then looked over at the spider lady and shouted. “Hey you! The eight-legged floozy!”

“Ghhh…!” Sonata had shut her eyes, flinching as she did everything in her power to look away--even as long, thick globs of drool landed upon her face. “Don’teatmedon’teatmedon’teatme….!”

The spider lady had opened her mouth wide over Sonata’s head with spider-like pincers protruding through her cheeks as she prepared to feast upon the girl. But the voice of the boy had distracted her.

“...Unh?” she turned around to face him.

“You’re encroaching on my turf…” He placed his left hand over his face while tilting his head upwards. Only one of his eyes were visible through his fingers as he started smiling with an unstable, sadistic expression. “You’d better leave now before things get ugly…”

Her attention was fully focused on the boy now, which enabled Sonata to start focusing on freeing herself from the webbing.

Meanwhile, the arachnid monster started to speak! “...Foolish human morsel. I do not answer to food.”

“In that case…” Keiji’s silver hair slowly became a shade of blood-red as he pressed his palm against his face. “Just don’t die before I tell ya to.” Once his hair color changed, he raised his hands into the air, and pulled something out of what appeared to be a black hole. It was…a katana?! But not just any katana, it matched the exact same red color that he had just changed his hair to.

“You…you’re from royal family of royal bloodsucker ponies…” the arachnid lady commented as soon as she saw him pull the sword out of nowhere.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” Keiji replied in a snarky tone as he rested the katana’s dull side over his left shoulder--holding onto the hilt with his left hand. “But I’m gonna give you one last chance’ta back away. Unless you wanna get the shit kicked outta you,” he went on with the widest grin he could muster, stalling purposefully to allow Sonata extra time to escape her bindings.

Meanwhile, the patrons who had holed themselves up in the restaurant were staring in awe at what they witnessed.

Diamond Tiara in particular had started to piece together the conversation she had been having with Keiji over the course of their friendly chat moments ago. “...Is he…is that made of…oh my god. I don’t know if that’s gross or badass.”

“You are a tyrant like your parents,” the spider lady continued as she began to charge at the boy--all of her legs clickclack-ing against the road with thunderous weight. “You cannot enforce your rule upon me in this world, monster!”

“Wait for it…” Even in the face of the dangerous arachnid creature, Keiji remained unnerved, peerless even. “Sheesh. Look in the mirror lately? If that ain’t the furnace calling the fireplace hot I dunno what is.”

The jeering remarks landed their mark. His arrogant tone visibly annoyed the spider woman as she launched several large, car-sized globs of yellow-ish-white, puss-like venom from her mouth in his direction.

SPLAT!

But he blocked each one with a shield that was red, crystalline in structure…and dripping. “Is that all you got?” he snarked once more, “Look. I don’t even know who you are, but you’re boring the hell outta me. Why don’tcha piss off somewhere else and we can--” But as soon as he got rid of the shield… “What the--?!”

The arachnid lady was gone.

SLICK!

“Woah!”

Keiji narrowly avoided another ball of spittle that was fired from above. He looked up to see that she had climbed onto the side of the nearest building and was attacking him from up there.

And as he would find out, that’s where she was most comfortable…

“RISE!”

From the spittle that had landed upon the ground, dozens upon dozens of smaller spiders emerged. While they were smaller than the spider queen herself, they were still rather large--clocking in at the size of dogs! Keiji soon found himself surrounded on all sides by what appeared to be a hundred of them.

“...So this is the power of the Arachne Ogumo…” he thought to himself, “Guess I’ll have to take this seriously.”

Comments

[Natedogg2006]

I think you arc numbering went a little wonkey at some point.

[Natedogg2006]

11082593
I think he might actually have to feed on someone for her to get it at this point. At least where I'm up to, I'm a couple behind.

[Jmaster49]

11083235
Thanks for pointing that out lol. I forgot the extra "I" for 7 because I've been tired lately.

[Jmaster49]

11083240
Oh dear. Well, you'll see how crazy things are about to get.

[Natedogg2006]

11083270
Another great anime: princess jellyfish. Guy dresses as a girl for fun, enters a house meant only for women by accident. In the early episodes they're so worried about the others in the house realizing he's a guy, but as time goes by it becomes apparent they likely won't. To the point where I personally believed he could tell them he is and they wouldn't believe. He'd literally have to slap his junk down on the table for them to realize. That's the vibe I was getting.

[Jmaster49]

11083288
LOL. That sounds hilarious. Well, if you keep going, you'll see how things turn out.

Also, how do you like Tiara and Keiji's dynamic with each other?

[Natedogg2006]

11083293
Interesting is all I can say for now. Enough that I want to see where it goes.