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IMPORTANT: Please don't join the thread with a weapon that's already in use.

Iron quaked, and took a step back.

He'd never seen anything like it.

It roamed easily between the buildings, enormous legs the size of a streetlight, its body shaded about a block of the Ruins from rain and blotted out the light of the red and angry moon.

Being cornered by one of the little fog monsters was one thing, but this... he reached to summon a weapon, and found the strange but reassuring weight of a hatchet.

He rolled away from its foggy, dripping fangs and brought the hatchet down- it barely made a dent.

Someone else was here, someone familiar (familiar ...). "Under normal circumstances ("I guess it's not that much different,"), I'd say I was happy to see you, but I'm not real sure I can manage happy with that thing around," Rojand said, and shook his head. "Never seen anything like it. Jesus, it's huge."

He swung the whip up, lashing the barbed tip into the spider's belly; the scratch made it jerk, its huge body shivering grotesquely, and it targeted him in retaliation, the claw knocking him flat. "And it hits like a truck," Rojand added as he picked himself up. He didn't know what a truck was, but the phrase felt right.

Rojand opened his mouth to answer, found that he didn't actually have an answer to give, and shut it again. He just was. Belatedly, trying for a light tone, he said, "What, I can't just like a guy?"

Inexplicably embarrassed, he turned back to the monster and flipped the whip out and around its leg. He yanked it back, hissing with quiet satisfaction, but hearing the warning a little too late to benefit from it. The spider's leg hit him solidly in the stomach, and he staggered back, trying to catch his breath.

"Guess that's good adv - whoa," Rojand said, and dived aside as the leg came down right where he'd been standing. He braced himself against a wall. He was feeling a lot less sure of himself than he usually did when fighting. He kind of wished he had something that could make him feel better.

The whip in his hand lit with a soft yellow glow, like a Heart, and his Heart pulsed in response. He blinked. He did feel better. Could he do that again? "Hey, uh. You doing okay?" he asked, a little awkwardly.

"That's a start, anyway," Rojand nodded, and sidled over closer to put a hand on Iron's shoulder, asking the whip silently and hesitantly if it could do that for him, please. The glow traveled down his arm and to the other man. Rojand let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding.

The spider chose that moment of distraction to stab him again.

"My weapon's helpful," Rojand explained as he caught his breath and eyed the spider, looking for an opening. He lashed his whip at a descending leg, but getting out of the way as the leg landed kept him from hurting it much. "Goddammit. I think we might need some help with this thing. Where'd your rude sidekick get off to?"

"He's my friend," fiance, "and he- likes to go wandering, sometimes."

Reap had been everywhere, the cliffs, the forge, the air. Every time he came back, his heart had grown more shapes and colors. Rojand was right, though. They could use his help now, except...

"He'll come back." Iron said grimly. He missed the stroke into the spider's leg as it tried to impale him.