Hi everyone, Tough Spider (the traitor! Muahaha! 😈 ) here with the 8th episode of Poptropica Universe.

This one is a bit… violent. You might not want to read this one if you’re not 10 years old yet.

Here it is!

“NO!” I screamed.
Tough Spider shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with working for OWL. It’s fun, actually.”
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” we yelled.
“Well,” he replied, “it IS fun to blow islands up.”
He snapped his fingers and a distant BOOM! was heard. “There goes Shrink Ray,” he said.
I stood dumbfounded.
“Just out of curiosity,” Spotted Dragon asked, “What chemical reaction is used to cause an explosion massive enough to desecrate an entire island at the precise moment at which you snap your fingers?”
Tough Spider said something, but I wasn’t listening. Trillions of memories and emotions were flying through my head at once. Disgust. Hate. Confusion. Our previous friendship. Magma. OWL. Fearless Owl. Incredible Carrot. Super Power. The taste of a pretzel I bought while running all over there. (Hey, it was delicious.) I didn’t know what to think or what to say, if I should say anything. That’s why, during a pause between everyone talking, a weird croaking sound came out of my mouth.
“What?” Tough Spider asked. He was being awfully nice to us for someone who had just joined a group whose goal was to destroy Poptropica and all poptropicans and to somehow profit from it.
I tried to repeat the croaking sound that I made, but a question came out instead.
“Why?”
I guess it wasn’t really a question, but more of a plea. A plea asking for a reason to a senseless act. A plea asking for reconsideration. A plea that everyone wanted, but a plea that no one knew how exactly to ask.
And then I saw it for half a second.
The coldness and harshness in his face melted. For that half second, I saw the old Tough Spider, desperate and terrified.
But as soon as it came, it left. The new Tough Spider looked downright angry.
“Because!” he shouted as if I had hurt him. “Do you want to fight?” He drew his sword. Rage was bubbling up inside of me. I was about to answer, but Tough Icicle did for me.
“Yes,” he said softly, drawing his sword.
“En garde!” Tough Spider shrieked and charged at Tough Icicle.
Tough Icicle did not have enough time to react, so I swooped in to fight and probably saved him. I took Tough Spider by surprise and knocked him backward, but he jumped back up and we kept fighting.
I’m not going to go into detail about the fight. Everyone got involved and we fought our hardest, but even when fighting six people at once, Tough Spider had the upper hand with his sword, or rather, MY sword, which I clearly shouldn’t have given to him, and he won. We were lying on the floor, completely exhausted. He started circling us.
“You know,” he said. “Anyone on OWL would take now as a great opportunity to kill you. But I’m giving you a chance.”
“Whhaaatt?” Someone moaned weakly. I think it was Silver Wolf.
“You guys have proven yourselves strong and worthy. That’s why I’m asking all of you to join OWL.”
“Join OWL? Never!” I replied weakly.
“Then,” he said raising his sword, “it’ll end here.”
I wondered why he wasn’t emotional. Anyone in their right mind would be devastated to kill their friends, and here was one of my friends, doing the same thing with absolutely no emotions on his face. What if…
My thoughts were interrupted by something we didn’t expect at all.
“I’ll do it,” Tough Icicle said.
“NO!” his sister yelled. “Please!”
“What choice do we have?” he asked. “It’s this or… or… or…”
Tough Spider nodded approvingly. “He’s right,” he said.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. Two of my friends were betraying me?! What was next, everyone else?!
Tough Icicle stood up. He had tears in his eyes. He walked over to where Tough Spider was standing and stared at him.
“The first thing you should do,” Tough Spider told him, “is go help Fearless Owl set up the next bomb.
All of a sudden, a door appeared out of the wall. Tough Icicle, crying, slowly walked towards it, and when he was right in front of it he said:
“Please, everyone, join me. I’m worried OWL won’t just want me. They want all of us. If they just get me, I’m worried that they’ll… they’ll…”
He stopped there and burst into tears. He ran through the door, which slammed and disappeared behind him.
“So,” Tough Spider asked slyly, “anyone else?”
“No.” I said quietly. “We’re never joining OWL and you know that.”
“That’s a shame,” he said, pulling out his sword again. “That’s such a waste. You guys are strong.”
“We will never join OWL!” shouted Fearless Fox, “Even if it means we have to die!”.
“Fine then,” Tough Spider said. “I’ll kill you first, Fearless Fox.”
“I won’t lose!” Fearless Fox yelled. He launched up into the air, swinging his nunchuks.
