Avoiding the Leash

Another crack of her long whip suggested a hefty reminder of its reach and speed. Dexterous, moves faster than your legs could ever possibly carry, meaning you'd have to prepare in advance to avoid her swings, and that required guesswork. Moving too early, and she hits you. Moving too late, and she hits you. Never have you suffered a proper whiplash, but with the way it cracks the very air to split it apart invisibly yet loudly, you'd do everything you could to not be at the other end of it. You'd need signs to look for, and react to them immediately. Fortunately, you had decent to good reaction timing, at least, all things considered that you're still alive in this cruel setting. Infected are fast and stronger. It takes wits and quick thinking to deal with them, but now you've been facing dangerous people with their minds intact. Well, mostly intact. Her devotion to a tyrant queen that's eager on devouring your friends lacks what you'd hope was common sense and decency.

Your brow furl and your hands tighten, staring past them to the Ariados woman rolling her fingers to her whip handle. To whip it properly, she'd have to have some kind of wind-up, in which your eyes lock onto her arm's direction rather than the rest of her. Valentina saunters one leg in front of the other as though she were on a red carpet toa show, having her gaze just as equally cemented onto you, her prize, and in her wandering hopes, her next good boy. "Just hold still, pup. I can make this quick and easy for us both."

She uppercuts her arm instantly, lashing the long white rope upwards with it. In the curved arc, you sidestep it to thankfully avoid it, but watch as her arm then descends, You weave back in place to where you once stood as the rebound lash snaps down. The whip cracks the air before spanking against the floor, narrowly avoiding you, but you can feel the air cutting apart right next to your leg. The hint at its sharpness is crystal clear, getting your hindpaw to make an additional backstep of safety despite being out of current harm's way at that point. She retracts part of the length back to her. "Ah, ah, ahh...has no one ever taught you proper manners as a man? I'm the leading lady here, and you're meant to follow my step. You're definitely going to make my work cut out for me, aren't you~?"

Your brows pinch in tighter as you keep your focused aura burning within you. "...I can see your crazy queen isn't the only problem with this place."

The spider idly twists a leg at the floor, pivoting her hind in place in the likelihood of imagining you underneath it, being squashed and punished for such a suggestion. You found and struck a nerve. The Ariados seethes in less of a mused tone than she had before, even if she was keeping up the playful act. "Intruders filthying my chamber with their steps may be one thing...but to speak such blasphemy to me? Within the very walls of my workshop? That audacity will be the end of a degenerate dog as you." Valentina remarks, never losing her smile as she strains the whips up above her head. "I will bring you to your knees in worship, in which you plead for forgiveness. A mercy you shall not have!"

She suddenly spins in place on one leg, spiraling the whip in a wide circle with what would normal graceful pirouette, only to take a massive horizontal swing at you. The silken whip swings almost invisibly for how pale and quick it sweeps; the tips of your ears suffer the long arc when by some grace you duck immediately down to avoid it, yet in feeling the sting, it scared you that your head would have fared far worse. In a responding hoist, you go higher than a stand and actually hop up onto one of her tables, using it as a springboard to kick off and plummet towards her with a tried and true diving punch. Blue fire crackles around your fist and burns a trail of embers along your angled attack to finally meet her in combat.

You manage to clock her jawline during your trip down, knocking some air out of her when meeting the floor past the spider and catching your landing with a skid on your paws. Meeting her pace, you keep the pressure going immediately when twisting around with a leg out; a roundhouse kick at the ready to follow-up to her back. However, you find a spool of the whip length near its grip suddenly snag together around your hindpaw, halting it, all before it whiplashes you away in a spiral. The world horribly twists in your vision and denies you any sensibility to catch yourself this time. Pain ruptures within you awkwardly in several places at once as soon as you crash against a table and all of its contents. A mess is made when the workshop items tumble to the floor with you, leaving your figure with a fresh array of bruising bludgeoning, and getting a bark out of your chops as a cherry on top for her. Your ass hits the floor unceremoniously and you're barely given enough time to just reorient your eyes.

