Three: Dick

Pied Piper never really lives up to the allusion of his name; Kid Flash had never seen Hartley drive a pack of rats out of Central City and had certainly never watched the rogue drown a group of children.

Today, Wally decides, is the closest Piper has ever come to being the character from the fairytale.

The swarming legion of spiders clump together as they attack.

Wally counts the different kinds of arachnids. He rattles of the scientific names for each of the present species to an uninterested Robin as the insects attempt to overwhelm them. Robin moans as a black and red spider mutates and grows into the size of a frog.

The closer the zombie spiders get to the radioactive ore which Pied Piper is attempting to steal (and could get away with if things keeping going his way) the more the spiders shift and grow into unstoppable beasts.

"I hate spiders," Robin yells as he punches the largest one of the crowd in its bulgy eyeballs. This particular spider is about the size of a goat; however, as it bounds onwards towards the glowing rock despite the three eyes Robin has mushed in, it begins to transition into the size of a dairy cow.

Wally stops to watch this miraculous birth of a new species.

Of course, it would be more amazing if the event wasn't sullied by the fact that this spider is only a new species because of the icky to think about fact that a cow sized spider cannot mate with a normal sized spider.

"You can't hate spiders, Rob," the redhead insists. Kid Flash acts like a bull fighter and tricks the cow spider into splattering against a cinder-block wall.

Robin, noticing how not one pitching bite mark or gooey fleck of spider guts cover the speedster's skin, can't help but think that Wally's opinion is frightfully uninformed.

Besides, Kid Flash's love for the little buggers (or cow sized or maybe soon to be mammoth sized as the army advances closer to the ore) isn't very convincing when he declares his affection between smashing and squishing the animals into nothingness.

"And why," Robin says while he attempts to extricate his foot from a sticky web without losing a boot, "is that?"

Robin gives in and pulls a switchblade from his belt as a spider closes in on him. He makes a deep swipe and cuts the boot from his foot. He tumbles backwards from the web as his foot dislodges. Kid Flash catches him as he falls. Robin eyes his shoeless foot warily and grumbles.

Wally laughs and gives Robin the look that means that he thinks the younger boy is just adorable when he pouts. Robin scowls so KF cheers up his friend by honoring the bro code and removing one of his own shoes from his foot. Robin blinks as Kid promptly trips and falls into a puddle of spider gore when he pulls off his boot.

Robin laughs and gives Wally the look that means that he thinks the older boy is just adorable when he messes up.

Wally, after returning to his mismatched feet, answer Robin's question.

"Because they're beautiful specimens of the world's diversity," he proclaims as he opens his arms wide as if to embrace his spider friends in a bear-hug.

"That's not a good enough reason; you got another one?"

"Well, they match your hair just beautifully when you wear them that way, Mr. Beau." Kid Flash points to the furry, brown spider that Robin currently wears as a hat.

"Wear them like wha-!" Robin leaps into the air as the spider crawls around his hair. He lets out a grapple line and pulls himself up and out the sky light.

"Well, if you love these things so much, you can go deal with them yourself, Kid," Robin yells down from his safe distance. "I'm going to go beat up their zombie master."

The newly mutated mammoth sized spiders attack their solidarity target. Robin watches the yellow and red costume become lost beneath a legion of hairy legs with pleasure.

Wally really is beautiful when he's the one getting bitten for a change.