Causeway, Late Late Friday Night into Early Early Saturday Morning

[lockestheway]

They arrived quietly in the night. Not... really at the causeway, as such, but a hundred feet or more along the line of the lake. In horsedrawn-carriage, because the steam vehicles they had experimented with were as of yet too loud.

Two men disembarked from the carriage, and quietly peeled open the back. One by one, they let the metal within come alive: one tiny spider first, then another, then another, and then the bigger ones, their clunky metal 'feet' thunking onto the ground.

Their path had been carefully programmed in some time earlier. Across the causeway, into that strange city that held so much valuable technology... and other treasures their makers probably couldn't even dream up. All they needed to do was... make sure the current inhabitants realised they might want to move elsewhere.

And so the spiders poured into the city, exploratory-- for now.

It would be different when the sun came up.

The Gig, Saturday

[justlike_a_girl]

Dani had just led Clyde outside to the paddock when she saw the first of the spiders. It was huge as far as she was concerned. Her first instinct was to scream when it came near her, and that prompted Clyde into action. The Clydesdale reared up and came down on the spider, shattering it with his front legs.

"I think it's an indoor day today. Run!" Dani shrieked at Clyde as she headed back to the barn to avoid the next wave of spiders. Once she and Clyde were safely inside, she shut the doors and barricaded them.

The Gig was open... sort of, if you could persuade Dani to open the doors.

Beach | Evening | Saturday | June 18

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

Huge metallic spiders hadn't been on Percy's mind when he'd wandered down to the beach that night. Really, he'd just wanted to be near the water and the showers on the campground just weren't cutting it.

What had started out as Percy just sitting there at the water's edge, letting the waves lap up around him and turned into something else when he'd spotted a group of spiders off to his side. It took Percy (slow dimwit that he was) a minute or so to realize that they were not what spiders were supposed to look like. By then, they were pretty much on top of him. Two had attached themselves to his legs and one was big enough to be nearly at eye level. Percy hated being short sometimes.

Percy yanked Riptide out of his pocket and swatted the two off his legs amazingly without slicing his own legs off. The big one came at him and Percy stepped back towards the ocean. Instantly, he could feel his own strength increasing and he brought Riptide down viciously against the spider's head. It made some sort of sound but didn't die. Percy edged back into the water, waves lapping at his knees and conjured up a big wave. He let it splash down on top of both himself and the spider, hoping the water would short out its circuits or something.

And if that didn't work, Percy suspected that jamming Riptide into its head and keeping it there might. The spider convulsed a few times, sparks flying before it flopped down into the water and stilled. Percy tugged Riptide out of the spider's head and started back towards shore.

It was unfortunate that he'd forgotten how long the spider's legs were because his foot caught against that metal limb and sent Percy falling face first into the water. All that badass fighting only to end like this.

Of course. Percy pushed himself up and scowled. He was not a badass at all.

[Open post, if you happen to be near the beach]

The Devil's Nest, Saturday Evening, 6/18

[nookiepowered]

"If these scratches don't buff out of my jacket and boots," Bo said to Tiny with a growl, "I am hunting down every robotic spider-web between here and Topeka and kicking the robotic shit out of it." She punctuated that by stomping violently on the next little silver monster to scuttle through the doors. It crumpled under her sole with a sad radiophonic squeal.

Don't mess with the leather, kids.

[Open! With occasional chance of spider.]

The streets of Fandom [Saturday evening]

[weldedtomyspine]

Dinner had been nice. It occurred to Jaime as he and Momoko walked along the street that they didn't go out nearly often enough. It was just so much easier to stay in and watch DVDs and eat junk food. They'd sort of fallen into a routine. And... while that was fun, he didn't want to... just do that.

So they'd had a real date. And he'd even let himself get talked into taking Momoko shopping for a 'real' cowboy hat. And then boots. And a belt.

The kind that didn't make her look like a tourist.

"See?" he explained, arm linked through hers. "Much better than that tourist-y thing you got in El Paso."

Outside Pizza Planet: Saturday Evening

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Yes. The island was getting invaded by small clockwork spiders. And yes it was weird.

But damn it, Jack wanted pizza. However, after running over a half a dozen clockwork spiders on his new scooter getting to Pizza Planet, Jack had enough and made a phone call home.

"Jo?" Jack said into his phone as he exited the restaurant carrying his Meaty-Meat Pizza with extra meat and cheese. "Jack. No. The other one. Yeah. Listen, remember how I told you I won't need anything from the arsenal? Well..."

Jack stopped and squashed a small clockwork spider under his foot. "I think I might be changing my mind on that. Why? Well, spiders. Metal ones. Taggart hasn't been fooling around with those nanoids again has he?"

Jack stopped in front of his bike and paused a second or two. The skittering sounds he had heard before had gone silent and had been replaced by... something louder.

"Jo? I gotta go."

Just as he put away his phone Jack heard some loud clanging. He dived away just in time to see a rather large mechanical spider about the size of a large dog jump off the roof of the pizza planet... and crash right into his new scooter.

"OH COME ON!"

The spider got tangled up with his bike and within seconds had completely decimated the scooter.

"I just paid for that!"

The large spider? Now pulling itself from the wreckage and was now coming after Jack. Jack, for once, displayed some intelligence and started running back to the cabins.

"I SO hate this freaking island!"