It was dark in Big Green. The stars were twinkling against a sheet of black. One could barely see the shimmering water of the lake, it was so indulged in darkness. With the night came a chilling wind. The only light was that of the half moon illuminating the sky and the smaller stars. Even though the moon was shining brightly, it barely shined on the still waters.

On this night, no other but Commander Ape Trully was outside. There was always something for him to do, some trouble for him to get into. A good commander, yes, but naïve. Of course, he was going after a gang of tiny fireflies. Jumpy Ghostface might have participated, the rabbit king from First Squad, but as it was, he was tired. Days of jump roping and jumping and fighting sure tuckered the little guy out. In fact, all of First Squad were exhausted. Somehow though, Commander Ape Trully always had some spare energy to go jogging in the morning, to run out to give gold to another species of animal, or to catch fireflies at night. The fireflies didn't mind at all. In fact, they had fun playing with Commander Ape Trully, flickering their lights in his face and then disappearing to somewhere else.

"Oh firefly, where did you go?" Commander Ape Trully questioned, gently swatting at where he had just seen a blinking light before it disappeared. He chuckled and swiped again, only to come up with nothing.

If you asked anyone other than Commander, they would have said it was a terrible idea to be out at night alone, especially for Commander. Always he managed to get into trouble when he seemed to be doing something so simple and innocent. First Squad always ended up saving him from another animal with a special talent. That's why Commander had snuck out at night to do this. The turtles were sleeping under the stars tonight and they made a perfect path for the monkey king in disguise to hop across to shore. Now, you might ask, what could possibly happen? An animal ambush, that's what. On his morning jog once, he had been ambushed by the zebra brothers and their 'squad' of ostriches. Most of the time, though, he went to offer gold and was rejected and captured.

With High Roller in control over the whole animal kingdom, it was never safe for these heroes in Big Green. Commander Ape Trully was always a great prize to catch for the zebra brothers, High Roller's right hand… er, zebras. That guy, with evil in mind, had deceived the animals into thinking the humans were bad to them. Despite that, the monkey king had gone against that belief and founded Big Green so that he may once again create peace between human and beast, even though the founder himself wasn't human. He always worried about running into his own army, for his identity would be realized and Big Green might crumple. Thankfully, this had not been a problem so far.

Even though monkeys were the biggest concern, there were other animals to worry about. They had befriended lots of them, though. The parrots, lions, elephants, pigs, skunks, and cheetahs were just some of them. They each admired something different about each First Squad member, and did a different job for Big Green, each one wonderfully appreciated. Unfortunately, there were still those Commander wanted to ally with, such as the kangaroos, spiders, snakes, owls, chipmunks and the swans. The spiders would be next, Commander had decided while the sun had been up. The next day he would go to present them with his classic present of gold bars.

Well, the truth was, the spiders had beat him to it, in a sense. Their emerald, pupil-less, venomous eyes were staring at him, unblinking, unmoving from the darkness of the forest. The Commander and the fireflies alike were too preoccupied to notice the scurrying of feet and the hissing and clicking the spiders were making. Another pair of green eyes blinked from the darkness, above and bigger than all the others. This was evidently the spider queen. The spiders were cunning and clever. They wouldn't just take Commander Ape Trully right by the lake that was Big Green. When he called for help, First Squad would come too quickly; they had heard everything about them from the zebra brothers. They couldn't remove the little signal thingy, because they didn't have the hands or paws to do so.

With a click, the spider queen gave her command to her army. Instantly all of the pairs of eyes except the queen's disappeared into the darkness, flickering out all at once. The Commander had his eyes closed, once again laughing at the clever antics of one of the fireflies. One of them flicked their light on again before he opened his eyes. In that split second, the spiders made their move. So thin that they were invisible in the moonlight, the spiders released their infamous sticky string and caught the firefly. The little bug was too small to make a noise big enough to alert Commander Ape Trully, sadly. As the little firefly struggled, invisible in the moonlight, the spiders slowly pulled him deeper into the forest. This was just fast enough that once Commander opened his eyes and started following he wouldn't catch up, but slow enough so that it seemed like it was the firefly and not the spiders. Quietly they lured him into the forest, deep into their lair. They lived in a castle to fool enemies, but really lived in a colony underground. Still unaware of the giant spiders luring him away, Commander went on laughing and chasing the firefly. The spiders' castle was lit by the moonlight, so once they got there, they'd have to immediately make a move to keep the Commander from running. Actually, they already had one.

