Chapter 24: Web of Fear
"What do you mean monster?" Steve asks.
"Emma was fighting something and… she got hurt…" El pants, wiping the blood from her nose and squeezing the scarf so tight that she's practically strangling it and twisted it into a knot.
"What was it?" Crystal asks. She's already on her feet, ready to save her sister.
"I…I don't know," the girl admits. "My vision still isn't working."
Crystal immediately begins to shove equipment into her bag.
"What are you doing?" Steve asks.
"What do you think I'm doing, packing for a picnic?" the older girl says with a great deal of sarcasm in her voice. It reminds Steve a bit of Robin with her sassy tone. "I'm going to find Emma."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, if El saw a monster in her vision, then we shouldn't go running blindly into its jaws," Steve reasons, trying to slow down this abrupt call to action.
"I don't care if you're a God Damned coward, my sister is in danger and I'm going to help her."
Steve is taken aback by the harshness in her voice, but considering how he's been treating her, he can't really complain.
"But how are you going to find her?" he asks.
"I have my ways," she answers cryptically, letting her hands light up in preparation of battle. She puts one of the backpacks on her back. "I don't care if you guys come or not, but I'm not leaving someone I love behind."
With those words hanging in the air, she goes around the large tree they'd taken refuge under and disappears into the thick greenery of the jungle.
Steve looks over at El as if daring her to say something or to even move. They could see the determination and dread in Crystal's eyes as she left, but also something else. Maybe the emotion was hurt because she was going at this alone and her so-called allies are chickening out. El looks at Steve; she can see the distrust in his eyes. He obviously had a hard time swallowing all the fairy tale and magic stuff, thinking Crystal was delusional and insane, but El has seen what the older girl could do. That magic was not imaginary nor a delusion, and it was also powerful. The older girl knew how to control it and had been helping her friend learn to master her own abilities. Eleven knew that Crystal was a good person to have in a situation and she was more than willing to help them find their friends if they help her find hers. She knew how to survive and how to hopefully get them out of here somehow. And this was enough reason to be her backup.
Jane stands up.
"Whoa, whoa, where the hell do you think you're going?" Steve says.
"Emma needs our help and Crystal should not go to face the monster alone."
"El, the chick is crazy. She thinks that she's from a fairy tale and that all that shit is real."
"It is real," the young girl says firmly.
"You've been brainwashed by her," he says, throwing his arms in the air.
"She's my friend and friends help each other." Eleven stands up, ready to go help.
"She's not your friend and I'm not going to let you just go off and get lost again. We need to find the others and get out of here."
He stands up to stand in the girl's way, despite how stupid he knew this idea was. She could just throw him aside like a ragdoll with a flick of her wrist, but he was going to be firm about this. They had to find their friends and stay together, not go running off after the daughter of Rumpelstiltskin. The sheer idea made his head spin.
"And she can help us get out,"
"By doing what? Spinning straw into gold? Giving the monster a poisoned apple? I mean, you know how that sounds?!"
El's eyes darken as Steve attempts to get in her path. She can feel that anger boiling up inside again. She wants to show this jerk how she really felt, but Crystal's words about losing control come back. How if you do something in the heat of anger and darkness, it could be something that you never take back.
"Get out of my way," she says.
Steve winces, knowing that when this girl is pissed off, it will not end well for him. His heart pounds and he can feel himself sweating more so than just being in this humid environment. He can see the annoyance in her eyes, and he wishes that he wasn't this stupid and stubborn. Robin was always right; he is a Dingus and an idiot.
As the tense moments melt by, he sighs, knowing he's going to regret this.
"Fine, let's go find her," he says in admitted defeat. "But if we get eaten by that monster, it's you're fault."
"I can live with that," El smirks, acting a bit like Dustin in the smugness of her answer. Hanging out with the boys definitely rubbed off on her.
The two begin trekking along, trying to find out where Crystal has gone to. Unfortunately, the plants and brush have not been disturbed enough to indicate a trail, but El looks down into the wet mud and looks for shoe prints. She recognizes their path from earlier, some of the plants decorated with Steve's blood, and they end up near the ridge where the iguanas had attacked. If Crystal had come through here, she would have used the view from the cliff's edge as a way to survey the area.
The two look outwards into what looks like miles and miles of jungle. It was still incomprehensible and unknown to any of them that this place is the greenhouse owned by the mad herpetologist with a weird fetish for snakes. A place once filled with terrariums and glass walls now has a controlled climate and miles of trees.
El then notices to the left of the ridge that Steve had almost plummeted down that there's movement, a large amount of movement. Too much for it to just to be Crystal.
The breath catches in Jane's throat as her mind flashes back to the Void. Could this be the monster she's seen? The one that hurt Emma.
A wave of fear washes over both of them before there's a weird noise. It was guttural in nature and was not pleasant to the ears. Their hearts pound in fear as a hairy brown abdomen shift in the trees, along with legs as thick as a tree trunk and then El remembers what it was.
