Tsuchigumo

by Time Parad0x

A post-GM Taylor finds herself transported into the One Piece world. Despite all the differences in her new surroundings she quickly learns that things are far more similar than she thought possible. Ruthless villains, corrupt government, outlaws, and superpowers are still a thing, they are just no longer called PRT, villains, and capes but Marines, Pirates, and DF users.

1. Chapter 01 - A new Start

Disclaimer: I don't own Worm or One Piece

! This story contains heavy Spoilers for Worm !

! So if you haven't read the free web novel Worm by Wildbow I highly recommend doing it before taking a look at this work !

Warning: This story will be written in First Person!

If you don't like that chances are you won't enjoy this story

Like probably most of you interested in One Piece Fandom, I find it hard to find some original and daring fanfiction since a lot of them have the premise to change a few things during the childhood of ASL, giving one of them a different Devil-Fruit, another sibling (in most cases an SI) or are trained in Rokushiki and or Haki at an early age. Unfortunately, those Butterflies more often than not don´t result in some hurricane, retreading canon in part word for word, either because those changes are never intended to make great waves or take time to evolve in full and the fic dies before getting anywhere near this point, leaving us (readers) with a bitter taste.

It doesn´t help in this case that there are next to no variations in most works regarding the Crew members, something understandable given that all of the Strawhats enjoy great popularity. Furthermore, most of them have an important occupation, with next to no canon replacements of the same skill-level existing. Which in turn makes it hard to replace any one of them. At best we see an expanded crew with some more or less new faces joining the Strawhats.

I´m fully aware of doing something different given the inherent nature of One Piece – travel from one Island to next – is hard and therefore the main reason for only a small number of stories deviating from that path.

Since I believe there are already more than enough stories in existence doing exactly that and because of my love for Worm specifically for Taylor. I decided to go another route.

This story was greatly inspired by Sailing From Your Past written by TangentWalker

and therefore will be a Post GM Taylor (Isekai)-story, she is dumped into the One Piece world shortly after the death of Gol D. Roger. (Died Sept 1500) and started the Great Age of Pirates (GaoP)

Since Spoiler tags aren´t a thing on here the bare bones of what you have to expect -

- Taylor is a Devil Fruit user – (Mythical Zoan – Spider Queen/Arachne)

- Taylor will have an all-female Crew.

- I will change the devil fruits of some chars joining her, which in some cases means character from One Piece canon won´t have them ... or different fruits.

This chapter was edited by Zcuron.

Chapter 01: A new start (Spring 1504 – a little over 3 years since the start of GAoP)

I woke with a start. It took me quite a while to get my racing heart under control because the last thing I remembered was being shot, twice.

I instinctively reached for the point I felt them impacting on the back of my head, expecting to find two bullet holes, or at least blood in my hair, but found neither.

Only after I did that, I took notice that the arm I used for this action shouldn't be there as well. I clearly remember how I lost it and let Lung cauterize what was left of it. I stared puzzled at my restored limb trying my hardest to recall what happened.

With all that transpired during Scions rampage and the end of the world looming around the corner. I thought the time of the few healers still around and supporting the ones fighting was better served by helping those with powers that had the hope to accomplish something.

Which is why I never bothered to have my arm restored.

But feeling powerless once more was probably the one moment, where I came the closest to hate my powers, it took me a while to recognize how great and versatile they are.

Having to watch from the sideline as humanity fought for its survival when the only thing I wanted was to participate, to do my part no matter how small was the hardest thing in my life, and it was in those moments I found my power left much to be desired, leaving helpless while all around me countless people were slaughtered. Feeling that powerless once more was probably the one moment where I came the closest to hate my powers, and it took me a while to recognize how great and versatile they were, to begin with.

The forced inaction nearly drove me mad, until I saw a way to do what had to be done.

While forming that thought I was suddenly hit with the memories I had suppressed; I remembered of how I got Amy to attempt to change my power, and how she succeeded in widening and shifting what it was capable of controlling.

