A STICKY SITUATION

With his mouth spread wide, Sparky leaped at Natalia, but Max was quicker. He grabbed the drake by his neck before his tiny teeth could sink into Natalia’s nose.

“Be careful!” Kenji shouted as Sparky whimpered. The drake tried to break free. He was flapping his wings and kicking his legs, but Max wouldn’t let go.

Kenji rushed over to wrap his arms around the tiny dragon, stroking Sparky’s neck as he cried.

Natalia stood rooted to the ground, her face drained of color as she tried to catch her breath.

“Next time, listen to him,” Max told Natalia. The drake hissed while Max walked away, but it was nothing more than a false sense of bravado. The Bounder was trying to save face.

The Relic Hunters pressed forward, but the path was choked by vegetation. They tried to use the statues as markers, but most were lost in the thick undergrowth. The sun was fading, and as night set in, tensions in the group mounted.

“I don’t think we’re going the right way,” Yi said. His hands were lit like torches, and even though they provided light, they were also drawing enormous insects.

“Hold up,” Xander said.

Yi walked over to where Xander was standing. The flames around his hands revealed a massive spiderweb stretched between two trees like a roadblock.

“I’d hate to see the spider that made this,” Ernie said.

“That makes two of us,” Todd said.

“Three of us,” Ross said.

“Can we go around it?” Kenji asked as his drake landed on his shoulder.

“I’m not sure we’d want to,” Xander said.

“Look,” Yi said, pointing into the branches overhead.

“I don’t see anything,” Ross said.

“Maybe not, but I can smell them,” Denton said.

“Me too,” Ernie said.

“There it is again,” Yi said. “Something is up in the trees. I think it’s a—”

Yi couldn’t finish his sentence, because a white gelatinous substance, like a giant spitball, was covering his mouth. He tried to pull it away, but it stuck to his hands. Max could see the panic in Yi’s eyes, but as the changeling’s body burst into flames, whatever was choking him burned away, allowing Yi to breathe again.

A second dollop of goop hit Brooke in the face, sending her into the ferns. Honeysuckle tried to pull it off Brooke as another glob struck Kenji’s drake, wrapping around his wings so he couldn’t fly.

Ross and Todd grabbed flashlights that were hanging from their belts. They shined the beams up into the trees’ branches, and then they recoiled.

“They’re Blight Spiders,” Max said. With their six arms, eight eyes, and bristling hair, they looked just like the monsters on his Round Table card.

“Any suggestions?” Xander asked.

“They hate fire.” Max raised his Codex gauntlet, and a captivity orb shot from his palm. The Blight Spider that he targeted leaped out of the way, and the orb zipped past and fizzled in the branches of the tree.

Max let three more orbs fly, and though the first two missed, the last struck its target. The Blight Spider screamed as it clawed at the prison. Sparks of energy flew, but it couldn’t break free no matter how hard it fought.

“We can’t get the webbing off Brooke’s face,” Natalia said as she struggled with Honeysuckle. “She’s suffocating.”

“Hold still,” Yi said as he raised an index finger to the webbing. A flame leaped from his fingertip, melting the sticky substance.

Brooke’s eyes were wild as she gasped for breath.

“Look out,” Denton warned.

Max turned in time to see a spray of webbing race toward him. Yi shot it out of the air with a fireball. He shifted and sent another volley at Kenji’s drake. The flames melted the web, releasing the tiny dragon so it could join the fight.

Sprig pounced on one of the Blight Spiders before it could reach Raven. Harley took aim at another with his freeze ray. He managed to hit it in the leg, but the rest of his shots missed. The Blights were quick, but they weren’t too quick for Ernie.

He ripped off his backpack and dumped the contents onto the forest floor. Then, in a blur of speed, he ran toward one of the Blight Spiders and pulled the backpack over its head. The Blight screamed, trying to break free. Ernie grabbed a vine that was hanging from a branch and used it to wrap the Blight Spider like a spool of thread.

Nearby, Catalina’s Bounder imp tore into the soft earth, looking for a place to hide. One of the Blight Spiders jumped down from the branches. It opened its mouth to unleash a torrent of webbing at Catalina, but Max hit it with a captivity orb before it could attack.

At the same time, Denton scaled a tree and launched at one of the Blight Spiders. They both fell off the branch and landed in the ferns below. Somehow the Blight landed on top, but Denton coiled his legs, growled, and kicked hard.

The force sent the monster flying backward. Max unleashed another captivity orb, hitting the monster in the chest. It hovered in the air, howling and screaming as it fought to break free.

“Nicely played,” Strange said from a safe distance. He was standing with his arms crossed as though he were observing another scenario in the SIM Chamber.

“Is he just going to stand there and watch us get slaughtered?” Raven asked before she swung a fallen tree branch at one of the Blights.

“Probably,” Max said. He watched as a length of webbing spun Todd into a cocoon. Ross was next, and before either of the Toad brothers realized what was happening, they were hanging upside down from one of the branches. They wiggled and writhed, but they couldn’t break free.

Another Blight Spider landed on top of Harley and bit him in the shoulder. Even though the Blight’s teeth couldn’t penetrate the protective fabric of the jumpsuit, the pressure was painful. Harley reached up with his free hand to grab the monster by its neck and flipped it onto the ground.

Kenji’s drake swooped down, spraying flames from his mouth. The Blight crouched, covering its head with two of its arms while the other four grasped at the drake. It didn’t see the captivity orb that Max had shot until the ball of energy slammed into its back.

Frightened by the orbs, the rest of the Blights fled to the shadows of the forest. Denton scaled the tree where the Toad brothers dangled like ripe fruit.

“Should we leave them up here?” he asked.

“As much as I’d like to, we better cut them down,” Max said. “I doubt we’ll score many points for abandoning members of the team—even those two.”

With a single swipe of his claws, Denton cut them both down. The Toad brothers landed with an “Oomph!” on the soft forest floor, but it was a long drop.

“Now that every monster in the forest knows we’re here, what’s the plan?” Raven asked.

“We need to find the temple,” Xander said.

“Please tell me somebody has the map,” Raven said.

“That was Ross and Todd’s responsibility,” Natalia said.

Todd, whose legs were still wrapped in webbing, struggled to open his backpack. His gloves stuck to the zipper, and he couldn’t break free. He did, however, manage to open the compartment where the map was resting.

“Here, let me help,” Ross said as he reached into the backpack. He pulled out the map, but it was stuck to his hand.

“You two are nitwits, do you know that?” Raven said, walking over to pry the map away. There was a loud rip. A portion of it was stuck to Ross’s hand while Raven held the rest.

“Okay, this is the temple,” Raven said, pointing to the center of the map, “and this is where they were supposed to drop us off.”

“We’re not that far off track,” Harley said. “There should be a stream nearby that’ll lead us straight there.”

“Let’s hurry up before something else shows up and tries to turn us into a midnight snack,” Todd said.