Here she comes; I message my spiders hiding under rocks. In five, four, three, two, one. Fire. Gene flies over my head. Large arms extending like wings carry the blue emerald-scaled beast following the hawk closely. Focused on catching its prey, the wyvern doesn't see the web streams shooting up to ensnare it. Two legs are caught, anchoring the beast to the mountain. It lets out a roar followed by lightning that strikes out at Gene.

Gene swoops down below the mountain taking cover underneath the tree line. Lightening shatters the trees clearing out a patch of earth. The hawk is nowhere to be seen. The wyvern turns to the webs and tries to bite its way free from the snare. More webbing attaches the beast to the mountain. Unable to move under the confining traps, the wyvern falls twenty feet, crashing down on the mountaintop.

Lightening sporadically strikes the mountain, barely missing us. The spiders quickly finish the snare, ensuring the wyvern has nowhere to go. The lighting fades as the wyvern is wholly covered in webbing.

"Do you think the shaman will claim this one, or can we eat it as well," Cher asks as she moves out from behind her cover.

"Like catching flies." Tress is sharpening her front legs as she approaches.

"Let's call dibs before she gets here. She will understand… right Kelly?"

"Why are you asking me, Apper? If you are going to ask anyone, why not go straight to the source." The elegant spider motions to the black wolf climbing up the mountainside.

"Well done, ladies! I told you we didn't need Li for this." The voice of Gene in wolf form is much like Gene's normal voice with a bit more growl to it. She paces around the ensnared beast scrutinizing it. "We did it! We caught a storm wyvern. I wasn't sure at first, but there is no denying it now."

Cher's face becomes slightly disappointed, her eight eyes overflowing with gloom. "So, you are going to claim this one?"

"It is pretty. You would look dazzling in emerald blue."

"You are such a tart, Kelly." Tress tries to discourage the encouraging behavior.

"Don't hate me for being the favorite. Hate me for being better than you." Kelly responds with sparkly eyes.

"Do you have to eat the whole thing," I ask, interrupting the playful banter.

"I don't know," Gene says as she shifts into lycan form.

"Can you even eat it all? No offense, Gene, this thing is three times your size." Noth inches closer to the wyvern. Hunger fills her eyes, and her mouth drips toxins.

"Only if you include the wings. I doubt wings are included in the meal deal. And maybe close your mouth a little Noth. You're leaking again." Noth shakes herself out of her trance and returns to her more closed-mouth regal form.

Gene casually walks over to the wyvern and stabs it with her shadow blade. Motion within the webbing ceases. The shadow blade remains impaled in the wyvern, and the encasing shrinks. The shrinking meal is too much for Tress to handle, and she voices her objection. "Boo. What a waste."

"Yeah. Boo," adds Cher, who seems to have mended past grievances with Tress. The two now seem to be in some tight duo alliance. The two practically hold legs as they witness the desecration before them. I don't like their secret alliance and try to stir up the pot while Gene continues to suck the wyvern with her shadow sword.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"I liked you two more when you were trying to eat each other."

"You would be into that…." Out of nowhere, Fen jumps into the conversation to defend her sisters. Kelly and Apper get a good chuckle from Fen's nonsensical defense.

When she catches her breath, Apper seals the retort. "Roasted."

"Freaking spiders are the worst," I mumble just loud enough so that they can all hear me.

By my current web sack estimate, Gene still has a long way to go before she is finished devouring the wyvern. Since the spiders are gathered and somewhat focused, I decide now is a good time for a team meeting to discuss our plan.

Ideally, Gene and I'd fight the demons on our own. The spiders refused to stay on the mountain and promised they would get into more trouble alone than if we let them fight with us. We had to adjust our plan, Just Swing It, which involved a lot of shadow and sword slicing into a more accommodating option that kept the spiders safe and allowed them possible growth potential.

"Alright, let's review our plan," I say like a condescending prick. I don't know what it is, but the spiders seem to like it. "What was phase one of Bigger and Better?"

"Gene gets bigger," answers Kelly. Her eyes are still big and bright as ever.

"Such a tart," whispers Cher to Tress. Cher is immediately thumped on the thorax by Fen and Noth. I have to stop nodding my head in time so that my agreement with Kelly's answer doesn't align with Kelly's tartness. I right my wrong and move on to part two.

"And what is part two of phase one?"

Tress adopts eyes as big and bright as Kelly's. Though hers don't have any of the cheeriness to them. "We get bigger by eating hundreds of the shrillers."

"Don't forget better. After all that eating and cultivating, we will be stronger too." Apper makes sure to amend Tress' answer to perfection.

"How are we going to do that?" I ask.

"By catching shrills and eating their insides," Noth says as she enviously watches Gene devour the wyvern.

"Damnit, Noth. You have been listening to Apper too much. That's not even the right answer." Contrary to her perky supportive nature, Kelly is the first to speak up. In response, Apper extends a leg to Noth, who taps it with her own.

Hearing the slight, as predictable as can be, Fen speaks up. "Noth's not technically wrong. She's just missing details."

"Which are the best parts," Apper happily adds. "Step one. In the form of a lesser dragon, Gene lures in a bunch of shrills. Step two, we trap the shrills in our enhanced webs. Step three, we feast. Step four, we start back at step one."

"I don't see how this is any different than what we are already doing," says Cher.

"Because there will be more of them. And Gene is going to nuke them."

"I swear, Kelly, if you try to start pushing Gene worship any harder, I swear to Cru that we will devour you." Kelly takes Tress' typical threat in great stride.

"You can't swear to him if he isn't your god. You haven't met the guy, so I know you are not a believer. Besides, name a more talented wolf than Gene."

Noth responds unnecessarily quick to the blatant rhetorical question. "Gnarls was a good wolf."

Kelly is even quicker to shut down the question as if she knew her question would get a response. So maybe it wasn't rhetorical. "Gnarls was eaten by a tree…." Damn spiders. I don't know why I thought I could get through the plan with the seven of us. I can barely get through the plan on my own. And there are only two steps.

I let the spiders trail off into their conversation about bootlickers and tarts and how neither is a proper label. Gene is halfway done with the wyvern. That leaves me with a few minutes to make preparations on my own. I will mainly play support in the first part of the plan and most of the second part. The spiders really want to grow, and the demons pose ample opportunity. I'll keep the spiders alive with my small heals and distract the monsters as much as possible.

It might not be the most effective or efficient plan, but that's not what we need. We need more capable cultivators that can help us watch over a bunch of children. The spiders, while still young in their age — maybe young adults in spider years — are all we have. If we can get them to the awakened stage before the arrival of the dungeon, then we will still be outnumbered but slightly less. It's the little gains that make the difference.

That means I need to be on constant watch for each spider. This only works if we keep all of them alive. Yeah, we are taking stupid risks. I even voiced my objections several times. Each time, I was outvoted, four to forty-eight. Damn spiders and their cheating ways of democracy.

It's a bad plan. I just need to make sure it works. While the spiders ramble, I slip into meditation to prepare myself for the upcoming fights ahead of us. I push back all my unease, telling myself… preparing myself for success. No one will be lost.