The queen sighed, "What I mean is that I was actually once human."

Begu's eyes widened in shock, and he shouted, "WHAT?!"

Shannon nodded, "Yes, it's true. Let me explain..."

Age 750

The 21st World Martial Arts Tournament has just ended.

Everyone was walking out of the building, excitedly chatting about the big battles.

A 19-year old Shannon McKenzie was heading out on her Capsule Corp. hover scooter. She had brown hair, pale skin, wore a green hoodie, and a pair of jeans, along with red sneakers. She also wore a small gray-colored backpack, which carried a spiral notebook.

The young girl traveled across various city blocks, before finally stopping at a traffic light.

Shannon pulled out a tiny spider from her pocket, and happily said, "That was an awesome tournament! Right, Victoria?"

The spider let out a tiny squeak, signifying her enjoyment.

Shannon smiled, "It's a good thing I wrote out the moves that some of the fighters used. They could be useful for my daily training!"

The light turned green, and Shannon continued on her travels once more.

At that moment, a spaceship flew rapidly across the sky, and a mysterious green canister fell out of the ship's trunk.

Shannon saw the strange vehicle and thought, "Was that an actual-"

Just then, the canister impacted on her head, and spilled all over the poor girl.

She fell off her scooter and tumbled onto a random sidewalk.

Shannon looked up to see her scooter being run over by a speeding hovercar.

She rubbed her forehead in pain, wiped most of the gunk off, grabbed her spider, and walked over to a nearby alley.

Shannon sighed, "That scooter cost me 1,000 zeni..."

All of a sudden, a sharp pain was sent through her body, and she collapsed to her knees.

The girl examined her hands and saw each of her upper four fingers merge into two single digits.

Her legs began to shrink rapidly, and a large, gray-colored spider abdomen immediately bursted open from her behind. This was followed up by six, dark-colored spider legs popping out of both sides of the abdomen.

Finally, her skin turned into a pale turquoise color, while her hair turned green.

Shannon looked down at a nearby puddle, and upon examining her new appearance, she let out a horrified scream. She scurried around uncontrollably, clearly not used to her new spider legs.

She tried to see where Victoria was, but upon finding her, she saw that the spider was now a lifeless corpse.

The young woman exclaimed, "No! Victoria!"

She covered her mouth as she stammered, "Wh-Why is this happening to me?!"

Fearful and scared for her life, she sat near a dumpster and began quietly sobbing to herself.

Several hours passed and it was now nighttime.

Since no one was around to see her, Shannon finally decided to make her escape. She took a deep breath, and slowly began crawling out of the alleyway.

It took some time, but she eventually made it towards the edge of the island.

The girl pulled out a capsule and threw it towards the ocean. It exploded in a puff of smoke, and a small Capsule Corp. boat appeared.

Shannon knew that she couldn't let anyone see her like this at the moment, not even her own parents. They would all freak out at the sight of her, and she couldn't let that happen.

So, the girl hopped in the boat, and set the coordinates to random. The boat immediately took off and sped across the ocean.

The next morning, Shannon opened her eyes, and she found that she was on an large island. She stood up, and saw a jungle in the distance.

"...Now upon seeing this jungle, I was thinking, 'Oh wow! A jungle! Hopefully I can lay low here for a bit!' ", explained Shannon.

Begu (who was now sitting on the couch) spoke up, "But, you do realize it was a jungle, right?"

"Yeah...I wasn't thinking clearly.", replied Shannon as she scratched the back of her head.

She continued, "Anyways, I began exploring the jungle for several minutes, and eventually ran into a bunch of giant spiders. I managed to bond with them really fast!"

Begu questioned, "Like, over a few weeks, or-?"

"Nope! In a day!"

The Octorian's eyes widened, "IN A DAY?! HOW?!"

"They all reminded me of Victoria, and her cute little squeaks! They were just wonderful!", happily gushed the queen as she closed her eyes and hugged her chest.

She heard a few chuckles coming from Begu, prompting her to glare at the Octorian, "Is something funny?"

Begu replied, "Yeah! It's kinda funny that you, a supposed 'evil' spider queen, could act so mushy over spiders!"

"Well, I do love spiders after all!", grinned Shannon, "I've always held a maternal role over them. Especially these spiders. They're like my children, in a way."

She frowned, "...Except for Big Boy Benny. I don't care about him anymore."

Shannon cleared her throat and continued the tale, "Now, several months passed, and I was still living on the island. I began to believe, that because of my freakish, spider-y appearance, I could never be accepted by my own parents, my friends, nor the general public, ever again."

"That's really sad...", said Begu with a sorrowful tone of voice.

Shannon nodded in agreement, "I felt that I needed to become an over-the-top villain, not only to let out my anger on how spiders were typically treated by people, not only to embrace the unsightly creature I had become...but also so that I wouldn't have to dwell on how I basically left my loved ones behind."

Begu frowned, "I...I'm really sorry, Shannon."

"It's fine. It's been ten years since I transformed, so I bet everyone I knew back then has probably forgotten about me. ", said Shannon with a smile.

She crawled over to her TV set and adjusted the antennas to make them less crooked.

