Okay, it's time for the fourth chapter, which I know you've all been suspensed for, indeed! Gray Wolf's delirium, which has come from God only knows where, is ruining him and causing him to go on a rampage in the illusion that he's fighting for his life against spiders galore. And his fear has resurfaced in this way, and in the worst way, as such. His friends are on the lookout for him, there is much fear for him in their hearts, especially in Tiger's, and how does the doctor who supposedly cured his fear tie into all this? Let's see now in this next chapter of the fanfic.
With the exception of Tyrant-Ula, my newly made character who will be added to the story as its main villain now, I don't own any of the characters, for they are the property of Monster Rancher. Except for three others I use to set the trend, that is. Tarantulus from Beast Wars, Shelob from The Lord Of The Rings and Aragog from Harry Potter. They all belong to their own respective franchises.
Chapter 4-Antidote And Aftermath
The goodies had been looking everywhere for where Gray Wolf could possibly be. It had been a long, hard morning for them. They'd been able to cover more ground by splitting up, and Suezo had looked up into the air while Tiger had sniffed it, but no one, them or otherwise, had a drop of luck whatsoever. Even when Pixie flew about and looked down the area she'd be at, she couldn't find any trace of Gray Wolf, either.
As for poor Gray Wolf himself, he was having it worse than ever! Unintentionally having run into villages galore while seeing spiders of all kinds everywhere, he'd torn down so, so many things and bowled over so many people, thinking he was destroying the spiders he saw everyone and everything as. The villagers didn't know of his plight, however, and thought he was meaning to kill them all, thus making him a menace to the lot of them.
"We have to find that wolf and kill it now!" shouted a villager. "It's a monster and a disaster waiting to happen!" said the chief. "There will be no other way to deal with it!" This and so many similar things were being said of Gray Wolf by so many people in all of the villages, not a one of them the least bit aware it wasn't his fault, nor of what was causing him to do this.
In the meanwhile, Gray Wolf was not just seeing spiders all over the place even though in reality there were none, but while he shouted: "NO! GET BACK, YOU FILTHY THINGS! I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU GET ME! NOT LIKE WHEN I WAS A PUPPY! GET BACK! NOW!" He was using all his attacks to get rid of what he thought to be spiders of all kinds and doing everything he could do keep them away from him otherwise. It was almost literally hell for him. "HELP! KEEP THEM BACK! I WON'T BECOME A SPIDER'S MEAL!"
He suddenly saw Tarantulus from that show Beast Wars appear in front of him, going as he showed up: "Well, a tasty wolf for my next of prey! How delicious that will be! Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee. Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHA!" "NO! DIE, MONSTER!" Gray Wolf shouted out, but then he saw that the shadow of Shelob, the spider queen from Lord Of The Rings, was behind him. "OH, NO! NOT YOU, BITCH!" "YES, ME!" shouted Shelob. "And you would be wise to speak to me much more considerately, since I am the queen who will be eating you now!"
"NEVER!" Gray Wolf yelled as he leapt on her. But then he saw Aragog from Harry Potter above him. "I do believe your flesh will taste quite succulent when I sink my fangs into it, provided you don't turn into a lost disk first." he told Gray Wolf. "Your fear will also taste fine." "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Gray Wolf yelled out, his heart pounding faster than it ever had in his life, and him roaring louder than he ever had in his life, as well.
He slashed at Aragog after leaping off of Shelob, but then Tarantulus jumped on him and said: "This is where you stop. Hee, hee, hee, hee, ha, ha, nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!" "WE FEED ON YOUR TERROR!" yelled many voices at once, and Gray Wolf saw spiders of the worst kind all dropping down around him and crawling towards him. He couldn't help himself, especially when under this delirium, and especially since plenty of webbing and cobwebs decorated what he saw as a cave full of spiders like these. He screamed in fright. He struggled as hard as he could but it was to no avail. He was trapped. "Now, which one of us gets first pickings?" asked Aragog.
