“I’m not a tank!” Alphonse barked, his swing losing power partway through and his sword bouncing harmlessly off of the spider’s thick skin. The spider struck back with one of its front legs, hitting Alphonse square in his chest plate, hard enough to dent it. Alphonse grunted, “I can’t do this forever!”

Hiro swallowed the mana-infused bread in his mouth and used the energy it gave him to cast a healing spell, “It’s all I can do just to keep you standing,” he shouted, panic creeping into his voice and tears creeping into his eyes.

“You’re not who I was complaining about!” Alphonse shot a glare at Luce. He managed to block the spider’s next blow with his sword despite looking away.

Luce grit their teeth and fired another arrow that failed to hit anything vital. All of Luce’s deadly accuracy from before seemed to be gone and none of their arrows were doing any damage. And what’s worse was they kept glancing at the tunnel, getting distracted, getting hit.

“Watch out!” Hiro screamed, throwing a shield up around Luce just in time to protect them from the spider’s venom spit.

“What? You don’t have that mage girl to impress and you suddenly can’t fight?” Alphonse mocked, running his blistered, bloody hand through his hair and leaving red streaks on the blonde strands. “Don’t waste mana on the useless fuck!”

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“I-!” A flustered Luce seemed to be about to defend themself but stopped and shook their head. The ribbon holding their braid snapped, their long white braid unraveling slightly.

Then suddenly they shot an arrow straight down into their own foot.

“What are you doing!?” Hiro yelled, but before he could finish, Luce fired an arrow into one of the spider’s eyes. Blood seeped through Luce’s white and gold boots as they fired more arrows into the monster’s many eyes. It reared back, opening itself up for Alphonse to slice down its soft underbelly. Luce shot another arrow into the underside of its head. It fell onto its back, shrieking, and Alphonse finished it off with a downward strike to the place where its body met its head.

Alphonse swung his sword to get the extra blood off and sheathed it. He turned to Luce, “took you long enough.”

Luce raised their bow at him and fired.

*

Blocked by a wall of fire, the spider monster refused to get any closer to Blaze’s party. “Hurry!” Blaze ordered, sweat dripping down the sides of her face, “I can’t hold this for long!”

Alyss struck out with her whip, wrapping it around the spider's front two legs and pulling them out from under it. With its head brought lower, Mo rushed forward, unconcerned about stepping through the fire, and cut off its head.

Alyss yanked her whip back. She tossed her slightly loosened ponytail over her shoulder, “well that wasn’t hard at all...”

As if to mock her, the hard shell of the spider’s armor began to crack and something started crawling out.