A musing Mr. Samson sat alone at a table in his favorite Coffee shop down town. It was a small place, run by two men who were very much in love with each other. Roach found them to be rather enjoyable; they didn't scream when they saw him, and they were proficient at small talk while they prepared his coffee. Not a lot of people came here ,but the streets were busy, so he could just look out the window and watch while he let his mind wander.

Puppies vs Scorpions. would it be better to swim in maple syrup or caramel? Who is John Jacob Jinglehymershmidt? He let out a long, contented sigh, and lifted up his newspaper with his middle hands, reaching around and grasping his coffee with his left big arm to take a sip. Ahh, black, ten scoops of sugar; just how he liked it. He lowered his paper as someone walked in; an old lady who was a regular like him, he tipped his hat with his only free hand, and she squinted in his direction; she was blind as a bat. "Gladys." She smiled and nodded. "Gregory." And then she went off to order her coffee...

The giant bug smiled the best a bug could, and went back to looking out the window; oh what a peaceful day it was. He reached down to the table and picked up a chunk of cupcake, passing it down into his shell so his many cousins could share it. They tore it apart quickly and feasted. Such a peaceful day...

Megan rather liked shops that had little tinkling bells attached to entrance doors. Not only did it make for a guaranteed head turn or two, but it was also a very delightful sound. This shop however, did not have tinkling bells. Strike one for the unknown coffee shop. As she stood in the doorway, glancing about curiously, the first few things she noticed forced her to stay. One, semi handsome men were at work behind the counter, a plus for eye candy lovers everywhere, and secondly- there was a giant cockroach sitting off to one corner of the shop. Interesting... Very interesting. One point to unknown coffee shop. Shoving her hands into the pockets of her dark jeans, she sauntered up to the counter to wait behind an elderly woman, and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. If there was a god, he wouldn't allow anyone, let alone old women, to wear that much perfume... Honestly, it was horrible. Something about the scent of fake roses and lilac just didn't sit well with her up close.

She took a dainty two steps back, and waited until the woman had fished two god forsaken pennies out of her purse, so she wouldn't have to break a ten.., before sidling up to order her own drink. The man behind the counter received a plus for being rather well kept- nothing like a man who could take care of himself. When questioned about what he could get her, she pursed her lips and pointed up at the menu. "I think I shall have, a small, Decaf, soy Latte with four pumps of caramel, if you wouldn't mind." She leaned forward on the counter, smiling pleasantly, and batted her eyelashes at the man, catching sight of his name tag briefly as he typed her order into the cash register.

"Heya cutie, wanna give a pretty girl a free drink?" She winked at him, and plopped her head in her hands, fully expecting to receive the drink in question. Instead, he burst into a fit of laughter and buckled over behind the counter. Megan frowned deeply for a moment, and stoop up straight, keeping her hands planted on the counter as she plastered a beaming smile on her face. When he finally regained control over himself, he wiped a tear away from the corner of his eye and tapped in the last few keys on the register. "Oh, sweetie, you are totally barking up the wrong tree. That'll be five thirty five." Megan's grin faltered momentarily, before she shifted to an embarrassed smile and fished her wallet out of her back pocket. "Oh, my mistake. Here you are." After handing her cash over- a rather painful action if she did say so herself- she received her coffee and turned to stomp her way out.

No free coffee? Strike two and three, end of game. All of the small bumps incubating on her back and shoulder blades swelled, and once she was out the door and safely on the sidewalk they ruptured. She sent out call for her hidden children, who had been following her since she got off work, and gave them an order to swarm the coffee shop... and run all of its stupid customers away. With that done, she slipped off her black sweater, shaking off the newly born jumping spiders that clung to the inside, and ordered them to slip in under the front door. Tucking her sweater under her arm, she took a moment to reorganize her wallet before shoving it back into her pocket as the newborn spiderlings skittered off into the coffee shop...

Roach tilted his head as a young woman entered the shop, and eyed him. She seemed curious, which made him feel curious as well.. Most people ran as if enamored by his great looks, or screamed, which prompted him to eat them...

She simply looked interested. He sat down his news paper, and took a long gulp of hot coffee, causing his antennae to spike up as he waited for his mouth to cool down... She ordered her drink, tried to hit on the server, which made Roach cackle under his breath little, and then took her coffee and left. Mr.Samson frowned at the briefness of the whole ordeal; surely there had to be something more interesting to this situation than that? He looked out the window to watch her leave, and tilted his head at the odd sight that greeted his buggy eyes.

