Karkas dashed forward, claws bared and jaws wide open, the moment he saw Narati. Narati hesitated to defend himself, which almost proved fatal if it wasn’t for N’Dari and Tulis coming to his rescue.

N’Dari held open Karkas’s jaws, easily capable of handling the Crocodilian’s jaw strength using his own, though not without a struggle. Tulis assisted with her webs to restrain Karkas, but the Crocodilian managed to free himself and started to push back against N’Dari with several slashes from his claws. N’Dari winced in pain as his mostly naked body was being sliced by the Crocodilian's claws. He was fortunate to have a tough Leonian body; otherwise, he would be mince meat in no time.

“Snap out of it, Kar! Listen to my voice!” exclaimed Narati, trying to return Karkas to his senses. He hoped that his raspy voice would be different enough from Asran.

“That’s not going to work, rat! He’s gone feral! He’s now acting like his feral counterpart instead of a sapient Crocodilian! We have no choice but to put him down!”

“Don’t you dare, N’Dari!” snapped Narati. “I am not giving up on my friend so easily!”

“Rat, listen! This beastly state will last too long for us to deal with, not with all the smell of blood around us! I am even starting to feel the effects from whatever is causing him to be frenzied! If this continues, you’ll have a lion and a crocodile to deal with and believe me when I say we can be worse than the actual animals!”

“Don’t say that! I’m supposed to save you, too! Shit! I should’ve made some knockout gas….”

Before Narati could do anything, N’Dari managed to overpower Karkas and wrestled him to the floor. The Crocodilian wiggled around violently as he tried to break free from N’dari, hurting the Leonian in the process with his sharp, ridged scales. Then, to N’Dari’s surprise, Karkas revealed his strength by rolling his body with his claws deep in N’Dari’s flesh, causing the Leonian to roar in pain, both due to the pain from the claws and from Karkas's rolling. The Crocodilian's ridged back dug into N'Dari's flesh, further injuring him and threatening to kill him if he continued. The initial shock from the unusual maneuver caused N'Dari to keep himself on the defensive as he did not know what to do.

“Tulis, please! Do something!” pleaded Narati.

“No, Narati,” insisted Tulis. “I can’t. We must go to Asran, now while the Leonian tackles with your Crocodilian friend.”

“He’s my friend! You can’t expect me to leave him alone!”

“We can only find the antidote to whatever’s afflicting him on Asran,” reasoned Tulis.

“You and I both know he’s not going to make an antidote!”

“Exactly. Which is why you have to accept the fact that your friend can no longer be saved."

Narati was unwilling to accept this fact, which made him indecisive as N’Dari’s painful roar filled the room. As he kept thinking of a way to subdue Karkas, he was reminded of Tulis’s webs, specifically the ones that Karkas ripped off. The webs were not shredded to pieces and Karkas was still wrapped in it.

When Tulis noticed Narati’s indecisiveness, she started moving towards the stairs at the end of the room when Narati grabbed her arm and said, “Wait.”

“Narati, it’s useless. You can’t—”

“I have an idea. How confident are you with your silk’s strength?”

“How confident am I? I am a Mygalian. I am supposed to be confident with my own silk's tensile strength."

“Can it stop a rampaging Crocodilian?”

“I tried, okay? It didn’t work.”

“Because you didn’t use it the way you did it in the basement. Have you ever used your silk to restrain people? I mean, properly restraining them, with anchors on strong structures?”

Tulis, intrigued by Narati’s proposal, said, “What are you suggesting?”

Narati pulled out a paper and a brush. Using a nearby warm blood, he then drew a cobweb. Tulis looked at him in disbelief.

“Of course, I can do that! I’m a spider person!” she said, feeling offended that Narati needed to point out that fact to her.

“No, of course I know you’re a spider! But spiders hunt smaller insects by trapping them in the web, whereas Karkas….”

“Is a much bigger Crocodilian who can easily tore off my web,” said Tulis. “Wait…I think I know what you mean. I can do it, but I need some time. You need to hold him off with the Leonian while I prepare.”

“You won’t gonna abandon us, would you?”

“It is tempting…but then I realized that you are the best person to face Asran. All of us has a reason to kill him and we are ready to abandon others to do just that. I have been out here for too long to understand that. Yet, you have no obligation, or even a desire for revenge that could cloud your judgement. He does not expect you, and that gives you the best chance to deal with him. And to think you'd be willing to help a friend. That's not very Fa'ar-like, Narati."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Tulis….”

“Just don’t expect this plan of yours to work. If your plan fails, we have no choice but to put him down. No more arguments.”

“I won’t argue,” said Narati confidently. “Because I know this will work.”

Tulis moved her lower mandibles in a show of appreciation towards the unfaltering Fa’ar. It was hard for Narati to determine her feelings from expression alone, but he appreciated the gesture from her mandibles and her bright, blue eyes. The major four, expressive ones, at least. Despite her monstrous appearance and no-nonsense attitude, Narati thought she was alright.

When N’Dari’s grip failed, Karkas returned his focus towards Narati, who did not move from where he stood while Tulis started to rapidly weave webs formed out of her own silk. She had not done this in a long time, owing to the fact that she had not returned to her home for a while. She readied herself with the orb in her hands, ready to be spread rapidly.