But that came with repercussions of its own, for one the range of my power was greatly reduced, and in some way the connection between my passenger and me was ripped open;

The filter, the very walls erected to prevent one from having too much influence over the other were torn down and my mind started to bleed into my passenger and vice versa. We started to become one my passenger and I, but my passenger was so vast that what little there was of me paled in comparison and lost itself in the endless expanse that was my passenger.

I struggled with all my might to anchor enough of myself, so I could keep myself coherent long enough to use my altered powers to force them, all those splintered groups of parahumans to cooperate, to create a united front against the one who sought to destroy us.

It didn't matter to me if they fought at one point and came to the conclusion it was a futile endeavor or if they were still fighting, it didn't matter if they were in the middle of reaching a safe harbor away from the fights or had reached them already. It also didn't matter if they were looting consolidating their power for the aftermath or even went so far as to sabotage and hinder the efforts made by others in stopping and ending the threat Scion posed, I drafted them all, made them unwilling participants in the fight, soldiers in my army.

And in the process I did things I judged Alec for, I stole the freedom of countless people made them prisoners in their own bodies - something I feared being done to me - I did to others.

I shuddered at that thought; But no matter how much I would have liked to avoid doing it, I knew it was necessary and if I had to do it all over again in order to save humanity, I would.

Those acts as vile and atrocious as they might have been, with me being the Chessmaster; A lord of life and death who chose which pawns to sacrifice to ensure the king's survival, to ensure the death of my enemy.

Yet these weren't the regrets I mentioned in the talk with Contessa, they didn't even register as such.

For in those moments, confronted by Contessa, I thought to be my last, I only ever regretted having followed the advice of a child; Having risked my life to save her from a cruel fate, only to be rewarded with such.

I left my friends, my family behind in order to increase the chances of humanities survival. And I had to wonder was it worth it? In the end, I think I didn't achieve much being away from them.

I made some allies and showed the Protectorate, that I could be trusted to have their backs. I prepared the Chicago Wards, made them into what they needed to be, Theo in particular was remade into someone capable to stand against the Nine, against Jack.

In retrospect, there wasn't anything I was aware of that I did influenced or set the ball rolling for while being with them, that ensured or was vital for our victory.

At the end of the day, all the work I invested in getting the Villains and the Heroes to work together when it really counted was wasted. They had no interest in doing so, and they ultimately had to be forced even with what was at stake, simply because deep down every human is selfish, they care about themselves their family friends in descending order.

Some might bring themselves to show some remnants of empathy to other people but ultimately no one cares about a stranger and what happens to them and everybody not part of your small circle of people you interact with is just that, a stranger.

Who cares if some kid dies of hunger somewhere around the world as long as oneself is doing fine. Nobody does, and those few that do, those that act well I'm fairly certain they don't do it to help the kid, not really. They do it for themselves, for selfish reasons like lessening their guilt, to create a feeling of accomplishment to repent, and helping is just the side effect of what they are really after.

Following this line of thought I really had to wonder why I was ready to sacrifice myself. Did I still have such a low-self esteem that I didn't care what happened to me, even though Lisa tried her hardest to get me to?

Was that the reason Dinah sent me away? So that when the time came I was in the right mindset, with my relationships still highly valued but enraptured, enough with saving the world that I would risk myself and not seek counsel?

So that I wouldn´t stop to consider what my death -my essential suicide- would do to Lisa was that it? I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in the Bay, what the response would have been to killing one of the Triumvirate. Would I have had to kill the other two, too? Until such a moment, they would have finally concluded, that even if they win in the end it would be too costly a price to pay, and humanity would have to suffer for it.

Perhaps someday I will get an answer, of why I had to sacrifice being together with the few true friends I had in my life.

But that was way down on the list of my priorities; Far more pressing was the question of where I was. Contessa didn't leave much doubt about her intentions in finding me, and I didn't expect to survive our little conversation.

