>>93 It's called Spiderhoovy by TeratoMarty. I don't know if it's been reposted already, but I checked Marty's thread and it wasn't there, so here you go: Something odd was happening on the RED base, the BLU Spy was willing to concede that much. Neither their Medic nor their Heavy had been seen for a week, and there didn't seem to be any replacements, unlike the Engineer, who had disappeared about the same time, to be replaced in short order. Moreover, the Demoman reported seeing a massive spider, the size of a man, scuttling around the ceilings of the enemy base. Then again, who knew what the scrumpy might make him see. After all, he'd also reported seeing a giant octopus with Spy's own face in the sewers. He said it hadn't bothered him, since it was on their side. However, the Sniper was both in possession of both eyeballs and usually sober, and he, too, had reported seeing something strange on the battlements across the way. He did not make any fevered claims about giant spiders. Instead, he gave a factual if puzzling report of something round, white, perhaps as much as a metre wide, that moved to quickly to get a bead on. A balloon? Not possible, mate. Anything that light, subject to that much wind resistance, would have bobbed about like a cork in a stream. This, whatever it was, moved quickly in purposeful straight lines. The Spy made a mental note to find out about the RED's... whatever-it-was, at the earliest opportunity. However, when the Demoman didn't show up for the next battle, it became clear that no-one had seen him since at least mid-day, the day before. He hadn't come through Respawn, and his stash of scrumpy was untouched. Consulting quickly with his team during the count-down, the Spy made a slight alteration to his own battle plan. He would disable the RED sentry, kill their Engineer and Sniper, then go looking for the Demoman and any mysterious round, white weapons. The REDs had a new Engineer, a baby-faced boy fresh off the farm- it was almost pathetic how easy it was to break his toys and send him home to mama. The Sniper, however, was a cagy old beast. He had wedged himself into a corner where the Spy couldn't get behind him for a decent backstab. Instead, the espionage agent retreated down the hall, out of earshot, and disguised himself as the RED Pyro. Mimicking the mumbling abomination's shuffling tread, he approached the Sniper again. "Fpy chkk," he muttered. The Sniper didn't move from the eyepiece of his scope, but he did flare his nostrils and inhale deeply. Instantly, faster than the Spy had thought the Australian could move, he had his kukri out and was slashing perilously close to the Spy's face, in the air above where the illusory Pyro's head appeared. The Spy blocked the blow, sustaining a painful chop of the cleaver-like weapon on his left forearm. However, that bought him the time he needed to draw the Ambassador as his useless disguise dissolved. The large-calibre pistol settled the matter, removing the Sniper's face as its mighty report rang out. Cloaking again as quickly as possible, the Spy clutched his wounded arm to his chest and left the Sniper's corpse behind in the little bolt-hole. He hoped that he could find a med-pack soon. As he stepped out into the hallway, though, he saw a flash of something white moving up in the rafters. Clamping his handkerchief on the wound with his free hand, he followed whatever-it-was. Treading silently, he stared all around him. He rounded a corner and saw nothing, but felt something sticky brushed his face. Even as he flicked away the adhesive strand, he looked up to see what it might be, and froze in his tracks. The BLU Sniper had been right- it was round, white, just about a metre across. However, the Demoman had not been wrong- it scuttled across the ceiling on arachnoid legs, black, jointed, smooth as plastic except for the stiff black hairs protruding from the backs of them. However, what neither of them had mentioned was the RED Medic's body, protruding from the spider body at the waist, clad in his usual Teutonically formal shirt and tie. Biting his tongue forcefully, the Spy withheld a gasp of disgust. He was glad to be invisible. Glad, that is, until the thing launched itself from the ceiling and dropped on him with unerring accuracy. It pinned him to the ground with eight spindly, pincer-tipped legs, its immense abdomen hanging over his face like a diseased moon. At this intimate angle, the Spy could see that the white body was composed of chitinous segments with a yellowish membrane stretched