"I'm the queen, so they go to me!" Shelob told him. "Especially when you consider I don't cower to half-giants, nor do I work under the command of an insane tyrant!" "I don't 'cower', bitch." Aragog told her. "And I was spying on Megatron, not working for him!" put in Tarantulus. "Further, I'm the only robot here and first pickings of this dog should thus go to me! Period!" "Fat chance, fat boy!" Aragog snapped at Tarantulus.
"And what about the rest of us?" asked a black widow amongst the many spiders who she was with. "We want some of that wolf, too, and we're not going to be denied it!" "None of us!" a Sydney Funnel Web added on. However, Gray Wolf, along with the rest of them, then saw nine very unusual looking spiders of freaky sorts in front of them, and one of them said: "This ends now!" and fired what looked to be a web line directly at Gray Wolf. It hit him in the neck, and he yowled out loud, but then everything went black, he felt the web be pulled out of his neck and at last he opened his eyes to a much different view…the one he'd had prior to all this.
"Huh? Where am I? What's going on?" Gray Wolf asked, but he soon saw the nine other goodies in front of him. "Tiger? Holly? Suezo? Mocchi? Hare? Big Blue? Golem? Genki? Pixie? What's going on here?" he asked, quite shaken and unable to move right now. Tiger ran on it to Gray Wolf and said, as the other goodies did the same: "Oh, brother. Thank God we were able to find and cure you. We thought we'd lose you forever." Gray Wolf and Tiger hugged one another and Pixie added: "Thankfully, Holly recalled that amulet device she'd found after we'd looked for you everywhere once we saw you were gone in the morning, couldn't find you and regrouped afterwards." "So we were able to make it so we found both where you were, what was happening to you, how to cure it and where to get that cure." "Thank God we had enough money to pay for it." Hare stated. "Otherwise, who knows what would have happened?"
"God, Hare, you use even the most dire, immediate situations as a chance to talk about money, don't you?" asked Tiger while not even bothering to look at Hare. Hare replied: "This from the wolf holding his brother close to him!" "HARE, QUIET." Big Blue told him. Hare just shut up after that, since Big Blue was so much bigger and more powerful than him and he knew better than to start a fight with Big Blue. "What happened to me, though?" Gray Wolf asked. "I go to sleep, thinking I'm cured of my fear, and next thing I know, I wake up and see that there are spiders everywhere, even ones much bigger and from different universes than the regular ones. Then I go around doing my best to destroy them all…then I suddenly feel this web hit my neck just as I'm tied down with webbing from the three biggest and worst…then I see you nine again and am so relieved to…" The realization hit him in the gut like a nightstick.
"OH, MY GOD…" Gray Wolf gaped. "That can only mean I woke up with some kind of delirium…started seeing everything as spiders…that web in my neck must have been some sort of cure you found…the one you mentioned…but that can only mean…the villages I must have just…and the injection was…" He broke down in shame. As well as in humiliation. He thought his fear was gone, but now it had turned out the medicine actually made things worse than ever instead of cure him. He started to cry, which was something very rare for him. Tiger held him close into his fur and said: "It's okay, brother. We will not rest until you've been cured. And you will not be held guilty of something you couldn't control."
"Indeed not. So don't despair." Pixie told Gray Wolf. "I'll spread the word about your innocence." "And we will go to the nearest village and explain everything." Holly told him. "As well as find the doctor who seemed to help you, but who was actually the cause of all of this." put in Genki. "Chi!" Mocchi added. "He must be quack, Chi!" "Well, we'll certainly give him a piece of our minds, that's for sure!" Suezo added. "But first thing's first…Golem know we must tell nearest village first while Pixie tells others…" Golem pointed out. "So there we go." Holly's words consisted of as she used her amulet to bring them via teleportation to that very village.
Once they were there, the villagers saw them immediately, and the chief went: "Eh? Who goes there?" "We are the goodies, and…" began Genki. "OH, MY GOD! IT'S HIM!" yelled one of the villagers, pointing to Gray Wolf. "It's the monster!" "NO!" Tiger shouted. "It wasn't his fault! He was under delirium!" "BULLSHIT!" shouted a villager. "You think we're going to buy that rubbish?" "Especially since his brother would be saying it?" asked a villager. "So, this Gray Wolf fellow was reformed from his baddy days?" another asked. "LIKE HELL!" "IT'S TRUE!" shouted Tiger. "Want proof? We can easily give you some!" Genki snapped.