A spider, a giant hairy spider, much bigger than any earthly arachnid should be.
"So I'm guessing that's the monster you saw?" Steve mutters sarcastically.
El shoots him a death glare and notices that the spider is moving somewhere.
"Come on!" the girl says.
"And how the hell are we supposed to get down?"
…
After much cautious descent down a rocky cliffside, Steve and Eleven are shoving their way through thick leaves and underbrush, not entirely sure where they were going, but still trying to keep a distance from the spider.
They walk close to the rocky side of the cliff to help their sense of direction. When rounding a sharp corner, they are faced with a crevice in the cliffs, covered in a thick, white substance. It looks almost soft like cotton and smooth like silk, but at the same time it appears slimy and gooey, covering almost all the way up to the side of the rocky wall; it hangs or drapes over various cervices. It doesn't take either of them long to realize that this is the giant spider's web. In the center of all the webbing is a large cocoon, wrapped thick to the point that neither can tell what it is, except that it appears to have a head. It was the spider's caught prey and Steve swallows wondering if they'll be next. He used to kill spiders all the time at home, calling them a nuisance, but now it seemed that they wanted revenge.
Suddenly, something grabs both their arms and pulls them into the brush. Fear grips their insides that the spider has found them. They want to scream out, but two human hands cover their mouths to prevent any sound. To their relief, it's Crystal. She's crouched low to avoid being seen.
"The fact it was a giant spider would have been nice information," she hisses.
"I-I," El stammers.
"It's okay, but we need to save Emma."
"You mean…" Steve trails off, pointing at the cocoon. Looking at it from a certain angle, it was human-shaped and his heart drops.
Crystal nods.
"Are you sure?" he asks. "How do you know?"
"I can see her energy," is the response.
Steve opens his mouth to question that statement when the ground shakes beneath them. They all knew what it was.
Large, towering hair legs can be seen cutting through the trees, approaching the group.
"We have to get that thing away from the web or Emma is going to be that spider's next meal!" Crystal says her mind racing as she fears for her sister's safety. "We need a plan."
Eleven looks up and around them, trying to ignore the terror in her body and think of a plan. How do you stop a giant spider?
She then notices that there are more rocks past the spider's domain. She grabs Crystal's arm and points. The two girls smile.
"Now all we need is bait."
…
The spider's fangs were drooling, in preparation for its next meal. It looked forward to this new prey, something it had not tasted before, but after its fang touched the skin, he knew he wanted it for supper. It walked upright and had four "legs" instead of eight which was strange.
The prey had put up quite a fight, blasting outwards with white energy that hurt, but she didn't stand a chance once she was pricked by the venom. Slowly, the energy left her and she was vulnerable to becoming prey.
Emma had woken up dazed and confused. She wanted to find Crystal, Henry and Killian as fast as she could, but that plan soon changed when she was approached by the giant spider. She did not want a repeat of what happened with Gideon as his pet, so she immediately attacked. She fought as best she could, but when the spider's fang grazed her skin that she felt her body seize up and her strength leaving her. She tried to keep fighting but she felt dizzy until the world started to fade away.
Once Emma was practically unconscious, the spider approached her limp figure and brought up its front legs and grabs some silk from its spinnerets. It then began to wind the webbing around her body, starting from her ankles before slowly moving on to her upper body. Emma could vaguely feel the pressure of the silky webbing wrapping itself around her, making any further attempts to escape fruitless. The spider then brought Emma closer to its spinnerets and began to spin her round and round covering her entire body in the sticky strands of the web. Eventually, the blonde was being spun at all angles as the spider went over her face, head and feet and continued to spin until she was practically unrecognizable as a human being. The ability to breathe had left the Saviour and everything went black.
The spider then brought its meal back to the web and then went off to see if there was any more prey to be found.
Now it was back and prepared for dinner.
"Hey!" a voice calls from behind, getting the creature's attention. Several of its eyes caught sight of yet another upright walker. "Hey, you big ugly hairball!"
"Come on you big bug, don't you want more? How about some muscle?!"
The spider clicked its fangs together and made the guttural noise.
With that cue, Steve began to run as fast as he could. He hoped his years of basketball and track would serve him well. He ignored the pain of his injuries and just sprinted. He could feel the ground shaking beneath him, knowing the spider was in hot pursuit.
Holy hell! Holy hell! What the f*** am I doing? He thinks to himself.
Eventually, he comes to the correct position. He then turns
"This is insane!" Steve says to himself. "Why did you guys talk to me into this?!"
The spider begins closing in, ready for its next meal, ready to end entrap this upright walker until Crystal shouts:
"Eleven Now!"
