The itsy-bitsy spider crawled into Mama's bed... [Closed]
Characters: Jack Spicer, Sanji, later others
Location: The gym
Time: Late on Friday, following the party
Content: Jack lays a trap for Sanji. Involving spiders. O.O
Format: Prose~
Warnings: Pyrokinetic Archnaphobe + Giant Spiders = NOTHING GOOD; also, strong potential for graphic cartoon violence later. -_-'
( ...then the itsy-bitsy spider killed poor Mama dead. )
Not that he regretted a single moment of it; he'd just have to make sure he gave Tiana as party twice as brilliant when it came around to her birthday.
Speaking of, the lady in question appeared to be determined to give him yet another surprise, as he heard her southern tones crackle sweetly out of the audio device, picking it up in delighted bewilderment.
"Hello Miss Tiana, I- what?" Another present? But she'd given him so much! "Oh my, but, you've been so generous already, and you worked so hard on that party! Surely, you-" But wait, what could it possibly be? She'd given him a party, given him a perfect gift... His brain short circuited slightly; what if..
No. NO don't even speculate about that sort of possibility.
But what if it was.
No no no it wouldn't be, couldn't be, but then... he couldn't refuse meeting up with her, that would be grossly impolite, but the gym? What on earth- this was certainly all rather curious.
"I mean, of course! I'll be there presently~!" He shut off the audio and directed his feet towards the spacious sports hall, all the while fretting and pondering and puzzling and occasionally having to give himself a mental slap to bring him back to reality. Reaching the gym he cautiously knocked on the door before entering, heart bouncing off his ribs like a confused but guiltily optimistic rubber ball. If a rubber ball could feel guilty, or confused, or optimistic.
"... Miss Tiana?"
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The second he did, the lights blacked out completely, without even a spot of moonlight filtering in from anywhere. The door swung shut hard and bolted, and Jack was confident that Sanji would not kick his way through that so easily, as it was reinforced so the gym could double as a storm shelter if need be. Using night vision goggles to operate his controls, he set the great conglomeration into motion.
The most subtly brilliant part of the trap, if he said so himself, was the sheer amount of sound he was incorporating. Once the door was shut, the skittering started, lightly at first, steadily growing in volume, as though thousands of tiny feet were slowly coming out of all the nooks and crannies in the gym and advancing on the one who dared enter their lair. He sat at his controls like a sinister DJ, mixing in the occasional screech or hiss, or the quick zip of the spinning of a web.
And now he sent out his tiny fake spiders, a dozen robots with more than eight legs so they felt like three dozen more. These swarmed Sanji, crawling over his shoes, up his trouser legs, toward his shirt and hopefully beyond.
And should he try to escape...
A "web" made of steel cord and coated in glue, not enough to catch him but enough to feel deceptively like it could, fell down over the door, blocking not only his exit but any entrance from the front door.
Of course, there was still a way through the locker rooms, but hopefully no one would try that...
Dozens of gold and red penlights came on next, looking like so many glinting arachnid eyes in the darkness, and the biggest machines in the place slowly began to come alive, their huge, furry, many-jointed legs reaching out into the darkness of the gym.
To anyone, it would be just as though they had walked into the most horrific spider nest in history.
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Oh.
Oh hell no.
The noise sent a shiver up his spine immediately, and he briefly considered trying the door that he already knew to be locked despite the futility of the effort, when the first spider set off up his leg and froze him absolutely to the spot. Of course, questioning whether they were real spiders or not simply did not occur to him in this state of horror and panic- in fact it made all too much sense that they were real. Most everyone knew that the forest surrounding the school was habituated by gargantuan arachnids; he'd been grateful to have not encountered them before now, but to think they'd find their way into the school... Feeling one flicker over his shoulder and across his neck the already badly shaking cook couldn't help flinching, making a decidedly unmanly and very unhappy noise probably best described as; "meep!"
Screw you, karma.
Couldn't he have one freaking party without this sort of personal hell happening to balance it out?! At some point the young man's motor neurones lurched back into functionality as he snapped, jumping backwards and flinging the wretched things off him, only to find he'd landed against a steel-strong mesh of sticky fibres, which was almost certainly across where the door had been before.
"Gah-!" He detached himself with a revulsed yelp, falling onto the floor, something else landing close to his elbow with a muted but heavy tread.
He didn't want to look up, more than anything in the world, he would have liked to never open his eyes again; but he did, his paranoia accentuating the sight to even more frightening proportions than it already was.
"... shit." It sounded more like a sob than an expletive.
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He watched Sanji's breakdown through his goggles, privately stunned that his plan was going so well. Though he'd run plenty of simulations (and imagined it almost every second), he had never actually pulled off a trap of this scale before, and the success was an overwhelming feeling.
It made him feel powerful.
This was the guy he'd been afraid of? The one frozen in place, flinching and whimpering like a little girl? Now flailing backwards, and then falling in the floor? "Where's your awesome balance and kicks now, Curly?" he wanted to crow, but he didn't dare speak anything aloud.
He was glad he didn't, because then he wouldn't have heard what he was almost certain (and would most likely later claim definitely was) could only be a sob.