That I did opened up more than one can of worms. So she didn't mercy kill me, is that her way of penance for all the atrocities she and her little club committed in their attempt to save the world, to not kill the one who did so by committing different kinds of atrocities?

I mean killing me for what I did and then continue on living would be a none before seen level of hypocrisy, but would she care? I didn't think so, which begged the question of why didn't she kill me, was it her gift or her thanks for doing her job, or something else entirely?

I pushed those thoughts aside, for now, I suspected I would have more time on my hands than I would like to ponder all the implications of her doing, but first I had to take stock of my situation.

I righted myself in a sitting position -or at least I was in the process of doing it- when I heard a threatening hiss and immediately stopped midway with my eyes falling onto two tarantula sized spiders sitting in my lap.

They probably used me as a makeshift bed staring back at me. I listened inside of me, accessing my passenger thinking that my sudden awakening somehow prevented me from sensing those spiders being under my control and their sensory input.

I was so used to utilizing my power, my constant companion, that it worked perfectly on autopilot, doing exactly what I wanted it to do without any conscious thought wasted on it.

Imagine my surprise when instead of the thousands, hundred of thousands, or millions of little voices serving me and sharing their senses their very being with me to do as I wished with them, there was nothing but utter silence.

It was a new experience for me to label the spiders sitting on me as a threat, where formerly all of them inside a radius hundreds of meters around me and therefore every insect close enough to even attempt in harming me were an extension of my will.

Apparently, this no longer held true. I knew that letting Amy use her powers on me was a last resort a desperate gamble and that there would be consequences to this desperate gamble. The passenger limits the powers they grant to their host not just for there to be no power too strong without any means for others to fight back against it -robbing them of the possibility to gather worthwhile data an otherwise ensuing struggle would be able to provide- but because the human mind can take only so much.

Somehow I was of the view that I was special, that I could take it, fight off the negative effects long enough to do what I deemed necessary. Not an untrue assumption even when I came closer to losing myself than I would have liked, but where I struggled my partner shared my burden. I, we were after all always about the mission, and we pulled through.

But what I really didn't expect was to wake up, having lost my power. If I was honest with myself I expected to no longer have enough left in me to be called a person when the dust settled, there were flashes of doubt that I might fail, but in those instances, I pictured myself dying like so many other parahumans did before me, when they took to the field against Scion.

But I never pictured myself losing my power, something that came to define me more than anything else before in my life to a point, where I myself found it hard to find a distinction between us. So deep was our connection -the partnership we shared- that we mixed to a point it was no longer possible to view as us as separate from each other and it became impossible to know where one of us began and the other ended.

My eyes started getting wet, my heart ached and I didn't have the slightest clue how Contessa or the one who helped her did it. But they somehow were able to sever us, to rip apart what was meant to be together, I wondered what that meant for me, what part of me got lost in it, and what I retained, gained from my partner.

A train of thought I probably should shelve too, at least for the moment, there was no need to be worried about it, I was sure time will tell if there was a bleed-over between the two of us.

I probably should confront my more immediate problems, rather than pondering about what-ifs. Namely, the two spiders sitting on my lap, following my every move with their large cluster of eyes. Their behavior struck me as curious but spiders weren't capable of displaying facial expressions and neither could they express them any other way, therefore I attributed my observation to my imagination.

Because I simply wasn't willing to accept the fact that I seemingly could read their demeanor better than I was able to do the same with humans as anything else, and I sure wasn't willing to compare this to a similar ability Rachel called her own.

But as hard as I tried to trick myself into believing that, I didn't succeed when the evidence to the contrary is staring right back at you. So there apparently was some kind of bleed over between us, and I just hope I got spared from the disadvantage that came in the same package for Rachel.

I inspected them closely while moving as little as possible and I have to say I got no idea what kind of spiders they are.

Something that shouldn't be possible, in my two years in the wards I intensively studied insects especially the useful ones under which category of spiders fell. I wouldn't go as far as to call myself an expert, but there shouldn't be a spider in existence of which I couldn't at least tell the family they belong to, but I was unable to come up with anything regarding them.