Jane uses her powers to create cracks on the nearby cliffs causing some higher rocks to come loose. Crystal teleports Steve from where he's been cornered, and he appears next to the daughter of the Dark One. He feels slightly dizzy having never been teleported before and he blinks extremely hard, trying to gather his bearings after almost being eaten by a spider. Crystal ignites a fire with her hands to keep the creature close to the cliffs and then uses her magic to bring more rocks down on the thing. Spiders never were her favourite, right up there with snakes. Before the arachnid has time to react or turn around, the giant heavy rocks begin falling upon it. The first heavy rock crushes one of the creature's legs, causing it to let out a horrible noise in pain, but then more begin to descend upon its head. It looks for a way to escape but can no longer see one as the landslide continues and the unwanted heat behind it means it cannot move. More rains down, burying the monstrosity under heavy rocks.
Once they are sure it's dead, Crystal races back towards the web in fear.
When she reaches it, she pulls the white cocoon that is her friend down onto the ground. It was heavy and felt so weird. The mass is completely motionless, and she prays that she's not too late to save Emma. The webbing is very thick and sticky as she rolls the shape onto what she thinks is it's front. She grabs a sharp rock and begins to cut through the material of the cocoon. She rips open the webbing from around the blonde's face to allow Emma to breathe. The Saviour's eyes are closed, and she looks extremely pale and sickly. Globs of spiderweb are still stuck in her blonde hair and wisps remain around her face as the daughter of the Dark One removes the material. Crystal continues to clear the webbing from her face and upper body, she then puts her ear against her friend's chest hoping to hear a heartbeat and breathing.
"Emma!" she says, shaking her sister. "EMMA!"
"Is she okay?" Steve asks.
Both he and Eleven have joined their ally.
Crystal can feel tears forming in her eyes. Emma can't be dead! She can't leave the world like this. She just got married and she hasn't seen Henry graduate from high school! It can't end like this! She frantically shakes her friend more, but all her surrogate sister's head does is loll from side to side. She turns to Steve in a frenzy of fear. Eleven stands at a distance, extremely afraid of what is happening and unsure of what to do.
"Do you know CPR?" she asks Steve.
"Y-Yeah," he says, beginning to share the girl's panic.
"Start chest compressions."
"B-But…"
"NOW!" Crystal barks. "PLEASE!"
In a rush, Steve finds the center of this stranger's chest and begins compressions. He can feel the heaviness and limpness of the blonde's body. He begins counting as he compresses.
"One… two… three…"
Crystal illuminates her hands with purple light, and she rubs her hands together like she's charging up. Purple sparks fly from her hands as she is preparing to defibrillate. She wipes away some of the tears in her eyes with her sleeve and prays that this will work.
Once Steve hits thirty compressions, Crystal steps in. Her hand roughly pushes him aside. The teenage boy becomes extremely frightened by the fact that the girl's hands are glowing purple, but he's just fought off a giant spider and this girl recently healed him with her magic powers, so it wasn't that bizarre to him anymore.
"Clear!" she screams and forces her hands-on Emma's chest, using her magic as a defibrillator to send a jolt through her "sister's" system. Emma's body seizes and seems to hop slightly into the air from the sheer power. When her body hits the ground again, she still lays limply on the ground, unmoving and still not breathing.
"Do them again," the girl insists. She tips Emma's head back to open her airway as Steve continues doing compressions.
"Twenty-five… twenty-six… twenty-seven… twenty-eight…"
Feeling the anxiety and fear growing in her body, her power is becoming unstable and the ground beneath the group shakes slightly as her magic reaches a more dangerous level due to her mood. She rubs her hands again, trying to revive Emma.
"Come on Emma!" Crystal shrieks. "BREATHE! Killian and Henry need you! BREATHE!"
Another jolt of magic is sent through the Saviour's body, but she still remains limp and with very little breathing.
"GOD DAMN IT BREATHE!" Crystal pleads through her tears and does one more defibrillation of power.
The energy seems to course through Emma's body and within a moment, it appears her heart restarts, or her body just needed that extra jolt to overcome the spider's venom and start working again. She lets out a gasp of air and for a brief moment, the group can see the blonde's hazel eyes, but she immediately goes back into unconsciousness.
Steve begins helping to clear more of the webs from her when he notices the blood on her arm and the large gash that is secreting some kind of liquid from it.
"It bit her," Crystal gasps. Her hands glow a soft purple and she waves her hands over Emma's body, hoping to clear out all the venom from her friend's system. Although it seems that Emma had put up enough of a fight that the fang merely grazed her arm and not completely penetrate her body; while it wouldn't liquefy her insides or significantly attack her nervous system, it had weakened her enough for the spider to wrap her in webbing and make a cocoon. Even more fortunate was that the rescue party had come to save Emma before the spider could sink its fangs into her again.
The daughter of Rumpelstiltskin concentrates as best she can, trying to get rid of any of the venoms in Emma's system, drawing it out of the wound. She uses her special sight to monitor the Saviour's vitals and energy. She could see the black veins within the body where the venom had begun to spread. Once her energy is purified, Crystal closes up the wound and lays back in exhaustion. Some colour returns to Emma's face and her breathing evens out as Steve finishes removing the rest of the cocoon.
A/N: Another new chapter, please follow and review.