It made him feel invincible.
He was not Jack, the weird rich kid who liked to play with robots, anymore. He was Jack Spicer, Evil Boy Genius, no! Evil Mastermind, who had the power to rule over his enemies and torment them endlessly.
He was on top of the world.
While he was reveling in all this, down on Sanji's level, the closest robot began to poke him experimentally with its fuzzy appendage. After a moment, two metal spokes that would feel suspiciously like fangs prodded his torso.
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Why was Tiana Howard was sneaking into a closed gym way past curfew? It was because she was following Sanji as he left the atrium after the success that was his birthday party. Mind you, this wasn't at all stalking; it was just making sure that he was alright.
Honestly, she fully intended to head back to the girls dorm when she spotted the blond chef talking on the phone and overheard him addressing the person on the other line by her name. Of course, this struck her as unusual, seeing that she hadn't had called him nor did she even have a phone in her hand. She had to find out what was going on.
That desire ultimately lead her to be fumbling her way through the pitch-black, not to mention, smelly locker rooms. Good thing she had a flashlight on her.
Half-way to the gym's entrance, she stopped mid-step at the sound of things creeping and crawling on the floor, but what really got to her was the distinct "meep!". Any other time, she would have giggled at the sound, but it struck her as uncannily familiar.
That's Sanji's voice!
So instead of laughing, Tiana rushed toward the entrance, pushing it open. She was about to step through and save her the man when the beam of the flashlight revealed not only one spider, but multiple spiders crawling everywhere. And Sanji spread out on cobweb like a black widow's next meal.
"Oh Lordy. Shit."
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It was hard to think straight when everything around you was a living nightmare; but he couldn't die here, he had too much to do, too many people to look after, too many things unfinished... but he couldn't, it was too much to fight against the terror convulsing his stomach and freezing his spine into paralysis.
A beam of light shredded the darkness, breaking across his face like a luminous spear; who? He couldn't see properly, the light being behind her, but the moment she spoke all trace of doubt left him, even if it was singularly bizarre to hear her swear. Whether he was more glad or mortified that she had caught him in this shameful state was hard to tell, but one thing was certain; she was here, therefore she was at risk, therefore he couldn't stay like this a second longer.
Something finally snapping back into place in his brain, a wave of flame flew up the cook's back from his feet to his shoulders, melting the glue off the frame and releasing him (although, to his mind, this had simply burned the web away). Springing back to an adjacent wall he could only hope the spiders would ignore her long enough for her to escape.
"Miss Tiana, go! Get out of here!"
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Jack watched the beam of light sweep his trap, effectively revealing the dazed and frightened cook. Normally, he would have been rolling in the floor at the sight, but as it was he was more concerned that they had been discovered.
But by who?
An unmistakable Louisiana accent and Sanji's subsequent spring into action and warning provided the answer, and Jack's lip curled into a scowl.
Oh. Her.
Well, no matter; they could both be caught in his trap for all he cared. Except Sanji looked more willing to fight now that he had something to protect, as idiotic heroes were wont to do...
The only thing to do was up the ante.
Giving up on his vow of silence and chuckling maliciously to himself, Jack threw his hand down on an ominous red button. The final component to his masterpiece.
A large robot with six working legs and a central hub decked out in eerie penlights for eyes stalked out of its hiding place under some bleacher seats and came to stand tall before them. In full light, it would be obvious that it was not a real spider, but Jack was counting on the panic and the darkness to be enough to fool them.
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Now she never likened herself to a heroine, only a simple girl with a dream. She wasn't anyone extraordinarily brave or noble. While she wasn't exactly arachnophobic, the situation was scaring beyond compare. It was something out a horror movie. But she couldn't just run away, not without him by her side.
She had to be brave. She made a promise to herself to keep him safe.
They're only spiders, not hunters with guns or alligators. You can do this.
Holding onto her flashlight like it was her only lifeline, she called out to him. "Mister Sanji! I'm not leavin' here without you!" With that, she quickly advanced towards him, doing her best to ignore the spiders around her. When one crawled onto her, she'd just swat it away and move even faster.
Finally she was reached him and grabbed onto his hand. "C'mon! I know a way outta here!" Just as the pair were about to move, a malevolent laugh rang through the gym. Tiana shone her light in its general direction but was greeted with the sight of a very giant spider (at least she thought it was).
"Ahh!" This time she couldn't hold back the fear, and soon a small frog took her place.
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As ominous as the laughter was, instead of instilling further anxiety, the noise suddenly brought the cook back to his senses, in more than one way, as he recognized the mocking sound instantly.
"Jack."
He growled the word in a tone of voice that could have killed small mammals, before Tiana shone the torch on something he rather wished that she hadn't. Jumping back with a start he held her to his chest- which was surprisingly easy to do, as she was now very light, and very small (and very green, not that he could see that at the moment). The torch switched off as it clattered to the floor, but they were not pitched into further darkness as one might have expected; no, the grisly visage of the spider remained illuminated, only this time by a grim and flickering orange light. For with the duty of Tiana's care and the fury of Jack somehow being behind all this, Sanji's disposition had changed entirely. Yes, he was still scared, but his expression told of another set of emotions that were taking precedence enough to all but obliterate his arachnophobia.
