Chapter 1:
Unexpected Tidings
Spider-Man and its assorted media are owned by Marvel. The Inheritance Cycle is property of Christopher Paolini.
"Talking"
"Thoughts"
"Demon/deity speech"
Line Break
The Great Weaver considered itself a patient being. After all, not just anyone could completely remake their life's work from scratch, after dying (rather, having its essence scattered across the Astral Plane, but still), having an aspect of itself controlled by its very murderers—damn Solus and his cloning technology—to systematically murder its Avatars across the Multiverse, and then a (separate, but still linked to Solus and his genocide) Cataclysm which all but destroyed the Multiverse, and the slow but steady recreation of the Multiverse. Granted, it could leave Karn—the latest and hopefully permanent Master Weaver (a totally different Weaver from itself)—with this particular responsibility; but, Karn had enough on his plate, atoning for what he did under the command of Solus.
The Great Weaver wasn't angry, or bitter, or—Oh! A Peter Parker just turned into a Man-Spider due to the spider bite, killing almost everyone at the science center (Stark Industries; go figure) before escaping into the sewers.
…Perhaps a break is in order.
Thus, the Great Weaver did what it always does when it has (self-imposed) free time; observe the Multiverse.
It gazed upon its various Avatars—from not-quite-exact-copies of the original Kwaku Anansi, to its current favorite, Peter Parker—before blinking (mentally, it had no eyes) at the…well, the feel of a particular universe.
It raised one of its many, giant legs, plucking a strand of webbing to gain a clearer insight into what made this universe different.
Ah…there it is. This universe was always an oddity, inhabited by beings both familiar and unfamiliar, where everyone separates themselves into groups of three in order to fight each other in a very systematic way. Why they did so was beyond it, but it made for—oh, OH! This universe was not like the Great Weaver remembered at all! It must have been completely remade.
Curiosity piqued, the Great Weaver delved deeper into this universe's history, it's beginning…Huh, Lady Death wasn't a skeleton…weird, but not unprecedented. But the true oddity was a demon, Jedah, born in a universe, a Multiverse, separate from its and Leady Death's own.
That was of great interest to the Great Weaver. When the original incarnation of that universe was made (be it by the One Above All, Eternity, Infinity, whoever) the Great Weaver assumed whomever made those other creatures made from scratch, and decided they were too different, too odd, to spread across the Multiverse. But as it turns out, they just stole ideas from another Multiverse entirely.
Now, this got the Great Weaver thinking; why was this even allowed to happen? Crossing Multiverse's tended to be a big no-no; in fact, the only reason another Multiverse and the Great Weaver's Multiverse had semi-regular contact with each other was due to a pair of brothers formed in a joint project between the One Above All and that other Multiverse's top deity—and it was a weird Multiverse too, very fond of imploding and restarting from scratch, not great Web of Life material.
The Great Weaver shook its head, now was not the time to get sidetracked.
It turned back to the odd universe, which it decided to call Universe-30847, and pondered as to why it could exist. After all, outside of unique circumstances, one Multiverse could not coexist with another; and though Lady Death was powerful (and this Jedah character as well, by necessity) neither could amass the raw strength to both break that barrier, and escape retribution.
The Great Weaver frowned, this conundrum would require a great deal of its time and effort.
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Karn considered himself a lucky being. He was lucky to be born, lucky that his family did not kill him (rather, destroy his cloning pods, Daemos was fond of caving his skull in when angered), and lucky enough to be welcomed into the Great Weaver's fold when his family was finally killed; hell, they didn't even come back when the universe reset!
Still, that didn't mean Karn was without his worries. And when he received the short, abrupt mental message, "Come," he was more than a little freaked out.
Still, he did as requested; projecting himself to the corner of the Astral Plane the Great Weaver had claimed for itself.
"Ah, there you are Karn," a slightly accented voice called out, once Karn materialized.
The Master Weaver blinked, "Anansi? What are you doing here?"
The first Spider-Man shrugged, a light smirk on his face, "Same as you, I suppose".
Before either could say more, another aspect of themselves (Karn still had a hard time wrapping his—their?—head around that) made itself known.
A mass of small, black spiders crawled in out of nowhere, pooling together. After forming a pillar a little shorter than Anansi, the mass of spiders bent inwards, taking a humanoid, feminine shape.
Anansi inclined his head, "Greetings, Gatekeeper". Another smirk wormed its way onto his face, "Or is it Ero?"
