The Ball: Part 12 (Spidophile)

 (Click here to read The Ball from the beginning)

When we last left our hero, he was leading the charge against the supervillains of New Spork City. An epic battle had then ensued. And I do mean ensued. - Lauren

From every side and corner came cries of "Take that!" and "Ouch!".  


Dor raised his umbrella over the head of Poki, who stopped it with a spell. Cap'n Cino hurled his coffee cup at the Red Herring's fish-like head as the villain reached for his gun. A legion of Cronybots and the Echobeast (Echo's pet monster) attacked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Zombie Vampire Dinosaur Spies and Edgar Oscar. 


Plucky pounced and pummeled IDK, who seized the hyper teen by the neck. Dr. Spork tore down the length of the room pursued by the Avaricious Arachnid and a flood of spiders.  Scab Berto drew two knives from his scabbed arms and lunged at Professor Excalibur, who deflected them with her flashing blade.  


Cassandra sank her fist into an attacking Brown Recluse's stomach. Sven saw Puerto strike back. 

"Cassandra!" he shouted. He started toward her but an explosion threw him off his feet. 


Head reeling, he launched a spoon in the direction of his attacker. It missed the Clementine but startled the villain long enough for Sven to regain his senses. His next spoon did not miss. His nemesis keeled over on the ground, out cold. 


Sven looked around wildly for Cassandra and saw Chief Captain Leif Captin struggling through the crowd to aid her. Spoon Suit Man did likewise and, as he came nearer, he couldn't help thinking how pretty she was when she was furious and desperate. 


At that moment Cap'n Cino gave the Herring a hard uppercut, causing the villain's gun to misfire and hit the ceiling. A crack spread across the sheet rock and pieces of the ceiling began to crumble, causing chunks to rain on the battle below. 


Puerto Estera Blake had succeeded in throwing the helpless Cassandra to the floor. He aimed his short-range gun at the lawyer.

"Adiós, señorita!" he laughed, and a large chunk of ceiling cracked down on his head. An insane smile lit up the villain's face and he slumped, senseless, to the floor. 


Cassandra had barely finished heaving a sigh of relief when a piece of rock struck her temple and everything went black. Sven was grappling with some minions when he heard an ear-splitting crack from above and an enormous section of the ceiling caved in. A door-sized piece of sheet rock plummeted down toward the unconscious woman on the ground.

"IIINNNNGGGAAA*!" squawked Sven, wresting free of the minions and diving toward Cassandra. He could decide on only one course of action. 


Cassandra awoke seconds later and saw Sven standing over her, a door-sized piece of sheet rock held above his head.

"Hey," she said blearily.

"This is really heavy," Sven informed her. His whole body was trembling from the effort of holding it up.

"Oh! Sorry!" Cassandra scrambled out of the way and Sven dropped the rock. Falling on his knees on the huge stone slab, he panted as sweat ran down his face. Cassandra threw her arms around his neck.

"Sven! That was so-" she began.

"Stupid!" gasped Sven.

"Well, I was gonna say heroic and/or romantic, but yeah, that works."

"I think I broke a muscle," moaned Sven.

"You can't break a muscle."

"Well I did!"

Ben raced by, pursued by a mob of spiders and by the Arachnid herself, who was urging them on. He had been running for over five minutes and was getting tired. 


The Avaricious villainess saw this and commanded her spiders to surround her prey. Ben panicked as the arachnids closed in on him, causing him to do the stupidest thing one could possibly imagine. He ran to the corner. 


The spiders scuttled speedily at the sweating sidekick. Ben felt ready to faint. 


Jazmin Blake leaped toward him with a look of savage delight but before she could touch him a foot in a white boot shot out, knocking her out of the air. The Avaricious Arachnid lay dazed on the floor.

"Get up, Arachnid! Get up so I can floor you again!" taunted the White Spinster. Jazmin struggled to her feet and faced the Spinster.

"You?" she scoffed. "I'm way taller than you!"

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!"

"It's different with spiders!"

"Because spiders can be crushed!"

"Spiders are too quick for you to crush them!" 


Sven, who was watching, rolled his eyes.

Before the Arachnid could move, the Spinster drew her bat and slammed it against her opponent.

"Apparently not," she said, smiling.

"Ready to give up?" she asked the Arachnid, who was laying on her back on the floor.

The villainess raised her head a bit. "Ack!"

"Ack?" asked Spinster, "Seriously, is that the best you can do?"

The Avaricious Arachnid lay back contentedly as spiders poured toward the White Spinster, who reached for her grenade. Then she stopped herself. Too many people around. Actually at a loss for ideas, she saw Dor strike Poki, temporarily stunning him.

"Dor!" she yelled.

"Be you friend or foe?" asked the rain god.

"Friend! And I need you to bring the rain!"

"Aye!" he shouted, and opened his mighty umbrella. 


His winged sandals carried him to the roof, where at his command rain began rushing in through the caved-in ceiling. The water caught up the spiders and carried them out the door, along with every pretzel in the room. The flooding ceased when Poki regained his senses and wanted to continue his battle with Dor. 


Everybody and everything was soaked, but the spiders were gone.

"Noooooooooooooooo!" shrieked a recovered Avaricious Arachnid and lunged at the White Spinster with a poisoned dagger in her hand. 


Suddenly, she gasped as Ben stuck his stethoscope on her back and activated it. As she fell to the floor, the Spinster rushed over to Ben and gave him a hug.

"Thanks, Ben!" she said happily.

"Who are you?" asked Ben.

"It's not who you are, but what you do that defines you," she said and ran off to join the battle.

"Bruce?" said Ben, confused.


Next up: Chief Captain Lief Captin tries to stop the battle.


Read the next section: The Ball: Part 13 (Lauren)