Spider

"Levy!" Gajeel yelled so loudly that the cave seemed to shake with the force of his voice. He began to stalk forward, then stopped, turned, and to my surprise, gently picked up Levy's bandana.

As I stared up at him all I could think was, Gajeel was being gently with something. I had never seen him be gently with anything.
Without looking back at us he took off. "Natsu, can you smell her?" I was afraid of the answer. Natsu nodded, "Yes."

"What else can you smell?"

"...Blood..." I sucked in a sharp breath. I knew I wasn't going to like the answer. With a growl I stood up and began to follow Gajeel.

Natsu followed behind me. The Fire Mage lit the way and I assumed that Gajeel was following his nose. Hold on, Levy. We're coming...Gajeel's coming.

We had been walking for some time, in complete silence. I could practically feel the waves of dark energy coming off of Gajeel. It was okay though, since I bet he could feel my own anger.

Gajeel's back was straight and his muscles were coiled tight. Up ahead an inhuman screech rose up. All three of us froze and with a silent nod to one another, we began to stalk forward.

We stuck our heads out to survey our surrounds. The little cave opened up into a big cavern. But what really caught my attention was what was on the walls.

Spider webs...and Levy...

Gajeel's eyes widened when our eyes landed on Levy. She was hanging on a rocky wall about twenty or so feet off the ground. She was entangled in white web. She was bleeding heavily from a scrape on her cheek and her orange dress was torn.

Gajeel lost it.

He ran forward and began looking for a way to climb up and get her down. With a glance around the place, Natsu and I rushed to Gajeel's side.

"How the hell are we going to get her down?" Gajeel growled out as he paced back and forth. Natsu studied the webbing. "Gajeel, get me up there." Gajeel looked at Natsu.

"Time to get fired up." He said with a serous face. "You're going to burn the webs?" Gajeel looked at Natsu like he was crazy. "Ya can't do that, baka! Ya might burn her!"

"What the hell do you want to do then?" Natsu shot back.

Gajeel turned his arm into iron and his arm turned into a whirling jagged steel blade. Natsu glanced at Gajeel's arm.

"I like my idea better."

"Like I care!"

"Boys."

"You better care!"

"You want to start, Salamander?"

"Boys..."

"I already started it!"

"BOYS!" I shouted down at them.

They looked up and their jaws dropped. While they had been auguring, I had climbed the rock wall, and was beside the unconscious Levy.
I had already drawn one of my daggers and I had started to cut the sticky white web away from her. "Gajeel! Catch her!" I warned him right when I cut the last piece of webbing.

Levy fell.

Gajeel opened his arms and was about to catch her when something large and brown caught her instead. The thing, with Levy in it's jaws, flew to another wall, and hung there.

My eyes narrowed and a shot of disgust went through me. Because hanging on the wall, with Levy in it's pinchers, was a big ass, brown spider.

I hate spiders...

"What is that thing?" Natsu asked as he stared at the spider thing.

"I pretty sure that's a spider." I answered. The spider thing looked like a spider and it clearly had spider like qualities. Like spinning webs, the eight eyes, and the legs. But this thing had a long scorpion like tail attached to it. It was huge and it looked like it had brown fuzzy hair on its ugly body.

"I don't care what the hell it is." Gajeel growled out as he turned his arm into iron. "All I know is its got Shrimp and I want to pound it."

Natsu stepped up to Gajeel's side and pounded his fist into his palm. "Now you're actually making some sense!" Gajeel did his little laugh and flew at the creature. I watched as he extended his iron arm and punched the thing in its side.

The creature let out the same inhuman sound that we had heard earlier. The thing raised its scorpion tail and aimed the stinger at Gajeel. It came down and Gajeel intercepted the blow with his ironclad arm.

The stinger was inches away from his face. With his other arm he hit the creature. Gajeel was careful not to hit the creature anywhere near the mouth, where Levy still was.

"Fire Dragon's: Iron Fist!" Natsu yelled as he brought his flaming fist down and hit the spider's other side. The thing lost its grip on the wall and fell off. It landed upright and Levy swung in its pinchers.

I had studied the creature enough. It was time to save my friend. I leaped from my perch on the rocky wall and ran to the creature. I sent my dagger flying and it flew straight into one of the spider's many eyes.

"Twist."

I muttered to my dagger. My dagger twisted itself farther into the spider's eye socket. It went up on its back legs and screeched again. The spider came at me but was stopped by Gajeel and Natsu.

"Fire Dragon's..."

"Iron Dragon's..."

"ROAR!"

Both of their attacks combined together and hit the spider full force. The creature opened up its pinchers and jerked its brown head. Levy went flying from the creature's mouth.

"Gajeel!" I screamed.

Gajeel ran forward and opened his arms to catch her. She landed safely in his arms.

Nice catch.

The spider let out another screech that shook the cave. It launched itself forward and I leaped for it. I landed on it's back and brought down my second dagger. I sank my glowing blue dagger hilt deep into the spider's brown back.