She was shaking something out of her sweater rather casually... it looked like a bunch of creepy crawlers... they were coming this way... The roach blinked a few times, and looked down at the floor, suddenly noticing the army of spiders headed towards the front desk. He clattered excitedly, and did some mental math... spiders were coming from her, and attacking the shop?! he had to stop it, or else he would have to find a new establishment, and that wouldn't do at all!

He clickitity clacked some well thought out words to Frankie in his shell and then opened his wings wide enough to let out his cousins. A swarm of large roaches flew from him, ambushing the first wave of spiders from above. Frankie, haven already given his orders, skittered off to go get reinforcements. Roach watched from his seat, taking another sip of coffee... He wondered briefly how this was happening... perhaps the woman was a mutant who controlled animals? Maybe just spiders... it didn't matter, though... the war had started; he would win!

The roaches had gotten the jump on the spiders, and had taken out at least a fourth of them before the advantage of surprise wore off... As Frankie had previously ordered, the roach army formed a line in between the spiders and the counter.

The owners were beginning to notice what was going on, but as of that moment they were just confused. The old lady was just humming and sipping her coffee.

Shadows fell over the small arachnid army, and as the eight legged stopped to tilted their bodied up and insect, the roaches fell on them. The first line fell quickly, missing legs and eyes as they scrambled about in circles- useless to the cause. The spiders behind scrambled back and prepared themselves for the surprise attack. Outside on the sidewalk, Megan received a rushed 'under attack! Pain! Prey hurting!' and she paused mid step to shoot back a hurried 'What?' If they meant the people were reacting, she would have understood... but prey? She took a moment to sit and think, trying to decipher what they meant... and then it hit her. The giant bug inside the coffee shop. It looked like prey, and must have started retaliating against them.

"Oh no, no my friend. I don't think so." Megan seated herself on a nearby bench and crossed her legs, sending a command to group together and attack as a unit. Inside the shop, the spiders fell back by the door and reformed. They chattered amongst themselves for a moment, before surging forward with silken sticky silken threads flowing freely from behind. As they closed in, the second wave from outside managed to slip in through cracks and open windows, and set about throwing themselves into unguarded coffee cups, plates of food, and peoples hair. Three people stood and hurried from the shop, trampling both cockroach and spider alike on their way out, and the spiders used the sudden distraction to their advantage. A line of jumping spiders flew into action and launched themselves towards the line of roaches, arms spread wide and fangs curved out.

A handful of widows and wolf spiders crawled out from cracks in the ceiling and dropped down on silken lines to hang above the counter like Halloween decorations. One look at the bright red hourglasses sent the man at the cash register reeling back and in search for a broom, while his partner dug under the counter for something- anything- that would kill the bugs. Outside, Megan grinned as she received a hyper 'Got some! Got some!' and folded her hands together behind her head. Then, she blinked, and frowned. "They got...some? some of what?" Narrowing her eyes, she turned her head towards the coffee shop and waited. 'Retreat when your numbers are low... bring whatever you are fighting outside...' She commanded silently, letting her eyes slip closed. She started to hum a quiet happy tune, and let herself drift off into imagining what was going on inside...

Mr. Samson wasn't pleased... He watched as some of his cousins fell to the eight legged enemies with a great wave of distaste... The owners had retreated, having seen the mark of the black widow. Roach gritted his mandibles in frustration, taking the last sip of his coffee, and then smooshing a black widow with his thumb... He wasn't at all afraid of the poisonous bugs; there was no way they were going to be able to bite through his carapace.

He slowly rolled up his news paper with his middle hands, and whapped a small spider was what scurrying across his table. This was bothersome. The giant bug looked down at his wrist watch, wondering what was taking Frankie so long; the roaches were beginning to have trouble holding the line.

As if he were just waiting for Roach to have the thought, Frankie arrived with fifteen large cockroaches in toe, coming around front, and attacking the main spider force from behind. Mr. Samson eyed a spider trying to get onto the main counter, and tutted aloud, throwing his coffee cup at it... He missed, but one of the owners got it with a broom.

"Ahh, Thomas, If you may avoid getting mixed up in this for now, that would be splendid, I do not wish to witness you harming one of my cousins, as I would feel dreadful if I ate you. Simply dreadful." The man's eyes went wide,and he backed away, clenching his broom to his chest.

The spiders fell back, wriggling pedipalps in silent communication to one another. They needed to retreat, gather together, and then attack in a bigger group! The arachnids fell back towards the wall, avoiding the directions sides with roaches, and gathered together on top of one another. Outside, Megan was met with one puzzled question after another, and was forced to look up from inspecting her nails. Something about lots of enemies... her eyes narrowed, and recalling a scene from a movie she had recently watched, she sent two direct commands.