Everything I saw struck me as wrong. They were roughly palm-sized, completely black, but lacked the hair spiders this size usually have on their bodies especially on their legs.

Furthermore, their exoskeleton seemed wrong. It looked more to me like some kind of armor, and appeared to be composed of interlocked segments similar to some kind of plate armor.

Another thing I never witnessed before, was how the legs of those spiders, they also possessed this armor but their proportions were wrong. They were sturdier and more distinct compared to their length than they should be.

I doubted many not familiar with spiders would really notice, but to me, it stuck out like a sore thumb. But the most disturbing thing I could attribute to their legs was that the final link was oddly shaped thinning on both sides and tapering off into some kind of curved razor-sharp leading edge.

Those legs had a greater resemblance to a forged two-edged blade with a tip for piercing than with any spider legs I have ever seen.

And then there were their claws, there was no other word for their jaws that would fit. Looking at them I doubted they were used to slurping up the goo web spiders transform their cocooned victims into, they looked more like the predator kind of spider.

Given their legs, they more than likely possessed an incredible jumping power and them being venomous would just be my luck. I considered for a moment to just risk moving.

-As far as I could see I was wearing a spider silk under-suit. To be more exact it seems to be awfully familiar to my Skitter costume before all the bug-shells for better absorption of kinetic force were applied, it even had matching colors. The only thing that was missing was the gloves, footwear of any kind, and mask as were the additions of my later versions -

But decided against it, if my fears proved to be correct, and they were venomous, the risk of them biting and somehow penetrating or even grazing my skin through my costume could be fatal. And unless I

exhausted all my options I'd rather not risk being on the wrong side of their natural weapons.

Another thing that added to my precarious situation was the sack of spider web at the abdomen of one of those spiders.

I had to suppress a chuckle at seeing that, the universe must have it out for me getting me in this situation serving as a brooding stock for a newly hatched generation of super-spiders. Is that karma? I never even considered since the day I got my powers that insects could be the cause of my death.

I let my eyes wander in the hope to find anything within reach that might help me, but unfortunately I wasn't so lucky. The only thing I could find in this wooden indentation I was lying in under the clear sky was some strange looking fruit next to the wall opposite of me. There was no weapon of any kind, not even a stick I could use to somehow pry them from me.

Well, that was just Great. If Contessa wouldn't already be on the top of my shit list, this, throwing me in a hole with a fruit and two potentially deadly spiders would promote her there instantly.

I focused my view back onto the spiders and sighed more mumbling to myself than anything else I said:

"You wouldn't happen to understand me, would you ?"

Both spiders slightly turned their heads at my words. Holy ... that couldn't be true. But that would explain this foreign vibe I got from those spiders and their unnerving gaze I felt lingering on me, dissecting me the moment I opened my eyes. They are intelligent and if my suspicion was correct they could at least understand me.

I felt a cold shudder ran along my spine, intelligent spiders that screamed Bonesaw to me. Until now, I suppressed this train of thought hoping that the strange characteristics of those spiders could be explained by me just being dropped on an alternate earth with some unfamiliar indigenous spider species, but this new discovery drastically reduced the chances for this being true.

I stopped myself there, it was no use to over-analyzing a situation. There were any number of plausible explanations for those spiders, and should it turn out to be Bonesaw, then that just meant I might get the chance to rectify the mistake of letting her live back in the day.

I once more addressed the spiders.

"Would you please be so kind and get off me ?"

Without any delay, the spiders followed my request and crawled off me. I waited until they were a few centimeters away from me until I sat upright. And what I saw then wasn't something I was happy about.

If I previously thought, that being in a wooden indentation with a strange fruit and two spiders was bad, then imagine my reaction when I discovered, that what I previously thought as a wooden indentation in the ground somewhere turned out to be a small boat on the fucking middle of an ocean with no land in sight.

