"Lea! LEA!" Ruby yelled.

"WHAT? Leona yelled back.

'Lea?" Laz thought to himself. 'Did Ruby give her the nickname or did she already have it and I just didn't know?'

"You need to focus. These little s.h.i.+ts are nothing, but there is too much webbing around here for me to kill them quickly. I need you!" Ruby yelled while taking another swing.

Leona looked over and saw that Ruby was killing the fist sized spiders, but was having trouble keeping her weapons free. Taking a few deep breaths, she clamed herself down. Seeing this, Ruby gave her a smile.

"Good. With your claws, you can do a whole lot better than I am. Just keep stabbing until they are all dead," Ruby said after having stabbed another one.

Both girls seemed to change over time and become better at it. Although Laz had gone through this the first time, he had kind of cheated his way past so he never knew there were so many of the fist sized spiders roaming about. After almost a half hour of fist sized spider killing, Ruby was moving with a sense of grace the defied reason while Leona was quickly stabbing the spiders in the head with one or two nails before throwing them away.

Watching the girls do all the killing, Laz felt kind of refresh and started looking around. Strangly, he noticed a single small spider had landed not far from him. Although he had sensed it when it landed, he just figured it would attack the two girls, but it had instead just stood on a web and looked over. It had to be said that the spiders showed almost no interest in Laz up until this point. He briefly wondered as to why that would be but then he remembered something that Vivi had told him. Creatures were sensitive to predators. When the creature knew that something was very dangerous, it would generally stay away from it, almost like a sixth sense. As such, Laz quickly figured out that they avoided him because he was dangerous. That is, except for this little guy. Of course, the little guy wasn't attacking him either and was instead just watching on.

Seeing the little guy be so interested in the slaughter that Leona and Ruby were unleas.h.i.+ng without jumping itself caused Laz to have a moment of pause. For some reason, he decided to sit down on the cave floor and reach his hand out, as though inviting the spider to climb over. The little spider ignored Laz at first but seeing that the fleshy hand wasn't going anywhere and was instead blocking it's view, the little spider finally climbed on.

Laz didn't know what had made him do this, but he was glad he did. The little guy was a bit on the smaller side but was actually quite fuzzy and slightly cute looking. Laz couldn't help but use a finger and rub it against the little spider's back as though he was petting it. The spider, still watching the fighting, stiffened a litte at the movement but then ended up relaxing it's body as though it enjoyed the attention. Laz continued to pet the little guy while taking a closer look at it. He noticed it had a strange mark on it's back, something that looked shockingly similar to the black tree Laz had on his chest. The way the black lines formed and ran along it's fur seemed to closely resemble the leafless black tree only quite a bit smaller. Laz was rather surpised by this discovery and couldn't help but think about it.

As Laz was lost in thought while sitting on the floor of the cave and petting a tiny spider, the two girls were panting for breath from the endless waves of the little spiders that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Laz had advised them to dress light, but be fully covered. Although they didn't understand it before, they did now. Both Ruby and Leona were wearing skin tight leggings, hiking boots and had their hair tied back. Leona's black leggings matched well with the long sleeve, grey s.h.i.+rt she had on. It was a slightly thicker material the was good to prevent abrasions, but that also meant it trapped in the head and didn't breath well. Ruby's dark green leggings matched well with her brown blouse she had dressed in,. The problem was that it wasn't thicker like Leona's so she had found that it had been torn in many places. Both girls couldn't help but look over at Laz who was comfortably resting on the ground while petting a little spider.

At this moment, if Laz wasn't careful, their gazes would have turned him to stone.

As it was, Laz was absentminded while petting the spider and thinking of things. He had kept his sense locked onto the two girls so that he would know if they go into trouble. But just like he had originally thought, both girls ended up being fine. Both girls were covered in sweat and gave off a rather charming appearence. The tight fitted clothes on Leona's well proportioned body were a stark contrast to the slightly looser clothes on Ruby's thin, althetic body. Both girls couldn't help but create an exotice scene of wild beauty and blood l.u.s.t, like female amazons who could capture your heart or destroy your body with but a thought.

When Laz finally noticed they had stopped moving, he woke up from his thoughts and saw them both staring at him. Of course their deathly stares didn't detract him from enjoying the eye candy before him.

"What?"

"The h.e.l.l are you doing?"

"Why are you petting a spider?"