The spiders jumped into action immediately, and literally. Eight legs carried them up the wall behind quite easily, and with large eyes pinned on one target for each, the spiders launched themselves from their high position into the air, effectively blotting out the florescent light from above for a few moments. When the small bodies landed again, it was on top of wriggling roaches. The two struggled, spiders trying to sink in fangs wherever possible and threaded sticky web whatever their back-ends touched, while the six legged insects used sharp mouth parts to snip off legs and poke out vital eyes.

From outside, Megan heard one last call of pain, and sighed deeply. Retreat... The silent, much needed, command was met with joy from those spiders still alive and able to move. They disentangled themselves from the grasps of their foes, leaving a nice little sticky present of web in their wake, and scurried as fast as they could back out through the cracks in the door and windows to where Megan waited. She spotted the first couple of black bodies pop out from under the door, and glanced up as a man walked past. He was giving her an odd look, mostly due to the many small, bleeding wounds that decorated her shoulders and back. "I've got the pocks, want some?"

Shoving her bare hand out his way seemed to scare him off quickly enough- he probably never got a pox shot as a child- and she uncrossed, and crossed her legs again as her children took refuge under the bench she sat upon. Now... all that was left was the matter of figuring out what exactly it was that they had been fighting. Surely a few people and a giant bug couldn't have caused that much trouble?

The giant roach stood slowly, stepping upon a retreating spider as he wandered to the door. He took a good moment to kneel and survey the after affects of the battle... Ten roaches were dead, two more dieing... He mourned silently, and then tapped his shell, allowing his now grizzled war veteran roaches to crawl up into his shell.

Frankie made his way up to his shoulder, and clicked frustratedly in his ear. He responded in a calm tone. "Yes, I saw, my friend... I do believe I know the source as well.. Shall we check it out?" Mr. Samson stood to his full height once again, turning to tip his hat to the old lady on the way out... She was just confused about the whole thing, having not seen any of it with her bad eyes.

Gregory pondered the many torturous acts he might commit toward a certain someone as he stepped through the door, and then casually strolled her way. He could eat her... That might be a little light of a punishment, though... Maybe torture first, then eat... either way, he needed to get her out of the public eye first.

"Greetings, Miss... You wouldn't happen to be the source of the many spiders that flooded the establishment behind me, would you?" He already knew the answer, he'd seen her shake the critters from her coat... He blinked as he eyed the many sores on her... Skin condition? It didn't matter, it all went well with a side of fava beans and a nice chianti.

"... bored... bored bored bored...." Her foot waggled restlessly. Pretty much all of the remaining children were back, and she was still waiting. Her eyes dropped to her right shoulder, where a small spider filled bump was nearly ready to pop, and blinked. It was a runt of the litter, seeing as its brothers had hatched more than a few moments ago. She resisted the urge to poke at it with a finger, and turned her attention to the coffee show door as it opened. Out waltzed the insect man, and

Megan cocked an eyebrow at his approach. The other eyebrow joined a second later. Miss? Since when had she been a miss?... and what was with that voice? Dropping her brows back down to their normal position- flat and more than a little relaxed- and shrugged her shoulders. "Who wants to know exactly?" She asked, folding her hands behind her head as an obviously staring couple walked on past.

"Further more, why do you care?" He was obviously a mutant... that or he had been a wee roachy once, and had fallen into nuclear waste and mutated from there. Such an odd fellow, he, she found her curiosity spiked... (even though her inner voice was screaming at her to RUN! RUUUN!) She had never been very good at listening...

She blinked at the bug, and uncrossed her legs, scooting aside to pat the empty bench space at her side. She clasped her hands behind her head, elbows pointed up at the sky, and recrossed her legs. The movement of her shoulder caused the small red dot to burst, and tiny black legs helped to pull the spider out. It shook itself off, turned to blink up at roach, then skittered down and across her chest to hide in the shadow under her armpit. Newly born spider did not like giant omnivore at her side, apparently.

The giant roach stared at her, silently fuming at her nonchalant attitude when it came to killing his kin. He pondered if he could get away with scraping off her face with his sharp secondary hands in broad daylight... alas, there were too many people here...

Perhaps he could invite her over to his house for a meal, and then eat her. She looked like she might make for good eating... He opened his mouth to speak to her, wenching open his mandibles as well. "I don't suppose you would like to-" And then something strange happened...

A sore on her popped, and out crawled a little tiny spider... His head tilted slowly as he stared for a moment... Interresting... Did she just hatch that spider from her skin?! He twitched a little as he eyed the little bug, and then looked up to her face. Roaches had a different scale of attraction when it came to the opposite sex; simply because looks mattered very little... It was fertility that was key...