It reared up and one of its legs came reaching around. Only the thing's legs...had human like hands. I gasped when it wrapped its hand around me. It ripped me from its back and held me up. I let out a painful yelp when it tightened its grip around me.

"Freya!" Natsu shouted as flames started to lick up his body. It felt like my body was being crushed and I felt something in my body crack. I groaned and tried to get free.

I struggled against the spider's hold but the more I struggled, the tighter the creature held me. "Nat...su." I choked out.

"Gajeel!"

"Hmm."

"Fire Dragon's..."

"Iron Dragon's..."

"Roar!"

Both attacks combined again and came toward the spider's head. It hit and the spider's grip didn't loosen. The boy's attack created a cloud of smoke and dust that obscured my sight from them.

"Fire Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

Natsu flew through the smoke and grabbed the spider's face. While he gripped the spider with one hand he set his other hand on fire.
He then made his hand curl into a claw like fashion. Natsu swiped his clawed up hand across the spider face, burning it.

The spider brought up another human like hand and curled it in a fist. The creature raised its fist and tried to hit Natsu with it. Natsu let out a breath as the spider's fist hit him in his side.
I watched with wide eyes as Natsu flew away and he crashed into white webs. He struggled against the sticky webs and when he couldn't get out, he set them on fire.

Natsu was finally able to get out and he faced the spider again. He leaped through the air as his eyes danced with anger. The spider raised its balled up fist again but
The Dragon Slayer dodged the blow and knocked the spider's leg away.

"Crimson Lotus: Fire Dragon's Fist!"

With his fists lit ablaze along with the rest of his body he let out an angry shout.

He punched the thing in its face at a rapid pace. Again and again he hit the thing. Natsu never let up with his fiery punches.
With a roar he made one of his fists have a bigger and brighter flame. Natsu brought his fist down and crushed it against the spider's head.

The creature let go of me as it fell onto its side from Natsu's hit. I fell, Natsu yelled out my name, and leaped up. His warm arms wrapped around me and then he landed feet first on the ground. With me still in his arms Natsu ran to where Gajeel was.

Levy was in Gajeel's arms and she didn't look so good. Her once white skin was now an ashy grey color. I looked over Natsu's shoulder at the spider that was now up. It let out another inhuman sound and charged at us with its scorpion tail raised.

Now I was pissed.

I rose up in Natsu's arms and reached my arm out to the spider. My two daggers that were still in the spider's back and eye started to glow a light shade of blue.

"Come."

I murmured softly.

My daggers gave off a brighter shade of light and flew towards the palm of my hand. I gripped my two daggers in my outstretched hand and narrowed my eyes at the bleeding spider. Its back was scratched up and one of its eight eyes was gone.

I smirked, "I hate spiders."

I threw both my daggers and they sank into the creature's neck. I swear the spider and I locked eyes. It's pure black ones against my icy blue.

I bared my teeth at it.

The thing hissed.

"Twist."
******
"What's wrong with her?"

Gajeel's voice echoed throughout the cave.

The spider was dead. I had made sure of that.

I had come to find that my shoulder had been dislocated thanks to that damn spider almost crushing me. With the help of Natsu, I had set it back into place.

Natsu hadn't been hurt to badly, a
cut or bruise here and there, but nothing major.
Gajeel had taken more damage. His arms were scraped and bleeding from some cuts that he had gotten. They were bleeding but it would stop soon. Physical, he was fine, mental, I wasn't so sure.

Now I had Levy to worry about. She was breathing shallowly and she was running a fever. I had stopped the bleeding from the cut that she had on her cheek. Her arms, face, and legs were also
pretty scratched up. I had stopped the bleeding and had cleaned the wounds the best I could with some clean water that Natsu had found.

I had no idea what was wrong with
her. I didn't know why she wouldn't wake up or why she was running such a high fever. The four of us had left the Spider's Den and had found another passageway.

Now we were sitting in a dark and
cold tunnel. Natsu had once again lit his fingers on fire so we could see and not freeze to death. Natsu was sitting to the right of me and Gajeel was leaning up against the wall with Levy in his arms. He was trying to hide it...but Gajeel was worried.

I was in front of Levy and I was trying to understand what the hell was wrong with her. Then I got an idea. I prayed that it wasn't true...but I had to check. "Gajeel, I need to check something, okay?"

He nodded.

I lifted up the front of Levy's dress
and gasped at what I saw. My prayers had gone unanswered. On her stomach was rotten red flesh. Her skin had swelled up and there were dark blue veins tracking up across her stomach.

Oh, no. Natsu leaned in closer and I heard him suck in a sharp breath,

"What...?"

Gajeel looked down and I saw his eyes narrow. "W-What is that? What did that thing do to her?!" I rubbed my eyes and shook my head.

"Gajeel,
that thing poisoned her..."

Dedicated to Cryptic_Eyes for being an amazing writer