Laz looked down at the little thing who looked back up at him in turn. It's fuzzy face had eight little eyes that seemed to be staring back at him as though wondering what was up. Laz, reacting on instinct, ended up communicating with the little thing via his spiritual sense as he would normally do with Vivi.

*Hi little thing. You seem different from the others?*

*mhuaa?*

Laz suddenly went from pale white to ghostly white as he jumped back. Luckily he managed to not drop the little spider that was in his hand.

"You... you... you.... talk?" Laz spoke these words out loud, causing Ruby and Leona to look at him like he was nuts. The spider didn't respond back this time and only started looking around before it's eyes wandered over to the next cave entrance that was sitting half way up the wall on the rather hard to climb ledge. Coming back to himself, Laz followed the little things gaze and knew that something else was on it's way.

'Must be the dog size ones,' Laz thought as he looked over to the two women. The smaller spiders, or the few that were left at least, had retreated into the ceiling and the little holes spread all about. They knew they weren't going to have a chance to feast on these two pray with the big brothers coming. Knowing what was going to happen, Laz actually got up and backed away a bit more, until his back was against the wall of the cave before sitting down with the little spider. This time though, he put the spider on his shoulder to keep his hands free and drew a few throwing knives out of his pouch. He had no intention of interfering, but he wanted to be ready just in case.

The girls, seeing Laz's movements, looked over at him and then at eachother before looking back.

"What are you doing now?" Leona asked, finally having caught her breath.

"I would advise you to take off the backpacks and toss them over here," Laz said while gesturing with his hands.

"Why? The little s.h.i.+ts are all dead and scared. It would have been nice for you to tell us this like half an hour ago," Ruby responded while setting her bag down. She was going to go through it and find something better to wear. It was only know that she understood why Laz told them to bring changes of clothing and make sure it was durable. Unlike Leona who had gone through some of Laz's training and knew that if he said something, he meant exactly that, Ruby had dressed up a bit nicer to start with, if only because she enjoyed looking good for herself.

Before Ruby could even unzip her pack, Leona had thrown her's towards Laz and walked over to Ruby. Before Ruby could say anything, Leona grabbed her pack and threw it at Laz as well. The entire time, she was looking in the direction of the large hole half way up the cave wall.

"Hey Lea, I was using that. I want to change out of my s.h.i.+rt." Ruby hadn't noticed the look of danger in Leona's eyes.

"Ru, get ready. Something else is coming," Leona advised while helping Ruby to stand up. Leona's senses had been trained a bit by constant sparring with Laz so she had sensed the incoming spiders before Ruby did. Although Ruby was trained in the ways of humans and detecting bloodl.u.s.t, she had no experience when it came to monsters or animals.

Ruby finally looked up at Leona and noticed her gaze. They both backed away a bit and put some distance between themselves and that side of the cavern.

As they made ready to fight, Leona looked over at Laz and noticed a rather calm look on his face, as though everything was what he expected. Seeing this caused mixed emotions in her. She was mad at him for acting indifferent and not helping, but she also knew that meant they were fully able to handle what was coming and that he had investigated things before hand. Obviously this was something he had set up to train them and after seeing the knives in his hands, she knew he was going to make sure they were ok. Just knowing that Laz was watching over them caused quite a bit more warmth in Leona's heart. She couldn't help but enjoy having a partner that would watch out for her but trust her at the same time and allow her to do her own thing. Most men were not like that. Just as she had come to this conclusion, Ruby had noticed Laz as well and came up with a similar evaluation. Despite the danger both girls felt, they couldn't help but smile knowing he was watching on.

Laz had no idea that his little guestures were being regarded with warmth by the two girls as he too watched the opening. In barely a few breaths of time, ten of the large, dog sized spiders appeared and rushed out of the opening. They jumped off the ledge and landed on the ground before charging at the two waiting girls.

Laz stiffened up when he saw this, thinking that Vivi didn't tell him there would be this many. His first instinct was to act and take out a few of them, but seeing the girls smiling at the oncoming threat, he decided against this. Instead, he strengthened his sense so that he could observe the battle more closely and waited.

It was important for them to fight like this against creatures and allow them to grow, but he wasn't going to allow any accidents. He knew that he wasn't always going to be there for them as he had a feeling that life would make him leave soon, but until then, he promised himself he would take care of these two no matter what.