This took me totally by surprise. The thought came to me when flipping Aragog ambushed me in the bathroom. I figured, 'hey, Thran's totally got the mechanics down, but what about organics? Heh, not likely!' And this was born :) They're on Wamba at this point.
No. Oh God no. Not this, anything but this.
The blood had drained from his face, even as his heartbeat tripled and sweat beaded on his skin. He opened his mouth to scream, but terror had stolen his breath away from him and left him cold. How did it even get in?
He heard someone knock on the door, and Mei's voice floated into the room. "Hey, Thran, can I come in?"
He wanted to shout, to call for help, to tell her no she couldn't because it wasn't safe, anything, but every muscle in his body seemed to be frozen save for his petrified trembling.
Cocerned, Mei spoke again. "Thran? Are you okay in there?" She knew for certain he was in there, but why wasn't he answering?
Still he could force no noise from his throat… but then it twitched. Convinced it was about to charge, or bolt, or something, he involuntarily yelled at the top of his lungs.
Instinctively, Mei burst into the room, eyes wide— and promptly screamed as loud as she possibly could.
Footsteps rumbled from every direction as the other temporary occupants of the area ran to aid their team-mates. Micro-Ice was the first to arrive, skidding to a stop. "Don't worry, Mei, I'll save you!"
Until he saw from what he would be saving her and his own voice was added to the cacophony of girly shrieks echoing in the air.
D'jok, Rocket and Tia all arrived at once, but couldn't actually see into the room to figure out what was going on, even as Micro-Ice back right up out of the way, as Mei already had done.
Thran was now three parts scared and one part irritated. "Will someone do something already!"
Unfortunately, his voice was the last straw, what with the ruckus with the rest of the team, and it skittered under Ahito's bed. Thran's eyes widened in horror for his poor brother, but still cried out again and remained standing on the chair.
"What is going on!" Aarch's familiar voice filled the air, silencing the other noises.
Rocket spoke up. "Something's in Thran's room, but we can't see it. Mei and Micro-Ice have though." The coach's eyes shifted to the aforementioned pair, but Mei simply shook her head, eyes fixed on the doorway, seeming to fold in on herself. Micro-Ice started stuttering and babbling, but no one could understand him.
A yawn added to the noise, and Ahito joined them at a leisurely pace, blissfully unaware of the creature taking residence beneath his bed. "What's all the noise about?" He peered into his shared room, confused and worried to find his brother (the braver, tougher big brother at that) balanced precarioulsy on a chair looking terrified. Said brother pointed shakily at the younger's bed, and Ahito swallowed.
He nodded, and carefully crept into the room, ignoring the other's protests. It was a testament to Thran's fear that he didn't attempt to warn his little brother off, simply watching, wide-eyed. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath as he gingerly stepped towards the offending piece of furniture, heart hammering in his chest and breaths coming fast.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he knelt down to peek beneath the bed. After a moment of searching, he relaxed. In fact, he started laughing. "Bibiri-kun!"
For a moment, Thran was totally shocked. Who the hell was he calling a scaredy-cat!
"It's not going to hurt you." And, with that, Ahito did the unthinkable— he picked it up.
WITH HIS BARE HANDS.
Alright, he was wearing gloves, but they were fingerless and he'd still picked it up! Thran could only gawp, completely godsmacked.
Mei and Micro-Ice shrieked again and backed down the hall, and the other team members slowly moved away from the door as well, now able to see it.
It being the hugest, hairiest, stripiest motherflipping eight-legged beast any of them had ever seen. (There weren't many invertebrates on the snow-covered Akillian anymore).
And Ahito was cupping it quite contentedly in his hands. "Y'know, it's way more scared of you than you are of it." He informed them amusedly, walking right past the back-pedalling footballers.
A Wamba stumbled upon the odd scene and approached, curious. "Everyone here okay?" She asked, and then spotted the spider. "Oh, them! Those critters won't do you any harm."
Ahito nodded in agreement and rolled his eyes at the others. "But my brother's got issues with animals with half this number of limbs, and he's pretty much having a heart attack right now, so do you mind putting it somewhere else?"
The native smiled and shook her head. "Honestly. But yeah, will do." She gently took the spider from her human guest and winked, leaving to relocate the poor blighter.
Ahito thanked her and turned back to his team, coach and all. Pansies, every single one. He laughed again, poking his head back round the door. "It's gone now, bibiri-kun!"
Thran finally got off the chair, and glared at his twin before eyeing everyone present.
"We never speak of this again."
'Bibiri-kun' technically translates along the lines of 'scared little boy', but for the sake of common understanding, I've altered the translation slightly. I could never do this, by the way, I'd be Thran in this situation. I was even attacked by a wasp as I was writing this and nearly dropped the laptop.