Valentina casually rubs at her chin that you struck, while also whipping one of the legs of the table you crash over to suddenly yank it horribly to the side. The table rolls over in a crash, creating dangerously empty space between you and the sauntering spider.

"Look...at the mess you made now!" She hisses, uncaring if the fault was shared. Correcting her mattered not to you when her whip was at it again, lifted and lashing to you. You do as the table did, rolling awkwardly in a fast pace, all to avoid the whip's fury, successfully even.

Unfortunately you're still struck when her long leg sweeps up and clocks your own jaw this time, payback for the punch likely, and lifting you up from its sweep. The kick was like an uppercut from her ballerina-esque legs, having far better flexibility than your own. You had been eyeing her whip this whole time, you forgot there was an entire spider to pay attention to as well. The spider's limb then catches your chest but stomping into it, flattening you against a wall with a firm lean forward of her body. A wet sputter coughs from your jaws, getting the glaring spider to scoff in disgust when some of the spittle spritzes her firm but now glossy leg.

The yellow and purple striped limb keeps you in place like a nail ready to be hammered through, right to your heart had it been sharp enough. Instead though, the ball and two clawed digits of the exoskeletal hind keep you steady as she cracks her trusty weapon off to the side.

Wanting to avoid a scolding, or worse, a punishment, you quickly bring down a burning hand in a chop, striking directly at her knee for the leg. Knees were only meant to bend one way, and with enough pressure in the opposite, it easily gets her hind to kick off of you in a loud hiss of her mouth; her naturally armored leg holding true as ever, but thankfully giving you a chance to check your peripherals. There's a large wooden cabinet to your right, and with a grip, you yank to teeter on its corner and coming crashing down towards you. You stagger for space as it smashes down where she once stood, with no visible sign of the spider underneath. For a brief moment, you think you've done it and simply won there and then. Another part of you is still fuelled with adrenaline and thinking the danger's only just begun.

The worried part of you is correct once you hear her laugh. Left or right, your eyes don't see her within the scan of her room, leaving you to step away from the wall with each glance earning you no sight of the red spider.

"Everything you break is just another part of you I shall break..." Valentina's voice sneers, wildly too close in sound for your comfort, which dreads you to peer upwards.

You meet eyes with your pursuer. The woman had whipped up to the webbed ceiling, in which you see her standing completely normal before, save for the fact that she was entirely upside down. Her sauntered steps are unimpeded by the change in gravity, striding near above you with her whip unspooling from her arm. "Run little dog, or I'll start with your legs first, and work my way to that disgusting face~!"

For some reason, running felt like a good idea at the time. Fight or flight kicking in, you wouldn't do well trying to battle her on a completely different level of the room, so you turn. You do run. At least in hopes to make some distance again and come up with another plan.

"Got you!" She announces pre-emptively, but her words would prove true as a sudden lash whips around your throat, coiling naturally in its momentum to wrap your neck up. Your legs swing up and splay forward for a moment, leaving the ground when your head is yanked awfully in the opposite direction. With your spine suffering the worst stretch you could have imagined, it all happens in a brief second before you feel yourself being fished up in the sudden swing of your body. Valentina pulls her line, dangling you in directionless sways above the floor as you feebly kick your legs to nothing and grasp at your pained collar with awkward abandon. A tight burn chokes in your lungs. You can't breathe. The strong silken rope locking up your gullet denies you any of the breath you desperately want, despite feeling it all around you as your pendulum around in the very air.

Your hands grip at the whip, unable to fit your fingers through the silk burning in past your fur to your very skin. Even your eyes struggle in the pressure, feeling like your face is inflaming fatly...and you're given the view above you, tugged up and up with every strained pull of the dastardly busty spider to see her wicked smile grow bigger.

"Don't struggle now. You're better in one piece after all. Surely you want to breathe again, lest you prefer this room as your tomb, mutt~"

You'll have to do something to put a stop to her.

1. Let her pull you up and attack her directly.

2. Burn the rope and drop down.

3. Go limp and accept your capture...