Behind him was another group of four spiders, their green eyes staring at his back without blinking. Stretched between them was a thick, sticky web. Unknowingly to him, there were too more groups like this to either side of him in case he found out and started to run. If he turned around, he would see the webs the spiders were holding. Since they were thick and secure, more needed to hold the Commander than the firefly, they easily caught the moonlight and shined in the darkness as most cobwebs did. A cricket chirped in the background.

This was going too slowly for the spider queen's patience. While she was smart and cunning, she was not the most patient. With a click another order was sent. The remaining spiders starting weaving a web, so thick that it became a hard solid surface, much like a giant block of wood. They silently stepped in front of him with the giant block of cobweb. It was so thick, it wasn't even sticky anymore. It seemed like an invisible rock along the path to Commander Ape Trully, who stepped on it without question and started walking. From there the spiders sped up extremely while the Commander foolishly continued walking pretty much in place. How he didn't notice that he was moving fast the spiders didn't know, not even the queen, but they didn't complain. With this method going, they soon reached the castle of the spiders. The ones with nets readied themselves as they lured Commander into the castle. As soon as they got in, everything froze.

The spiders' plan went perfectly, unfortunately. Within a few moments a late night signal went out to Big Green, but it took a while to get there, as the spiders expected. They started to work quickly, creating a web in the blink of an eye. Commander was attached to it like a fly, and of their own accord the spiders had decided to treat him like they would a fly. The fireflies had escaped, buzzing off as fast as they could with their lights blinking in alarm. Slowly the spider queen went about wrapping up her prize. As she had asked, she was doing this alone and slowly. Not to give First Squad a chance, but to make this ever worse for her victim.

Finally, the signal reached Big Green. Inside everyone was sleeping softly or snoring, but either way dead asleep. When the Commander Ape Trully-shaped alarm went off, everyone grumbled awake and dragged themselves into the main room.

Mighty Ray was just putting his eyeballs in. Apparently, instead of a night cap or something, he simply took his eyeballs out to sleep. When he adjusted them correctly he blinked and looked around. Mr. No Hands was in a night cap and black sleep outfit. Jumpy Ghostface had one of those whatcha-ma-callits around his eyes, which he was slowly lifting to look around himself. Lin Chung was wearing a boring white pair of pajamas, his staff in hand just dragging alongside him. When Mighty Ray glanced over at their only female member though, Mystique Sonia, he had to stifle a laugh.

Yaksha wasn't on her head. Without her hair done yet, it was in a big, puffy black afro. However, for night gear, she was wearing the same dress she normally did, just without the red underneath and in a soft blue instead. Finally, Mighty Ray laughed. Just then he noticed her lips were still blue. So it wasn't lipstick, her lips were naturally blue.

"What's so funny?" she questioned him angrily.

"You have an afro!" Mighty Ray taunted, fully awake now and laughing his head off. Jumpy Ghostface looked simply confused while the rest of First Squad started to chuckle lightly.

"Cut it out!" Sonia shouted, about to jump in to one of the tunnels before Mr. No Hands even called it.

Before she could, Mr. No Hands called it. "Commander Ape Trully is in trouble! First Squad, deploy!" he shouted, jumping in himself along with the rest of the squad. Sonia was already ahead of them, the speed of the tunnel flattening her afro into her normal hairstyle.

They dropped on some very sleepy turtles, but once woken up, they were shot out into the tunnel that lead outside. They sped along, making the appropriate turns, determination plain as the eyes on all of their faces. Within a few moments they shot out into the night, becoming enveloped in darkness except for the dim illumination of the moon. The turtles whipped on some night goggles out of nowhere, and instead lead the squad along the right path, to the spider castle.