By now, the being's body had fully formed, and it opened it's eyes, revealing an ominous yellow glow where the organs should be. "Ero," she replied curtly.
"Hello, Ero," Karn stated.
Ero shifted its eye sockets to Karn, before turning to look off into the distance.
Karn grunted, "Still bitter about my brothers killing you, I take it?"
Anansi chuckled, "Perhaps she is still bitter over the fact that cannot be one with Parker, either of them".
Ero whirled around, eyes harshly glowing, a low, dangerous growl bursting from her facsimile of lips.
Anansi's grin only widened, "What, did you think you were being subtle, using the Web as you did?"
Thankfully, before things escalated to the point of blows, a far greater, older presence revealed itself.
Ero immediately turned forward, kneeling low.
Karn shifted his weight as much as possible, bowing as low to the ground as possible.
Anansi crossed his arms, smiling warmly as the Great Weaver materialized.
The Great Weaver looked down at its three most trusted aspects of its power, "We thank you for coming".
All three nodded. Karn asked, "Why have you called us here, Great Weaver?"
The spider deity raised one of its many, enormous limbs. It performed a harsh, rapid slash with the limb, revealing a singular, impossibly large strand of webbing, heading off into the distance.
"Follow," the Great Weaver commanded, traveling up the strand.
Ero immediately did so, dissolving into individual spiders, quickly following the Great Weaver.
Anansi and Karn exchanged looks. Then, the former shrugged, leaping onto the strand, walking along it.
Karn merely hummed, climbing the strand with his spindly limbs.
The trip was much shorter than expected (but then again, distance didn't really amount to much in this plane of existence) and Karn soon found himself at the end of the Multiverse. Well, perhaps end is a bit of an overstatement, the Multiverse was ever-expanding—there was no true end—but there were 'barriers' in place, which signified the end of the Multiverse.
Anansi gazed out into the void, frowning lightly, "Why have you brought us here, old friend?"
The Great Weaver opted for silence. Anansi cleared his throat, but when it became clear he would receive no answer, grunted, tapping his foot impatiently.
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, three of the Great Weaver's limbs shot forward, aiming for the barrier.
Karn, Anansi, and Ero all gasped in horror at what the Great Weaver was attempting. It was a, correction, THE unspoken rule of the Multiverse; you DO NOT interfere with the barriers. Even the Beyonder was careful to stay well within the boundaries of the Multiverse.
However, Karn noted with a disturbingly calm mind, the Great Weaver seemed intent on suicide. "Ah well," the last Inheritor sighed, "It was a nice life, these last few years especially".
Then, just as Karn was prepared for the Living Tribunal, Eternity, hell, maybe even the One Above All, to erase them from all existence, the Great Weaver's limbs effortlessly slipped through the barrier.
Karn stared wide-eyed at the sight before him. Before he could entertain the thought that this was all a pre-death fever dream, the Great Weaver moved its limbs, causing the barrier to ripple before his eyes.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Karn noted his peers' reactions.
Ero, she…melted, for lack of a better term, due to the stress, and was now in the process of slowly reforming herself.
Anansi had paled considerably, and had the most verbal response.
"Huwha-spabu-hamuh—What just happened?!"
"Isn't it obvious?" the Great Weaver said in an oddly smug tone.
Ero cleared her throat, "I believe the more pressing matter is why we are still alive?"
The Great Weaver hummed lowly, "Best we can figure, the One Above All and the Living tribunal are recuperating due to the Cataclysm and reformation of the Multiverse, and are unable to properly enforce; or, on a more optimistic line of thought, the One Above All is allowing this to happen".
Karn frowned, "But, why show us this?"
To his side, Anansi drew in a quick breath, "Oh…you wouldn't dare," he whispered, a bemused grin on his face.
"I think we all know we would, old friend".
Karn and Ero quickly caught on, and both had very distinct reactions.
"As you command, Great one".
"Please tell me you're joking!"
Three beings turned to Karn, who gulped, but held his head high, "Assuming the One Above All does not call for our deaths once this comes to their attention, what about any other deities we would eventually come across?"
A booming, chilling laugh echoed throughout their corner of space-time. "Oh Karn, do you truly believe we would not account for that?"
A/N: There is no explanation as to why this exists other than the fact that I got bored after watching a playthrough of MvC:I. That is all. Also, not much Inheritance Cycle shit, but it'll come up soon. Maybe. Who knows? Be sure to leave a review. Later.