Hunter drank the rest of the water in his cup and flipped up his left wrist to glace worriedly at the gem on his Manacle. Silently, he called himself an idiot for forgetting completely about Shadow. The spider was going to kill him for randomly getting himself stabbed and stuck in a block of crystal. There was also something else he was getting worried about. The last time Shadow reacted to Hunter getting so injured, he killed an old lady. Granted, she wasn't innocent, but it was still quite a shock. Rather, it was more of a shock to him. He hadn't realized how much Shadow had cared for him. Shit, what if he'd pushed the spider off the deep end after nearly dying like this? His gaze grew absent-minded as he wondered why Shadow would care about him like this? He was definitely older than Hunter by quite a bit, that much he could tell from the way the spider spoke and acted. He guessed that Shadow was probably around his twenties? Maybe it was familial instinct. Maybe spiders in the Inner World had actual families compared to the world above. Well, it was all a really far reaching hunch. What exactly was he to Shadow? Younger brother? Rider? Partner? Friend? Companion?

Mental support?

If so, for what?

"Sir? Are you alright?"

Hunter was gently pulled back to the present.

"Huh? Yeah. I'm fine. What's with the 'sir'? Call me Hunter. It's easier, right? Since I'm younger than you."

Quartz sighed.

"True, but you still look older," he replied, a hint of frustration in his voice.

"Hey, Quartz? Did you hear anything about my spider, Shadow? I haven't seen him in three years, so…" Hunter's voice trailed off uncertainly.

Quartz laughed lightly and stared in wonder at Hunter.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you? I can't even react properly anymore after everything you've told me. Si-Hunter, the spider you speak of, Shadow, has more or less become a legend amongst the Arachna kingdom and his reputation still spreads. He slaughters golems without the aid of thea Rider, and he cooperates with the current Spider Riders remarkably well for one with the pride of a great warrior. His nickname is the 'Shadow of Death'."

"What?! I go into a coma for a bit and he becomes a badass without me? What the hell?!"

"Hunter? I don't understand a lot of the slang you use."

"It's just stuff from the Outer; what the hell Shadow?! I was actually worried about you!"

"I must admit, I didn't expect your steed to be the Shadow of Death."

Hunter shook his head.

"He's not a steed. He's my best friend. The good thing is that he's okay, right?"

Quartz's expression turned sour.

"Well, he may be healthy, but he has a horrible personality. I've run into him a few times and he hardly speaks. The only time I hear him comment about anything is to criticize and or say goodbye. Plus, the way he fights is so reckless that if the other Spider Riders aren't fighting with him, normal soldiers like us have no way of predicting what he's about to do!"

"Oh my god he really is going to kill me."

"What?"

Hunter was holding his face in his hands and groaning.

"Shadow's usually only like that when he's pissed off nowadays. He's gonna scold me non-stop once he sees me again. I don't want to listen to him for hours! Oh jeez, I'll never hear the end of it! That's it! I'm gonna avoid him for the time being!"

Quartz seemed to have grown a bit bolder and flicked Hunter in the head. It had finally become clear to him that for all appearances and titles, Hunter really was still mentally a child younger than him.

"How can you say that? I always thought it strange that he would wait almost always wait after fighting by the window of some rundown storage room, but now I understand. You were there. For three years, as you slept, he kept waiting for you! Why are you being so selfish?! How can you make someone that obviously cares for you wait like this, making him suffer so much more than is necessary?! Have some common sense!"

Hunter stared at Quartz in shock, than smiled shamefully.

"Thanks. You're right. I'm gonna go look for him. Can you help me out?"

"Of course, for the Oracle's Knight."

The peaceful silence was shattered like the fragile glass it was with piercing screams. The two of them jumped and quickly ran out into the halls. Hunter had always taken some pride in his night vision that could sometimes rival that of Shadow's and he saw the threat first. He snatched Quartz's collar and tucked them both away behind one of the pillars. Hunter shuddered and his mouth was going dry. He hoped that thing hadn't seen them.

"What is it?"

"I-I think it's a golem," he whispered to Quartz, "small and black."

"It's just a sentry. Whew. Don't worry, those things can't see, and the only thing they can do it wander around and attack anything that touches them. I can't blame people for panicking though."

Hunter couldn't help but notice a contradiction between what Quartz said, and what he had seen.

True, the sentry resembled a genderless mannequin carved out of obsidian, and it was also slim and the average height of a human, but it also had something else. Its featureless head, the completely smooth surface of it, right in the center of it, was a single eyeball. Blood flowed freely from it and droplets splattered those nearby as it swung its head around frantically, searching for something.

"It's got an eye."

"Please tell me you're lying."

"Nuh-uh."

"This is bad."

All of a sudden, they could hear thundering sound of stone being cracked on stone. In seconds, that bleeding eyeball was looking directly at Hunter.

Up close, the eye was even more nauseating. It was yellowed and clouded over, making it some unclear color. With every swivel of it in its stone socket, Hunter could see blood vessels bursting as it's blood tears dripped onto the tiles below. Those trails of red spilled freely and always gathered in a pool at its chin before splattering down like some unholy fountain. Its gaze traveled to Quartz, and Hunter quickly shielded the other boy right as the sentry threw a deadly punch of stone at him.

The fist, which was more like a rounded stone bounced off his wrist armor, but he could still feel the crack of a bone a cried out in pain.

"Hunter!"

"I can hold it off! Go get some help! I think it wants me, so hurry!"

Quartz sprinted off, and just as Hunter suspected, the golem made no move to chase after his new friend.

"It hurts," he whimpered quietly, trying to ignore that strange feeling of his body trying to numb the pain of a broken bone.

He began dodging the barrage of kicks and punches that followed, avoiding what he could and blocking the inevitable hits. He knew that by now there were ribs broken and miscellaneous things cracked, but to his surprise, they began healing almost instantly after the damage had been inflicted. Everything still hurt though. He began to watch the sentry's movements more and more, catching what patterns that it showed. There was a pattern, for sure! He let himself take some hits, once he realized that his body was, to some degree, now expendable, and then, as it threw a devastating right hook, he ducked, grabbed the limb, and using the momentum, threw the stone sentry into the wall. Its head cracked off, the eyeball shot out, and the arm he gripped so tightly broke off into his hands.

Hunter breathed hard, and slowly calmed himself down. The sentry, he wasn't positive, but he was fairly sure it was dead. Grimly, he whacked it with its own arm. It didn't move.

Now he was positive.

Yo, author here! Just for an FYI, marching season starts on Monday, and the school year follows soon after. So basically, everything is about to be put on hold for about threeee months.