Call it chivalry or outright rage, but one thing was certain; the chef's fire-lit visage had never looked so chillingly livid.
It hardly seemed as if he'd stepped forwards at all, he moved so fast, as his right leg, streaming with blazing amber flames, landed a ferocious impact square in the center of the spider's blinking eyes, the only part he could see properly to aim at.
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Somehow, the emergency lights had come on in the gym, bathing it in wane florescent light along with the still smoldering glow of the chef's fire. It was now glaringly clear that the hundreds of spiders were merely a dozen tiny robots and Sanji and Tiana's panicked imaginations. The giant spiders were only five machines with big, leg-like appendages, and of course the working giant spider had been reduced to scrap metal above their heads.
And while they were having this revelation, Jack was having one of his own:
He was busted.
The obvious reaction was to jump ship, so, with a rather unmanly yelp of terror, Jack abandoned his control station and made to flee for the door. However, that karma that Sanji had been recently damning was suddenly working in the blond's favor, as the redhead tripped over an extension cord and tumbled head over heels into the bleachers. He stuck there, dazed for a moment, then remembered what was going on and began to try and wiggle his way out from between the seats, with little success.
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Unfortunately she was still a frog.
Hearing Jack scream like the guilty ninny he was, Tiana felt anger and annoyance seep through her bones. How dare he scare and endanger Sanji like this!
Hopping out of the blond chef's hands, she decided to give Jack a taste of his own medicine. Putting her curse into good use, she transformed herself into the most intimidating and terrifying animal she could think of--a lioness.
She leaped onto the bleachers, exactly in front of her prey Jack. "You're not goin' anywhere."
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Really, it was very impressive. However, it was still somehow considerably less scary than the chef's current temperament, against which the threat of a lion's jaws almost seemed to pale into insignificance.
"No. He is not."
'Lightly' treading one of the small spiders into a collection of motionless wires and metal fragments as he walked over, Sanji somehow perfected the art of making a normal walk into a terrifying ticking clock of immanent doom, as every step he took to close the gap between Jack and himself seemed to snap around the room like the sound of some death-laden pendulum.
"Now." Step. "I believe you're going to tell us-" Step. "Exactly-" Step. "What-" Step. "The hell-" Step. "You were thinking-" Step. "When you decided to pull this shit on us."
Stopping so that he could easily pick Jack up by the scruff of his jacket, he dangled the boy's face a hair's breadth away from his own, so that the miscreant could fully appreciate what an expression etched with murderous intent looked like before his demise.
"I would advise you to choose your words, very, carefully."
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Stopping mid-plea at the assistant cook's sudden transformation from a frog to a lioness, Jack shuddered and tried harder to extract himself from the bleachers. The head chef's first step, however, effectively froze him, as though the metallic crunch had been a magic spell. Rather than trying to rise out, each step caused Jack to shrink further into his hole until he was mercilessly yanked into the air.
At the sight of that face, all the confidence and power Jack had been feeling only minutes ago evaporated into thin air. He stared back, eyes wide in terror, shaking like a leaf in the cook's grasp.
There is no more honor among pranksters than thieves, and at Sanji's command, Jack was all too ready to sell out completely.
"I-it was a homework assignment," he stuttered. "From Mod. H-he wanted me to trap you somehow. I wouldn't have tricked you like that, but he was specific on the target," he tagged on the lie hastily. "I don't know why he likes messing with you so much, I don't think it's funny." He gave Sanji his best innocent smile.
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She herself stepped back as soon as Sanji closed in on the wannabe villain. For a brief second, she felt this sliver of pity for him. He wasn't going to get out of this with a mere slap on the wrist. No, more likely a few broken limbs and 2nd burns.
However, the brief second only lasted so long; the pity disappeared as soon as Jack opened his big mouth to spew out a big-fat lie.
She gave Jack a pointed, unimpressed look (at least as pointed, unimpressed as a lioness could get). "Right. Since when does terrorizin' people with dangerous machines have to do with Fashion and Pop Culture?"
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"Sadly, Miss Tiana, I think you'll find that with Mr Richards' class they have a great deal to do with them." He twisted his hand around, taking up another inch or two of the fabric around Jack's neck; "Yet I somewhat doubt that this was an involuntary act. This set-up doesn't have the... usual hallmarks, his work incorporates."
Certainly, if the mad Brit had been behind any contrivance to startle the cook, there would have been a definite monochrome, mod-styled feel of insanity to the whole thing. Sanji's mind was briefly filled with a vision of him being pitched against a giant-scale chess match of knights and queens set on decapitating him on a vast, hypnotically checkered board. No, this robotic spider's playground just wasn't his style.
"Well, I hope you enjoyed your last laugh, at least."
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So it was perhaps fortunate to him that Sanji's increased hold on his cloak cut off his airway before he could get out more than a startled gasp.
Beginning to what could only accurately be described as flail desperately, Jack gripped the front of his collar to keep from strangling right then. "Hey, it was only a joke," he rasped out, voice like sandpaper. "And it looks like you even conquered your arachnophobia, so some good came out of it, right?"
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