Chapter 20:
Joseph stared intently at the well oiled leather-clad musclebound, no doubt because the sight brought back some rather unpleasant memories. Protoman was kneeling near the entrance, guarding against further intrusion. Kakashi, being a damn ninja, was nowhere to be seen. Solaire himself was rather difficult to locate, at least until the thunderous noises of his high speed descent made his approach apparent. Looking up in horror, Randy found the knight of sunlight crashing down in a fearsome divekick. Dodging out of the way, Randy thought he had escaped the attack, though in reality that was merely Solaire's method of transportation. Wrapping his arms around Randy, Solaire snapped backwards. The invitation to Suplex City having been sent, Solaire cartwheeled away as Randy struggled to his feet through the pain.
Regaining the clarity of his vision, Randy saw of an orb of seething energy flying towards him and attempted to swat the energy away with a stylish flourish of his pimp hand. Randy, however, was not plot relevant enough to accomplish such a feet, and instead burnt his left hand to a scorched mess of shriveling small tendons. Reeling back in horror, Randy snapped a thin tripwire and sent a flurry of kunai knives showering down from the rafters. Trying in vain to cartwheel away, Randy realized his bloody stump made for poor structural support. Being too slow to fully escape the shower, Randy found a great multitude of cuts opening throughout the fleshy layers of his body. He also took note of several severed tendons. Randy surveyed the area for any means of salvation, and could only find his last resort hidden amongst the rubble of the Costco.
Joseph began his slow walk towards his foe, and looked down to his bloodied form lying prone on the floor below. Joseph had always respected those who faced him, yet this Randy was no warrior. He was merely a coward relying on traps which Joseph had easily avoided. As he continued his walk towards the end of the room, he passed Randy without hesitation and aided Toastaro in his escape from his bonds. Gazing back towards his defeated foe, Joseph took note of him reaching into the nearby shattered packaging containers and retrieving a small box with his non-ruined hand. Joseph also took note of his laughter, for it seemed to indicate that he thought he was going to win.
"Y-you absolute fools! Did you truly think my master would send me out without a contingency plan?"
Joseph stared blankly at the fool on the floor, yet his eyes narrowed at the sight of what he pulled from that box. A stone carved spider, large enough to cover a human's face. Smearing his own blood on the spider, he realized he had failed following through with the correct order of events involved with it's usage. He spent nearly five minutes cleaning the spider before placing it upon his face. Randy began to spiel some villainous tangent about his imminent ascension from human limitation and why some random broad was best girl, before once more smearing his blood on the stone object.
Transforming into massive spider, Randy let loose a roar filled with naught but hate. Believing himself now invincible, Kakashi threw a single knife Into one of Randy's many eyes, for the laughs. Screeching in pain, Randy gave Joseph a mild headache and irritated all present. Charging at Joseph, Randy forgot that Protoman was still at the entrance he had turned away from. This proved rather troublesome for Randy, who soon found the bottom segments of each of his legs burnt to ash. Realizing that nearly everyone present had highly effective ranged attacks, and that they outnumbered him and were spread around the area, Randy remembered that his spider form had no pants to shit.
Toastaro took notice of his enemies paralyzing fear, and and rushed forward whilst Solaire slid closer to Joseph. Toastaro began to deliver earth shattering blow after blow, and completely demolished the giant spider's once fearsome mandibles. Screaming in agony, Randy gazed into the rage filled crust of his assailant. Kakashi himself was busy lazily throwing Knives into whatever joint he could find on the spider's body. Randy realized at that moment that his new spider physiology resulted in him acquiring chronic depression. It was not known by many, but the hatred spiders hold in their hearts is the result of a psyche broken by despair and loneliness. For none give consideration to the hearts of spider. If the average spider could speak, then what tearful tales would it sing of? One of lost love? A desire to help others, only to be swatted at in disgust?
Randy could stand it no longer, and turned so that he might fire his webbing towards his opponents. Toastaro lept to the side as the webbing cascaded towards Joseph and Solaire. Finding themselves encased in this new binding, both realized that they truly gave no shits. Calmly nodding towards one another, the resolved to end this pitiful display.
"What are you two noddin about?!" Asked Randy, breaking down into tears.
Turning his head, Randy barely noticed a faint purple glow emanating from within his own webbing.
"You really are a sad thing, aren't you? Well then, how about we end that for you? Take a closer look at our predicament. You truly know nothing of your new powers. Don't you see? You're a Sydney Funnel-Web Spider! Are you aware that they die upon exposure to sunlight? "
Joseph and Solaire grasped at the source of the purple lighting. It was Joseph's stand Hermit Purple, and proved an immensely efficient conduit for Hamon. Has Hamon flowed from Joseph's hands, it intermingled with the golden lightning from Solaire's casting of Sunlight blade. The two energies of Life and Light surged through Joseph's stand, and reached the spider they were fighting. Turning into a mere pile of burnt ash and cinder, Randy rethought his life choices. Solaire looked onwards in pity, whilst Kakashi threw another knife at its corpse. Protoman, however, was checking the local new on his phone.
Upon witnessing the expression of their teammate turn to that of shock, and wandered closer to inspect the news feed. Seeing his colleagues approaching, Protoman turned the screen to show them its contents. They all gazed upon the screen, and shook with rage upon seeing what had befallen their world. Time had frozen and North Korea, led by Dio, was mobilising.
Joseph rethought his life choice.