"Really?" said the chief. "Fine, give us proof. We're all ears." "Don't think the other villages will be any easier, though." put in another villager. Genki then started to explain: "Gray Wolf here had thought himself to be cured of his fear of spiders. An injection which seemingly was meant to adjust to and eliminate any phobia was given to him by a supposed expert doctor." "But it didn't work out that way at all." Tiger told them. "It gave him horrible delirium mere hours after he was injected, and he woke up seeing spiders galore, some bigger and more horrid than others, by the way, literally everywhere. Everything and everyone looked like a spider to him." "And no doubt he was seeing himself in a cave full of webs from those same spiders." put in Suezo. "Chi!" Mocchi added.
"So, thinking he had to fight off all of these spiders, he went on a rampage, not knowing for a second he was under delirium." "We woke up the next morning to see him gone." Hare put in. "We formed a search party and split up, but when we couldn't find him, we rejoined and were fortunate to remember a special amulet Holly had which could literally do anything its owner so pleased." "So we used it to find out where Gray Wolf was, find out what had happened to him, find a way to cure him and the place to get that cure and finally to get to Gray Wolf and get him cured, like we did." "And, as evidenced from how he is now," Tiger said, putting his nose down to point to his brother, still held close to him, "Gray Wolf broke down in shame and shock once he realized what had actually happened. He clearly wasn't in his right mind. So he's still as you thought he was and we knew he was." "My master Pixie is currently spreading the word of his innocence to the other villages he unknowingly tore down." Big Blue added.
"Okay, fine, so he's innocent after all." sighed the chief after he and the other villagers realized this was the actual truth of the matter, despite what they initially thought. "Although we admit we owe Gray Wolf an apology, first thing's first. We'd appreciate that amulet you helped to find and cure him with to undo the damage he did while under that state of delirium, Holly." "No problem." Holly replied, and she used it to restore the village to what it had been before, plus she made it apply the same fixing to all the other villages, so that they'd be back to normal and Pixie would be believed when she told them everything. Afterwards, she said: "Gray Wolf? It's okay to show your face again. They've acknowledged what actually happened."
Gray Wolf heard this and slowly took his head out of Tiger's chest, saying: "Thank you for helping me, brother." He ignored the last two tears coming out of his lilac eyes. He was glad he was exonerated now, as well as how only one tear remained in each eye. He turned to the lot of people in front of him and said: "And I apologize for…the way I brought back the crazy old days…while under that delirious state…" "Your apology is accepted, and we should apologize for our ignorance, especially since it could have ended your life." the chief told him. "That does leave us with one other matter, however." Gray Wolf immediately knew what he meant, as did the others.
"Yes." Gray Wolf nodded. "Namely, THE QUACK WHO DID THIS TO ME!" "We will find him." Tiger said. "And believe me, he is going to get some serious questioning. We'll speak for both ourselves, you and all the other villages." Hare stated. "Good to know." the chief replied to him. "But you'll have to use that amulet to find him, for God only knows where he could be hiding right now." "Yeah, considering his crimes and what he knows we'll do to him when we at last find his ass." Big Blue agreed. So they bid the village farewell, thanked them for listening and understanding the truth and got going, and Gray Wolf's last two tears finally dried up. And they looked about with the amulet for where the doctor who caused this could be.
"Ah, so there he is!" Genki stated. "Hiding out in a clinic far from where he was last." "So typical of a coward like him." Suezo spat. "Hey, there's Pixie!" Golem said, pointing up to the sky. She was indeed there, flying down and landing among the others. "Hello there." Pixie said. "I'm back!" "Good to see you again, Pixie." Big Blue said. "So, you were able to let the other villages know the truth?" asked Tiger. "I sure was. Especially when all was restored to what it was around us. Good thinking on how you'd use that amulet, Holly." "Thanks." Holly said. "Believe me, I knew it was our best bet to clear the name of Gray Wolf here." "Thanks for spreading word of my innocence, by the way." Gray Wolf told Pixie. "Sure thing. We've had far too much of Moo's influence against our will as it is, and the last thing we need is people under the belief we're at it again, especially after what you went through" Pixie responded.