“Fire!” shouted Tough Spider. He pointed his sword at Fearless Fox. Suddenly there was a huge scream, and Fearless Fox burst into flames. He landed on the floor rolling around screaming, desperately trying to put the fire out. He continued to yelp and scream in pain, when, all of a sudden, the screaming stopped. He was covered in flames. The flames started to rise. There was no movement.
No, I thought. No. “NO!” I screamed. This was insane. I’m dreaming, I told myself. This is a long and horrible nightmare, but it’ll be over.
“Don’t worry, Cool Smarticle, I’m not GIVING UP!”shouted Fearless Fox, from the flames.
That’s when I realised he never took off his magma proof suit. He was faking it all along!
He leaped out and kicked Tough Spider in the face. Tough Spider let out a muffled scream.
“Looks like I’m going to have to do more than that to kill you, friend.” Tough Spider said slyly. He launched forward at Fearless Fox.
I heard a scream and saw the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life.
More than half of Tough Spider’s sword was sticking into Fearless Fox.
“Ah…” cried Fearless Fox. Blood was coming out of his mouth. He collapsed.
“Sorry…everyone,” he moaned weakly, with tears in his eyes, “but… this… is it.” His eyes closed and he was completely still.
There was no way this was a dream. This was real. One of my best friends killed another one of my best friends. Now he was going to kill another best friend, and another, and then… me.
“NO!” we screamed. We rushed over to Fearless Fox. I shook him.
“Fearless Fox!” I shouted, crying.
“Awww… how sad,” said Tough Spider sarcastically.
Then I noticed that he was… he was… he was laughing.
Have you ever been completely, totally, and utterly enraged?
Because that was what I felt now. It was uncontrollable. Without warning, I ran over, and we fought the battle of our lives.
I’m sure my friends felt the same way, but they must have been too tired to fight. Or maybe they were too grieved over Fearless Fox for rage to affect them. For whatever reason, this was a one on one fight.
Well, it was a much faster-paced fight than before. Even when I was exhausted, I kept on fighting. Energy can come from rage. We fought for an hour.
During this long hour, Tough Spider tried to call a truce, but I wouldn’t accept. This guy had betrayed me, made someone turn on me, and killed one of my best friends while LAUGHING!? I wasn’t sparing him anytime soon.
Tough Spider was a good sword fighter, but I was too. For a good chunk of that hour, we never hit each other. My defences were too good for him. After awhile, though, I finally managed to get a hit. I slashed at his face, and you’ll never believe what I saw.
About half of his face fell away to reveal a metal casing in place of his head.
This wasn’t Tough Spider at all! This was a robot wearing a human mask!
A sense of relief rushed over me. Tough Spider wasn’t the one who killed Fearless Fox! A robot had! And OWL had tricked me into thinking that this was Tough Spider!
That meant that the real Tough Spider was still missing. Where was he? WHERE WAS HE?!
I knew where he was. OWL must have kidnapped him when he was stuck in their magma room. Why else would they bother to make a robo-Tough Spider?
My discovery seemed to make the robo-Tough Spider mad (if robots have emotions), and he fought harder.
After a few more minutes, he (or should that be it? He seemed like my friend, I’m still going to call him he.) said that he had to go plant the next bomb. As if on cue, the door Tough Icicle walked through appeared and opened. He ran through it, but that wouldn’t keep me from stopping the robo-imposter.
“Guys! Come on! Run after Tough Spider with me!” I screamed, running through the door.
Everyone (except Fearless Fox, of course) hopped up and followed me. The door closed just behind Spotted Dragon, the last of the bunch, and we ran down a long tunnel.
Suddenly, the robo-Tough Spider disappeared.
Just simply vanished.
I had no idea where to go, but in my rage, I kept running. Running everywhere. We ran for ages, but eventually we made it to a huge room with a huge helicopter ready to take off. The dark OWL logo was painted on the side.
The helicopter started to take off, but I wouldn’t let that happen.
“FEARLESS OWL!” I shrieked.
She leaned out of the helicopter, which was inches off the ground. “Oh? Do we have a new recruit?” she asked coldly.
“NO!” I screamed. “WHERE IS TOUGH SPIDER?!”
“No?” Tough Icicle leaned out. “Why? Tough Spider was right! This is a blast!”
Fearless Owl pushed Tough Icicle back in.
“You just fought him!” she said.
“LIAR!” I screamed, “IT WAS A ROBOT!”
Everyone around me gasped. I had forgotten to tell them that this wasn’t the real Tough Spider. Oh well, that could wait. This couldn’t.
“Oh,” Fearless Owl said. She laughed. “The real Tough Spider will be coming on the helicopter any second now.”
Suddenly, the robo-Tough Spider appeared again. Half of his mask was gone, but the other half was still there. He looked like a cyborg. He hopped onto the helicopter and screamed to us:
“I AM THE REAL TOUGH SPIDER!”
The helicopter took off.
“LIES!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.