"Go get the book."

"No!"

"Maes, go get the book."

"You go get it!"

"I'm ordering YOU to do it, so do it!"

"Roy, you're not seeing the problem here!"

"And the problem is…"

"There's a spider on the bookshelf."

Roy actually had to stop and digest that. A spider. Maes Hughes, a man who had lived through a fucking WAR, was afraid of a spider. If his mind wasn't already broken by his idiotic henchmen, this surely would have broken it. Ever so slowly he said, "So…You're afraid…Of a spider?"

"This isn't just any spider," Maes said enthusiastically, "This is the evil spider of death! Or something. I don't know. But it was big. And hairy. And it looked like it wanted to jump on me."

All Roy could do was sigh. He put up with this man on so many occasions. Why did he have to deal with a fear like this? "If I catch the spider and take it outside, will you calm down and get the book?"

Maes nodded. Roy grabbed a coffee mug off of a nearby table (empty, thankfully) and a piece of paper. Maes moved over to the side of the room, well out of the pathway that Roy would be taking to get the spider outside. He stayed away, but watched intently as Roy moved to go capture the spider. If that thing escaped, he wanted to be ready to run.

It turned out to be difficult to get the spider into the cup. It just didn't want to move in the direction Roy wanted it to move. Apparently, up, left, and right were all acceptable paths, but down (into the cup) was not. He used the piece of paper to try to poke the spider into the cup, and that's when trouble stuck.

As Roy was poking it with the paper, the spider jumped onto his face. Roy let out a scream so horrible that it could wake the dead, and he dropped the cup and paper and swatted at his face in an attempt to get the spider off. Luckily the spider fell off pretty quick, and it landed on the floor and scuttled back to the bookshelf. Roy, seeing the spider on the bookshelf again, ran to the other side of the room to join Maes in his panic. "Didn't I tell you," Maes said, "Didn't I tell you that it would jump on someone?!"

Now the two men were in trouble. The door was on the other side of the room, by the spider. They were pretty much trapped until someone came along and got rid of the spider. Maes was too scared to do anything, and Roy didn't want to provoke the spider anymore. So they just stood there, terrified of a little spider. "You were right," Roy said, "Spiders do jump."

"You see, this is why you shouldn't doubt me," Maes said, "I'm wise and all-knowing. That spider is definitely evil."

Roy nodded in agreement. "I should burn it."

He raised his hand to snap his fingers, but Maes stopped him. He grabbed a hold of his hand and said, "No, don't do that! You'll burn the books!"

At that exact moment Riza walked into the room. Both men noticed her quickly, and they yelled out, "Look out for the spider!"

Riza looked confused. "What spider?"

Then she looked around and saw the spider on the bookshelf. With a sigh she raised her hand and swatted at the spider, crushing it. Then she grabbed a towel off a nearby table and wiped her hand off. "There. The spider has been taken care of. Please go back to your work."

Riza grabbed a file off the shelf. She paused at the door and said, "Also, I suggest you keep personal relationships out of the workplace," before she left.

Roy and Maes stared at the doorway for a moment. Then, at the same time, they slowly looked at each other, then down. Maes was still holding onto Roy's hand. They both quickly let go and jumped to opposite sides of the room, acting as if nothing had happened, though both of the men were noticeably pink in the face now.