Begu let out a scoff of disbelief, "How the heck can you say that?! They're probably still concerned!"

Shannon shrugged, "Meh, I doubt it. I thought of that possibility once, but I've since moved on."

The queen let out a soft laugh, "I mean, would they even want to see a disgusting freak like me?"

She turned around and saw that the Octorian was now starting to feel incredibly uncomfortable-no doubt due to the rather tragic and sad implications of the story.

Realizing her mistake, Shannon nervously darted her eyes around the room, trying to figure out what to say next.

Her eyes widened, "Oh! Wanna hear some music to get your mind off of my origin?"

Begu, still unsettled by the queen's story, blurted out, "U-Um, sure..."

The queen turned around and proceeded to turn on the radio.

She adjusted the knobs to various radio stations, before finding a station that was playing retro tunes.

One of which was playing the very start of Taylor Dayne's "With Every Beat Of My Heart".

Shannon sighed wistfully, "I haven't heard this one in forever..."

Begu's eyes widened in shock, "Is that Taylor Dayne?!"

"Wait, you know about Taylor Dayne?!", excitedly asked Shannon as she scurried up to her friend.

Begu chuckled, "Master Roshi usually leaves his radio on, so I tend to listen to some old songs every now and then, like this one."

He then inquired, "How do you know about Taylor Dayne?"

The queen laughed, "Dude, I grew up listening to her songs! I'm older than you, remember?!"

As the song began to enter its chorus, Shannon happily said, "Here comes my favorite part!"

Begu exclaimed, "Ooh! Let's sing together!"

"Really?!"

"Heck yeah!"

And so the pair happily sang along, although in a rather terrible off-key fashion. They didn't care about that part though. They were too deep in the moment to even care.

Afterwards, the pair of odd friends did various activities together, such as watch bad action movies while chowing down on fresh Mount Paozu apples, and play several rounds of (non-romantic) Truth or Dare.

Three hours later, the spider queen and the Octorian were sitting near the outside edges of the cave, staring at the red-orange skies above. They each held a can of orange soda.

Shannon smiled, "This is kinda peaceful."

Begu nodded in agreement, "Yeah."

They stared up at the sky for several more moments.

Eventually, Begu sighed, "Y'know...do you sometimes ever look at yourself in a mirror, or some other reflective surface, and wonder, 'What the heck happened to me, and what happened to the good ol' days?' "

Shannon said, "Back when things were simple, and you didn't have to deal with angry thoughts, or constant annoyances every other day."

"Back when Mafin and I weren't Frieza Force lackeys..."

"Or back when I wasn't this spider mutant..."

"Or how your best friend/brother tells you you've done a really stupid and risky thing, like taking on a incredibly powerful space tyrant...and he's right about it."

Shannon asked, "You're still talking about Frieza, right?"

Begu shook his head yes to confirm.

Shannon chuckled, "Yeah. I somewhat know the feeling. Looking back, it was dumb of me trying to take on a Saiyan martial artist. I just rushed into that fight without really thinking."

Begu thought, "Yeah, that was pretty stupid..."

Shannon awkwardly rubbed her arm, "I admit, I may rag on Lee for acting so pea-brained sometimes, but there are occasions where even I don't think things through."

She let out a rather large yawn, "In fact, back when I was younger, my parents would rag on me for doing idiotic stuff, and it'd drive me crazy!"

The queen looked at her soda can, "Now, I'm nearly almost 30, and I still can't figure out how I end up doing incredibly stupid and risky stuff. I sometimes wonder how Lee puts up with me."

Begu held up his drink and smiled, "Welp, then I guess, cheers to hopefully figuring things out in this here world of ours."

Shannon smirked, "You said it, my dude."

The pair clinked their soda cans together, and proceeded to drink their beverages. They each looked at the sky once more, which was starting to fade into a dark shade of blue.

At nighttime, Begu arrived back at Kame House, and he knocked on the door.

The door opened to reveal Mafin, who exclaimed, "Begu! You're back!"

The Octorian smiled, "Hey!"

"Where did you go?", asked a concerned Mafin, "You were gone for several hours!"

"I went to Mount Paozu to cool off and train for a bit.", replied Begu, who carefully left out the parts with him and Shannon. He really didn't want to risk freaking out Mafin at this hour.

Mafin sighed with relief, "Okay. That's good."

Begu awkwardly rubbed his arm, "Look, dude. I'm really sorry for acting like a jerk earlier today. You were right about what you said."

Mafin said, "It's fine. I was also acting a little too harsh, and I really shouldn't have slapped-"

"No, I deserved that slap.", interrupted Begu, "I was acting stupid back there."

He smirked, "It was a pretty good one too! It was like, 'BLAM!' "

The duo laughed at the memory, and smiled at one another.

Begu asked, "So, we're good?"

Mafin grinned, "Absolutely."

He opened the door further and let Begu inside.

"So, what happened to that Saiyan kid from the future? And what were you guys doing while I was gone?", questioned Begu as he walked over to his bed.

Mafin replied, "Well, it's a long story."

Begu smiled, "Hey, I don't mind. Now tell me."

Mafin took a deep breath, and began his recap, "It turns out that the future kid comes from a timeline where..."