"By the way," Big Blue told her, "we've managed to locate the so-called expert doctor who broke open Gray Wolf's problem and made it twenty times worse." "You have?" asked Pixie. "I am glad to hear it. We will certainly be getting answers from him one way or the other." "And if I find out this was deliberate, I'll eat his guts." Gray Wolf snarled. "Now, now, let's not get too nasty." Holly said. "Chi," Mocchi said, "keep it in check, Chi." "We know how much he damaged you, but we can't have things like that even then." Genki said to him. "Anyway, we're all well aware where he is." Golem told them. "So let's go." Tiger snarled. "I'm not waiting for another second any more than my brother is." Holly got the amulet at the ready.
"Understood." Holly told them, and she teleported the gang to exactly the room where the doctor they sought was in on his coffee break. "Eh?" he said, just as he finished his cup of coffee and put it down. "Well, hello there, doc." Gray Wolf snarled. "We meet again. AND I'M REAL PISSED OFF." "What?" exclaimed the doctor. "We meet again? What do you mean? I've never seen any of you!" "Don't lie!" roared Tiger. "You know very well you purported to cure Gray Wolf here!" "But instead of curing me of my phobia, you made it worse a twenty fold! It led to me unknowingly tearing down villages, and if the damage hadn't been reversed by the amulet that brought us here while Pixie spread the word of the truth to the other villages our group did not explain the matter to, I'd no doubt be strapped to a table and awaiting a lethal injection!"
"And all because of the injection you gave him which you said was intended to cure his fear!" Pixie snapped. "And yet look what it turned out!" Suezo yelled. "We should have known way better!" Hare yelled. "Chi! You a quack, Chi!" Mocchi added. "I swear, I do not have a clue as to what any of you are talking about! What injection? Who are any of you, for that matter? I was in here for the past few days each time on the job, and I never injected the Gray Wolf you talk of! I think you have me confused for a different doctor!" "Only you look exactly like the one who injected Gray Wolf!" Big Blue boomed. "Golem agree. This is that doctor!" Golem said.
"So you start spouting answers, asshole!" Tiger growled. "Why the fuck did you do that to me?" Gray Wolf growled. "Who do you think you are?" They said this while Pixie held him up against the wall by his coat. "I'm telling you, you have me confused with someone else!" said the doctor. "Whether or not I may have an evil twin, I've never seen any of you people in my life at all, let alone given a treatment for whatever phobia there was to any of you!" "Wait…" Holly put in, using the amulet. "He's actually telling the truth. Apparently, according to this amulet, the one we thought cured Gray Wolf was someone else in disguise to look exactly like this doctor, and he is as much of an expert as he was said to be! We just never met him even though we had thought we met him." "Holy shit…" Suezo gaped. "Ah, you see? It was someone else apparently made to look like me so he'd be trusted after all!" the doctor told them. "Now will you please put me down and explain what this is all about?" "Fine, sorry." Pixie said, though her voice had no hint of being sorry as she placed the doctor down.
"Okay, so it wasn't you after all." Gray Wolf panted. "But that still leaves us with the question of who could have done it, and you knowing who we are." Tiger said. So they all told him who they were, what they did and why they were here, and once they had, the doctor told them: "All right, listen up. Although I would take quite long to make a cure for Gray Wolf's fear of spiders that would work for real, since there's much on my schedule right now, I can at the very least help you find out who was behind breaking open his problem and simultaneously framing me for it. What do you say?" "Sounds like a good idea." Genki told him, and Holly said: "First thing's first, though. We've got to make sure the villages we were at before know you got framed." So she used her amulet to do exactly that. "There, no charges will be put against you as of now." "My thanks." the doctor said. "Anyway, let's get started."
