Chapter 44: Dethroning.
Malakai peeked his head over the edge of the broken window and peered down into the darkness below, thanks to his dark-adapted eyes he easily picked out all the shapes moving around below him.
He glanced back at Wisp who was peering over his shoulder, "I still can't believe you managed to persuade Seven to convince me to turn my armour into a saddle" he grumbled and Wisp shot him an evil grin.
"Well how else am I supposed to ride you my sugar spider?' she shot back with a playful kick of her heels in the makeshift stirrups now sewn into the sides of the body armour he was wearing that now looked like a cross between a bomb vest and a horse saddle.
"Seemed to do alright the other night without one," he said with a sly smile and Wisp laughed.
"Well yeah but then you were on your back and I had a lot to hold onto, well unless you want to flip over and have me ride your fluffy bum all the way down to the ground, sure as hell would work as one fucker of a distraction don't you think?" she said making him flush bright pink.
"Err I think I'll just keep it this way thanks," he said and she laugh again.
'Thought so, now how many do you count? I got about two hundred of them down there" she said.
"Two fifteen to be exact and what looks like some rather strange ones locked up in cages off to the right there, though they don't look like girls to me," he said pointing towards a stack of what looked like a mixture of welded shopping trolleys, chains and rebar that had all been welded together to form some kind of jail.
Wisp looked where he was pointing and Malakai swore he could hear her eyes whirring as they zoomed in, "Hey yeah you are right if anything they look like boys, but it's hard to tell, they could be regular super mutants, but there's just something off about them" she said.
"I'll take a closssser look, can you lower me down?" Riss said from Malakai's right, Malakai nodded and he quickly began weaving a silk harness like a sling which he handed to Riss who hooked herself into it, the fibres were so fine as to be nearly invisible looking like a fine grey shimmer.
Fortunately, the strands were more than strong enough to hold her weight and planting all eight of his legs far apart as Riss leaned over the edge applying her cloaking as she did Malakai took the strain of holding her weight, slowly he fed the strands through his hands lowering Riss down till she hit the ground and he pulled up the makeshift rope and using his spinnerets he severed it from himself.
Wisp pressed her radio PTT, "Riss in on the ground over" she said and Seven came back almost instantly.
"Roger that, we're getting everything set up here any eyes on the queen or her enforcers yet? Over," he said.
Both Malakai and Wisp looked around the crowd, "Negative nothing yet" Wisp replied.
"Ok roger that keep us in the loop we'll let you know when we're ready over and out," he said.
"Can yous hit that beam with a web?" Runs asked pointing to a metal roof beam a few feet away from them.
The ceiling was a latticework of heavily riveted steel beams that interlinked in order to support the huge glass ceiling that was mostly and surprisingly still intact except for a few panels like the one that the small group were looking through.
Runs was dressed completely in black and his face was painted with stripes and swirls of black paint, on his back was both his bow and a rifle both crossed over his chest, the only thing that showed his heritage other than his bow were the soft mocisans on his feet.
"Yeah should be no problem, gimme a second" Malakai said and using his spinnerets he began to create a ball of sticky silk, now as an Arachnakai he could make multiple types of silk, like the super dense thick and non-sticky strands that he used to make the armour they were all wearing, now he was producing a super sticky and elastic type that would work as an anchor this would be attached and blended into an elastic but non-sticky variant that would allow it to be climbed on without sticking to the climber.
He was about to throw it when Runs stopped him, "Don't throw, attach to this" he said holding out a blunt-tipped carved arrow made from wood and Malakai couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship that had gone into it as an artisan himself he loved admiring the work of a fellow artisan.
Malakai nodded and took the arrow before using his leg to pass the sticky anchor to his hands he quickly attached the ball to the tip and wrapped the arrow in enough sticky silk to hold it anchored in place before handing it back to Runs who smiled and nodded as he admired Malakai's craftsmanship.
Runs took his bow from his back and nocked the arrow into it, "I's needs enough rope to make it to that beam there" he said pointing to a beam slightly further away than the one he originally pointed at and Malakai nodded before he kicked his spinnerets into high gear and they rapidly began weaving the silk together like it was being braided and wrapped, now to look at his silk glands it would be easy to assume that Malakai only had two large spinnerets but that wasn't true as Arachnakai had six.
The outer spinnerets which were the ones that everyone saw and that Wisp continually loved to tease and play with as she was rapidly developing a little habit of either tickling them when he wasn't looking or gently pinching them before gently patting him on the rear.
But under those two large spinnerets that were about the size of two average human fingers stood end to end there were four more under them that were a little harder to see, there were the mediums and then the smalls and they all had their jobs, the smalls wove the finest of the threads into the weave, the mediums handled the thicker threads while also applying tension to already in play threads to make it easier to weave them.
Runs took careful aim before taking a deep breath holding it and drawing the bow in one fluid strong movement, the arrow hit exactly where Runs aimed it and stuck solid thanks to Malakai's web adhesive.