This woman was so fertile she had babies growing form her pores! "You... are coming with me." Without much thought, or a chance at turning him down, Mr. Samson walked over to the side of the bench, and grabbed it with his arms, pulling up with all of his might, and breaking it from it's bolts on the ground... He walked right around the other end and repeated the process... Once that was done, he lifted up the park bench, passenger and all, and started walking toward his apartment. "My name is Gregory Samson, you can call me Roach. You will now live with me."

"I don't suppose you would like to-" He paused, mid question, and stared. Megan raised an eyebrow and frowned. What? Was there something on her face? A fly perhaps? The thought of a fly caused one of her spiders to peek out excitedly from behind an earlobe. It was disappointed to find that the tasty morsel wasn't anywhere in sight. She watched for a moment more, her eyes drifting up to the captivating way the giant bug's antenna were dancing about. Then, he quite matter o' factly stated that she was apparently coming with him, and her other eyebrow shot up to join its sister.

The bug man then proceeded to rip one side of the bench she was sitting on from the ground, which sent her rolling to the other side. Then the last connecting feet were pulled from the sidewalk and the whole bench was hefted into the air. Never mind the fact that he had just defiled public property, but now he was carrying her down the street on it! For a very brief, and lovely moment Megan felt a little like Cleopatra. Being carried down a road on a nice comfortable bench... but then she remembered that it was a friggen giant cockroach carrying her. Tucking her legs up onto the seat, she laid herself flat on her stomach and dropped her head down over the edge to peer at him through half lidded eyes.

"So, uh... This would be about the right time to, you know, tell me what the hell you're doing. Preferably." Blinking, she glanced up and around. She didn't want to seem partner to any illegal actions... what with her already bad tendencies. "Also..." She started, sliding herself from the bench onto the Roaches shoulder. "Mr. Samson. I suggest you put the bench back, before you attract the attention of any ticket happy coppers." Patting the insect man's shell, she pointed to the flow of traffic, and the impending threat of a bike cop turning a corner any second.

Mr. Samson was having a ball, strolling down the street with his new toy over his shoulder. He paused as the woman spoke up, and curled and uncurled his antennae three times as he considered her words. He blinked a few times as she slid only his shoulder, and he considered chewing her leg off briefly... but decided against it, as it might make her less fertile. Or she might die... but that was less important. He spoke up after a moment, recalling her statement.

"Yes, yes that does make sense, doesn't it?" The giant Roach looked about briefly, and then spotted another park bench. He skittered on over, and placed the one he'd ripped up neatly on top of it, patting it a few times like one would a well behaved pet. He then reached up a hand to grasp Megan gently, to be sure she didn't slide off of his smooth shell. "As I am carrying you, I feel it might be polite of me to ask of your name." He stopped in his tracks, kicked over a trash can on the side of the street, picked up a scrap of paper from it, placed it on his head, secured it with his antennae, and then continued walking with the woman on his shoulder, heading for his apartment still.(Paper scrap hat For The Win!)

Dear lord... what had she gotten herself into. While clinging for dear life to what she could grab a hold of, the giant bug man set the bench down... on top of another bench. Megan deadpanned and sighed silently, shaking her head as she tried and failed at keeping herself in one place for very long. Thankfully, once his hands were free he put one up to help keep her steady. An awesome move, she really didn't want to find out what a belly flop from this height onto flat pavement felt like...

"My name?"... He had already given her his own, so it would be only fair. ‘Since when do I play fair?’ She questioned herself, and leaned over to peer into one of his giant bug eyes. “I’m Charlotte. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Under such odd circumstances, anyway… She shrugged to herself and crossed her legs, settling an arm and a hand over his own as she was carted along. Quite suddenly the man bug directed himself to a trash can, knocked it over and rummaged through the filth to pluck out a dirty, gross, disgusting piece of paper. I’m gunna barf… Curling her lips back involuntarily, she scooted away from the paper hat. “So… why are you kidnapping me? Cuz you know, there are probably way better house mates out and about in this city.” And quite honestly, if his apartment was as dirty as his apparent habits, she’d spray him with raid for the benefit of mankind...

While she waited for an answer, she found her attention drawn back to the twitching antenna… and she couldn’t help but reach out and run her fingers up the closest one slowly. They were smooth… slightly hairy… and OH GOD, what had she just done!? Megan had a mental freak out when she realized that same antenna had just been touching garbage, and wiped her hand on her pant leg.

Where was extra strength hand sanitizer when you needed it?