So they went and worked together to figure out what happened, what accounted for every happenstance and why this was. It took them quite a bit of time, even with the help of Holly's special amulet, but they eventually came to realize what exactly the cause of all of this was. As soon as they did, they all opened their eyes widely. "All right, so as it turns out," Hare said, "our culprit is both a shape-shifter, and, in fact, not human at all." "Far from human, or even from near all animals like me or Gray Wolf." Tiger stated. "Because as we're seeing here, he's not just a powerful, shape-shifting spider, he is in fact the king of a very evil spider colony down below."
"And one which makes it so that where normal spiders would frighten me and others who were arachnophobic, but still just be normal and do what spiders do regularly, these guys would constantly terrorize anyone and anything they could, and gain power, food and the like off of the death and suffering of their victims, often by deceit." Gray Wolf realized. "Sometimes their king does it himself, other times he has his subjects do it for him and there are times they all do it with one another together." Pixie observed. "In this case," the doctor nodded, "their king used his just mentioned shape-shifting powers to disguise himself as me and was able to find exactly the right village to find you so he could pretend to help Gray Wolf, but actually try and end his life in the worst way, also while destroying things for the lot of you."
"No doubt he picked us as his next random victims, and has many more planned for the future whether he succeeds with us or not." Big Blue pointed out. "Chi." Mocchi told. "We got to stop him fast, Chi." "And we will." Genki stated. "We will put a stop to him, and, chances are, we may even find a way to rid you of your fear along the way, Gray Wolf." "According to this amulet, we will, but the way in which it will happen isn't being shown." Holly said. "Oh, and what's this evil spider king's name, by the way?" asked Suezo. "Apparently," Hare said, "he's going by the name of Tyrant-Ula." "Pretty fitting for a giant, repulsive, hairy tyrant spider like him." Gray Wolf commented, sticking out his tongue in disgust. "The sooner we shut his web-spinning ass down, the better." "I would suggest you move, then." the doctor told them. "God only knows where he will strike next." "Indeed. Let's go!" Genki shouted.
"Thanks, by the way." Tiger told the doctor. "I speak for all of us when I say that." "And we're sorry we misjudged you." Gray Wolf added. "Also spoken for all of us when said. "You're welcome, and apology accepted." the doctor told them. "Good luck on putting an end to Tyrant-Ula, by the way." "Our thanks." Golem replied. "And believe me, we'll see to it he gets what-for or die trying!" Suezo stated. "Chi! Payback time, Chi!" Mocchi said. So they left the building in the next moment and got going on the lookout for Tyrant-Ula, who had now been confirmed as a brand new enemy, though whether he was a new baddy of any kind or not would have to get found out. Which it would in due time, but for now, they just wanted to return to their cave and make it so that they rested up and got ready for how they would take him down now that all was found out, all loose ends were tied up and the way was paved for a brand new stage now.
Meanwhile, in his underground tunnel, Tyrant-Ula was being approached by several of his sinister spider subjects, who he asked: "So, how did our plan go once I put it into action?" "We looked all about, sire." said a brown recluse spider. "And?" asked Tyrant-Ula. "We would discover, to our dismay, that not only did the plan fail miserably, but the ones we target have found out about you with the help of the very doctor you meant to frame. Needless to say, they're now looking to take us out." "HMMMM, this won't do at all." Tyrant-Ula replied. "We are going to have to put a change in how we do this in order to both take them down, and do so in a way that will give us full satisfaction in terms of their fright, our feasting and how it paves the way for our next of prey quarry. Thankfully, I have thought up just such a way, so we will get it arranged, wait for the first sign they are vulnerable and get things going from there."
"Understood, your majesty." a black widow told him. "I am glad to hear we will still win even when we seem to lose." "Indeed." Tyrant-Ula told them. "And I take it we will make sure these goodies suffer what we have a ten-fold at this point?" asked a trapdoor spider. "Of course." Tyrant-Ula replied. Evil laughter from the spiders in this tunnel then spread out everywhere.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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