And it really wasn't a surprise that I wasn't able to recognize this any faster because the water was completely undisturbed there was no single movement no-wave nothing, the water was utterly calm.

Yeah, those are the moments, where you are made painfully aware of the inadequacy of the language to be able to express this cluster fuck of a situation I found myself in because just to make an attempt would mean I had to make use of a comparative of a superlative, which just doesn't exist.

Perhaps I could use my last few days while dying of thirst to remedy this oversight. Nah, my time is better served in making plans in how to best end Contessa should I survive this and I'm granted the pleasure to meet her again because not even a godly intervention itself will be enough to save her let alone her power, should I get my hands on her.

It wouldn't all be so bad if this boat would at least have a sail a motor or some paddle that would allow me to row, not that I would know in what direction I should steer but at least it would give me something to do aside from waiting to die.

Well, the situation was not all bad, while letting my vision travel the horizon I took note that I saw sharp outlines of my surroundings, meaning that not only my arm got restored to pristine condition but apparently my eyes too. Therefore I could soothe myself in the knowledge I won't see anything blurred in my final moments.

I laid back down my head against one side of the boat and turned my look back on the spiders.

"You wouldn't happen to know which way I can find land and how we can get out of this situation and not die cruel prolonged deaths?"

They answered with a shake of their head, that I interpreted as a no.

"Yeah, figured as much, that would have been too easy wouldn't it ?"

Since the spiders looked somehow lost, standing in the middle of the boat I said.

"If you like you can come back here." I pointed at my lap.

At my words, they nearly went head over heels to get back to me, like some overeager puppies. I couldn't stop myself from smiling, well at least I won't be dying alone.

They made themselves comfortable.

"May I touch you ?"

Once again they reacted to my question is easy to understand motion by nodding with their heads. How intelligent are those spiders?

I reached for them, the first thing I noticed their carapaces were cool to my touch, despite being black on a sunny and warm day. I would say they were too cold, perhaps this had something to do with the fact that their exoskeleton was interlinked similar to scales on a reptile.

Were these spiders perhaps cold-blooded and in need of the warmth I generated? Could they even be classified as spiders?

If not this could explain why I wasn't able to control them. Or perhaps it has this something to do with them being intelligent? No, I didn't think that was it, I never got the vibe that any characteristic no matter how out of place it might seem would prevent my powers from working as long as the creature qualified as something my passenger had dominion over.

Even if I assumed I still retained my jailbroken powers the spiders should be under my control, they certainly were big enough for them not to fall under the creatures my widened and shifted powers no longer could affect because this pertained only to the smallest of bugs in my swarm, a size they definitely surpassed many times over.

And since my thoughts were clear, and I was able to string together more than one coherent thought I didn't think I held those jailbroken powers any longer.

Meaning, my going theory was that I really lost my powers, my earlier conclusion was highly influenced by the fact I thought to be on land and there was just no way for there not to be any bugs within my reach. But on the ocean, it was another story; If it weren't for the fact, that if I still had my powers I should be able to control my two new friends. Ergo, no control means no powers.

I closed my eyes. This would definitely prove to be an interesting turn of events, should I ever set foot on land again and reach civilization -as unlikely as it seems given my predicament- it will be hard to survive without any advantages to my name. Because after what I did I fully expect the whole world to be after me, for various reasons anything else would really surprise me.

I stopped myself again from going too deep into this particular rabbit hole until I had a better grasp of my situation. Every conclusion I drew here was done from incomplete and possibly faulty information and was nothing more than mere conjecture and speculation.

I should rest, conserve my strength; Something told me I was gonna need every ounce of it.

The next time I awoke it was in the middle of the night. I looked up at the stars and no matter how hard I tried I wasn't able to make out any star constellation I was familiar with. I never thought the things I learned in summer camp would ever prove to be useful. But this discovery opened a whole new can of worms.