“I’m sorry for doing this, Kar,” whispered Narati when he pulled out two of his special flash grenades. He then warned Tulis and N’Dari to cover their eyes as he primed the grenades and threw it in front of the rampaging Crocodilian, exploding in front of his eyes. Karkas’s crazed mind dulled his reflexes, causing his narrow-slitted pupils to take in the full brunt of the flash. It stopped him in his track, roaring as he held his temporarily blinded eyes.

Tulis saw this opportunity and quickly threw a part of the orb she weaved earlier on one corner of the wall. It stuck to the wall, prompting Tulis to pull a thread out of it while climbing on Karkas’s back. While she threw another orb to the opposite side of the room, her back appendages started weaving the first thread expertly and speedily. In just a couple of seconds, Karkas’s right shoulder was held in place. She immediately worked on the other shoulder, securing him in place. She did not stop there, however. Aware of the Crocodilian’s strength, she kept weaving and weaving while throwing more anchors to the corners of the room until finally, she used the tensile strength of her reinforced webs to force Karkas’s arms around his back, tying them together with reinforced webs as strong as steel, but as flexible as a rope.

By the time she was finished, Karkas was unable to move his arms. However, he did not stop. Even with his upper body secured, he was still trying to force himself through with his free legs, threatening to damage the webs and free him despite their tensile strength.

“Trip him!” commanded Tulis. Narati complied and kicked Karkas’s leg joint, but he failed due to his strength. N’Dari, who had sufficiently recovered, pulled the Croc’s thick tail with all his might, causing him to get dragged behind as Karkas roared in defiance. By this time, Tulis managed to weaved more orbs and shot several of them to the ground, securing Karkas’s bent knees and forcing him down while spreading his legs apart. As a final touch, she used the rest of her webs to create anchor points for the threads she used to immobilize Karkas, while looping a noose around his neck and securing it to his tied arms, pulling it taut and forcing his arms into an uncomfortable position. As an added precaution, she secured his arms to the base of his tail, looping around with enough reinforced, rope-like silk to keep him immobilized.

Karkas could no longer move as he was forced in a position that sapped all his strength. Tulis finished the job by wrapping up his maws, removing all his weapons and forcing his head to face up to the ceiling. His chest and throat were exposed to the mercy of the spider person.

Narati, who did not do much, watched in awe as Tulis put her chitinous hand on Karkas’s chest while panting in exhaustion. This was the most workout she had for three years.

“He’s secured,” said Tulis while Karkas kept struggling in vain. “But we must put him to sleep. His heart is beating too hard for a Crocodilian. Sooner or later, he’s going into cardiac arrest.”

“What?!” said Narati in disbelief.

“Predatory instinct,” said N’Dari, readying himself with a makeshift bat. He prepared himself to swing it and hit the back of Karkas’s neck when Tulis put both of her hands on Karkas’s stomach and did a forceful press on it. Karkas was trying to lurch, but in his current position, it was impossible to do so with his restrained body. The impact knocked the wind out of Karkas and immediately knocked him unconscious, evident from his eyes.

“You won’t knock him out with that bat,” said Tulis. “His scales are too hard.”

“Oh. Right,” said N’Dari while throwing away the makeshift bat. “What did you do, exactly?”

“A well-placed impact on his solar plexus,” explained Tulis. “Do not try to knock someone out with this technique unless you are already trained to do so. Too strong an impact, and it will damage his organs or potentially kill him. Hit him on his chest, and you will force his heart to skip a beat. Hit his heart on the right beat, and his heart will stop. I can't risk damage to his already overworked heart."

“With his chest and throat exposed, it would be so easy to kill him,” surmised N’Dari.

“Or torture,” said Tulis. “His front is exposed to everyone. Even if he’s a Crocodilian, he would feel extreme pain and discomfort, even when it’s non-fatal. Mygalians are trained in the art of torture. You won’t be crippled, but you won’t walk away without screaming and crying, even if you have a high pain threshold. Sometimes…excessive pleasure is also an effective torture.”

“Geez. You’d do that?”

“If I need to.” Tulis sighed, then leaned on a nearby wall, breathing heavily. When N'Dari and Narati came to check on her, she held out her hand and said, "I'm simply exhausted. Your friend will be fine, Narati."

"But will you?" asked Narati, out of concern.

“Go. Do what you must do,” said Tulis to Narati. “I’m afraid I’m out of silk and I’m out of practice, but this won't kill me that easily."

“How about you, N'Dari?” asked Narati when he turned his attention to the bleeding Leonian.

“Give me some bandages and I’ll be fine. You do pack up some first aid kit, don’t you?”

Narati obliged, giving him a roll of bandage wraps and a bottle of pure alcohol, before he took his axe. Before he leave, he said, “Promise you’ll keep him safe. I can’t lose another tanem keb.”

Tulis, once again intrigued by Narati’s reasoning, nodded. The Fa’ar could tell that she was going to honor that promise, even if he couldn't understand her expression. Without so much of a hesitation, Narati ran towards the stairs at the end of the room, intending to make Asran pay.

N’Dari, left with the question about Narati’s declaration, asked, “Tanem keb?”

“Fa’ari. For ‘best friend’.” Tulis shook her head. “But in this situation…it is more appropriate to be called ‘brother’.”