The Ball: Part 10 (Spidophile)

 (Click here to read The Ball from the beginning!)

When we last left our heroes, they had been abducted by Mysterious Villains. Plucky had been scooped up and carried away. - Lauren


In which we learn what happened to Plucky:
Plucky had been scooped up by the Avaricious Arachnid, being mistaken for Ben. Quickly immobilizing him with a few strands of spiderweb, she leaped off the roof and swung across the city. Finally, Jazmin let go of the web and fell through the dirty window of a sleazy-looking apartment building in a run-down part of town. The floor of the room appeared black, however the blackness scampered to the corners after her boots touched the ground. Spiderwebs lay thick upon the walls and ceilings, and the number of spiders crowding over the sparse furniture created a spiky coating, mostly black, but with snatches of gold and green here and there. The Avaricious Arachnid dropped Plucky on the floor.

"Did you guys miss me?" she lovingly asked the spiky coating. Immediately a surge of spiders rushed toward the villainess and climbed all over her. She giggled as an orb weaver crawled across her cheek.

"Okay! Get off! That's enough! You too, Harvey. We have a guest!" she turned to Plucky, who had shut his electric green eyes tight against the numerous arachnids swarming over his head.

"Oh, sorry Ben, I forgot that you didn't like spiders." The Arachnid smiled cruelly as the sidekick kicked at the spiders trickling over his shoes.

"B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Ben?" cried Plucky, squirming about on the floor.

"Careful! You'll hurt them!"

"Get get get get get get get them off meeeeee!"

"Fine!"snapped Jazmin  "Shoo!"

The spiders flew to the corners of the room. Plucky stared blankly at the Avaricious villainess who was tenderly petting a Goliath Birdeater Spider.

"Theraphosa blondi." she said. "I named him after you, Ben." She let the spider scamper to the ground, where it stood less than a foot from Plucky's head. As he said nothing, the Arachnid continued.
"Don't worry, he won't eat you. You shouldn't feed mice to tarantulas. This particular species, however, eats cockroaches in captivity, though in the wild it will eat animals from bats to venomous snakes. Now, you're definitely not a snake, and I wouldn't think of you as a bat, but I think I can settle for a cockroach. Do you want to know why?"

"Suuuurrrrreeeee."

"Because cockroaches are annoying little pests who want nothing but sugar and no matter how many times you step on them they get back up and bug you again! They serve no purpose except for food for the SPIDERS!"

Plucky shivered in the web, which was starting to weaken. The theraphosa blondi kept a vigilant watch on him, as if trying to convince itself that the shaking figure before him was in fact a cockroach. Reverting to her Jazmin persona, the Avaricious Arachnid knelt beside the sidekick and looked around the room.

"This was the apartment I grew up in." she gestured to a bed shaped heap of rotten wood, rusty metal, and moldy mattress. "That was the bed I slept in every night. That parking lot was where my school used to be."

"Dooooooooooo you live here any more more more more more more more?"

"Yes. but in a room upstairs. It's nicer than this. With more spiders." she smiled. "The more the merrier."

"Creeeeepy." Plucky wriggled and struggled against the now very weak spiderweb.

"I wish we could be together, Ben." sighed the villainess. "But my ex-husband would probably kill you. Oh, well... know this...Ben..."

The Avaricious Arachnid wrapped her arms around Plucky. In doing so she knocked off his glasses, so when she pulled away she realized

"You're not Ben! Ick! Yuck! Gross! I can't believe I was actually going to kiss you- ew!" she took a few steps back."Ugh! You're not even cute! Where's Ben? I have to take my revenge on him! Ben!"

The Arachnid leaped out of the window, whistling for her spiders, they flooded out of the room in millions, crawling, swinging, jumping, scampering over each other in their hurry to obey. The web around Plucky finally broke, and he dashed to the window. The Avaricious Arachnid was swinging through the graffiti covered buildings followed by a horde of spiders swinging and crawling like a black, demented shadow. It was an awesome sight. Plucky backflipped out of the window and hurried after her, leaping off walls as the spiders headed in the direction of City Hall.

Next time: in which we (finally) learn what happened to Sven!

Read next section: the ball: part 11 (Lauren)