Because as far as I was aware the existence of parallel earths that the entities created was a localized effect and should in no way affect other star-systems or even galaxies, meaning I should be able to at least recognize a few of the constellations in the sky. At first, I considered just being in a different hemisphere, but even then I was confident in identifying the most prominent ones.

This didn't bode well for me if I ever wanted to return home. Just where the hell was I dropped off to.

With those thoughts on my mind, I drifted back to sleep.

I woke the next day, with dry lips and an even dryer mouth. The sun was standing on its peak on a cloudless day and was burning relentlessly down on me. With nothing on hand to shield myself from the sun to create some relieving shadow, I had to endure the full might of the sun-generated heat. This wouldn't be all too bad If I could prevent my body from excreting sweat, wasting precious water, and reducing my already limited time further.

I slightly caressed my new pets. It took some soft prompting to wake them up, but I eventually succeeded. Given how affectionate they were, they either liked me a lot, or I was just that comfortable to lie on.

I carefully placed them next to myself and sat upright. I looked at my surroundings and saw exactly what I expected to see, water as far and wide as I could see in every direction. Combined with the fact that there still was no single cloud in the sky, meant no water in the foreseeable future, at least water that didn't kill me faster like drinking the seawater would.

I was already dehydrated and consuming the saltwater around my little boat, would just serve to aggravate this state. This just emphasized my earlier conclusion that I was gonna die of thirst and therefore I was spared from dying of hunger, not sure what was the nicer way to perish.

I was sure someone, somewhere debated the intricacies of both and came to a valid conclusion. Unfortunately, I didn't get to choose.

My eyes once more found this strange looking fruit lying in the opposite corner of the boat. I already debated to eat it several times but didn't think of it as a good idea, simply because I had never seen anything even remotely like it. And thanks to globalization you could buy next to everything suitable for human consumption in a supermarket.

This just meant because I haven't seen such a fruit at least once in my life, either in a supermarket or a movie that the fruit was not something to be eaten.

But since I drew this conclusion I discovered that the constellations in the night sky didn't match with those I learned about as a child, which more than likely meant that I was no longer on earth or any variation thereof.

The consequence of that train of thought made this fruit rather interesting, simply because my former base data that formed my reasoning was flawed, therefore my conclusion to not eat it was invalid too. Of course, that didn't mean the fruit would have no negative effects on me. It might still be poisonous or detrimental in other ways but it also meant there was a chance for it to be edible.

I crawled over to it, and for a moment I was confronted with doubt; With the question of whether attempting to eat it was the right thing to do. Because if it didn't accelerate my death, it would just prolong my life and the outlook of that at the moment wasn't exactly the best - it would just result in prolonging my suffering.

I suppressed those thoughts vehemently, because listening to them, considering them to be true seemed like accepting defeat.

In the past, it never occurred to me to give up. After all I went through with the longshots I attempted and succeeded in, I was not going to just roll over and die. If there was a chance no matter how slim to live for just a second longer I was gonna take it; I had no intention of dying here, I was going to live!

With this newfound conviction, I picked it up. The fruit the same size as a pineapple was strangely shaped, it had a great resemblance with a calyx 8 halves opened petals surrounding the center allowing a look inside. The whole fruit had this eerie black color, which on second thought from a distance it could be mistaken with a spider pulling all her legs close to her body.

I looked back to my two spider companions who attentively watched my every move. It couldn't be a coincidence waking up on a boat together with two spiders and a fruit that looks like one, I disregarded this thought. If you look at something long enough you were always able to make out some kind of pattern, this was just my mind trying to play tricks on me.

I brought the fruit to my mouth and took a bite out of it. It had a similar texture as an orange, which was good because eating it would allow me to restore some water. I was about to rejoice at this until my dried out taste buds started working again, and I had to force myself not to vomit and spit it out.

I'd never encountered anything even remotely tasting as disgusting as this fruit, and I was on more than one grill party of the dockworkers. They managed to prove over and over again that they must have invented the word disgusting considering some of their creations.