taut between them, like the skin over a pustule. There was a marking in the centre of the underside, he noticed as the monster turned to face him, in the shape of a perfect red cross. "Guten tag, Herr Spy," it said to him as his cloak dissolved. "Sight is such a limited sense, don't you think?" "Quoi-" the BLU gagged. "Splendid, am I not? Respawn is an amazingly flexible system, as our... former... Engineer discovered." "You intend to weaponise being a freak?" The Spy subtly flexed his muscles, looking for a point of leverage to escape from the strong, spindly legs. There was none. "I already have," the Medic-spider said haughtily. "You, though, are about to become a small part of a much greater weapon." Abandoning his careful test of the monster's strength, the Spy began struggling in earnest. "Zis will only sting for a moment," the Medic-monster said, cheeks rippling and stretching as insectile mandibles slid out of his mouth between his teeth and lips. The Spy screamed as the Medic's face approached his own. The Medic's gloved human hands shoved his head to the side, pulled away his coat, and the Spy felt a sting as the thing's mandibles pierced both shirt and skin on his shoulder. Almost immediately, a burning-cold numbness began to radiate out from the wound. The Spy screamed again, but the sound was strangled, sloppy. He tried to kick out as the monster walked about on top of him, but he could barely do more than wiggle his toes. He was treated to an up-close view of the thing's spinnerets, writhing obscenely as they began to extrude silk. Using hands and spider legs in tandem, it wrapped him up like a parcel. Once he was done, he used his spider limbs to heave the Spy over his human shoulder and scuttled off down the corridor. The Spy tried to think, but couldn't concentrate over the pounding f his heart in his ears. His tongue felt overlarge, filling his mouth, and he couldn't feel any of the rest of his body at all. His eyelids seemed to be the only part of his body that still responded to his will. He kept his eyes open, hoping to see something, anything that he could use to his advantage. All he could see was the Medic-spider's swollen, pallid body. "Hallo, Lieber," the Medic cooed, halting as he opened a door. "Are you hungry?" "Da." The RED Heavy's voice rumbled, somehow thicker than usual. The monster Medic dropped the Spy to the floor. He landed awkwardly, staring at the ceiling. By rolling his eyes to the side as they could go, he was able to see the RED Heavy. What had been the RED Heavy. Glistening folds of flabby white tissue stretched at least twelve feet long. The Heavy's head sat atop the heap, his neck merging corpulently with his shoulders. His massive arms were still in place, along with his saggy pectoral muscles, but underneath the arms were four stick-thin legs that waggled aimlessly, and his gut merged into a segmented, pulpy tail. The Spy discovered that he could still feel his stomach when it cramped- he had to suppress the urge to vomit. The giant maggot that the Heavy had become had been sucking on something held in its human hand- the Spy had taken it for a brown leather sack of some sort. Then, the Heavy dropped the thing to the floor, and the Spy realised that the lone eye of his own team's Demoman staring out of the mess. It stared at him crazily, then blinked, causing a tear to roll down the Scot's ruined face. Some dark fluid, flecked with white, oozed out of the wound that the Heavy had been sucking. "Isn't he vonderful?" the Medic crooned to the Spy as he used a scalpel to slice away the silk bindings. "I believe he is aobut to pupate, and he vill need to be strong for zis ordeal." The Medic beamed over at the grubworm monstrosity. "Zat is vhere you come in." The Spy managed an inchoate noise, which the Medic accepted as a request for further lecturing. "My venom paralyzes ze prey, slowly dissolving ze muscle und ze bone. Ze organs und ze brain are last to go, keeping ze meal alive, fresh und, incidentally, out of the Respawn. Since it has been more than 24 hours, the Respawn system may have already saved Herr Demoman's condition as his default state. It vill be interesting to see." Bending down, the Medic jabbed his scalpel down through the Demoman's panicked eye, then waited until the Respawn system dissolved the corpse. "Zat, of course, is just scientific curiosity. Ve have work to do." The Medic-spider turned back to the grubworm. "Komm, Liebling, I love to watch you eat." Exercising the last option open to him, the Spy shut his eyes.