I shuddered at the mere memory.

I was not even able to describe the taste of the fruit, there simply didn't exist words for it. Would I still be on Earth Bet and this fruit was indigenous there, the taste alone would explain why I never heard of it.

No sane person would eat it as long as alternatives were available and even then, I was not sure if most would eat it, hell I was considering throwing it overboard.

But I couldn't allow myself to waste any water no matter how insignificant the amount. With no small amount of willpower expedited I was finally able to overcome my gag reflex and swallowed it.

I looked back at the fruit, only a few hundred mouthfuls of it left to go, I grimaced before I took the next bite out of it.

It took me hours that felt like weeks of the most inhuman torture imaginable until I finished eating the whole fruit. During the whole process of consuming it, my two eight-legged friends never removed their eyes from me and practically started cheering me on.

The more I ate the livelier and excited they got. For the most part, I tried to ignore it and some assumptions that accompanied this observation, mostly because I didn't think it to be plausible that their delight stemmed from the fact that I was eating something deadly accelerating my demise and therefore the advent of their new breeding stock.

Unfortunately, other attempts to explain this behavior were even more inconclusive. Why should they be elated when I ate something? I put this question on my ever-growing list of things I would like answered should I survive and returned to my former sleeping place, where I lied down in an attempt to conserve energy and most of all water.

I didn't have enough time to even close my eyes when my two friends looked at me with their best imitation of a puppy dog eyes.

I sighed and motioned them to get in my lap, which didn't necessitate further prompting, they scurried in it in the blink of an eye. But something was different, they sat there and it looked like they wanted something from me, not sure of what it might be. I placed one hand on top of the male spider.

And this simple touch without any cloth between the point of contact felt indescribable as if a circuit was closed for the first time allowing a current run its course. I snap like withdrew my hand and no second after I did, the tingling feeling in my hand that from there encompassed my whole body subsided.

What the ... this didn't happen before, but the only different thing was, that I ate the fruit could it be the reason for this happening?

I saw the spider looking at me disappointed.

"You liked that whatever it was ?"

He nodded with his head in response, and I had a short debate with myself if I should risk it to try it again whatever it was that just happened.

And decided to do it again. Two reasons stood out, for one my overall situation couldn't objectively get any worse, and second, my spider friends didn't strike me as having ulterior motives. Quite the opposite, to be honest. I got the feeling that our interests were aligned and that they had my well-being at heart.

The reason eluded me, sure it would be possible to narrow it down considerably, but there was only so much you can get out of someone with only being able to ask yes or no questions. Therefore I thought it best to save my breath in a form the outset next to a hopeless and time-consuming endeavor when I could just get the same answers in less time by undergoing a little risk.

At this point it wouldn't matter anyway since I was already in free fall without a parachute, so nothing was preventing me from trying to fly ... after all, I had nothing to lose.

I reached for the spider again, but this time without being surprised and overwhelmed by what happened, I was able to get a full picture of what was going on.

My initial impression wasn't wrong but it didn't convey it in the right context since I only caught a glimpse of the proceedings. Therefore it wasn't correct to speak about a completing a circuit, simply because in this metaphor it was implied for there to be two parts of a whole and those parts getting reconnected once again to complete each other.

But this was different, it had two already complete components making contact with each other. One subsuming the willing other to create something else, something new, something so much more than their individual components ever could have hoped to be, fusing and evolving both.

I lost myself in the myriad of impressions, and when I came to I couldn't help to notice that the sun had moved on to a quite considerable degree.

But that wasn't the only thing different than before. Combined with my usual senses I was seeing myself through eight eyes, from a position on my abdomen.

Furthermore, a whole new set of limbs and a new body joined my bodily awareness. It was a different feedback than the one I got from my late power; With it, the creatures under my control were just that under my control.

Of course, my power informed me about their state of being, but there was never any doubt that I was controlling something external, that I was just in the driver seat and controlled of all of their actions, now it felt like the body of the spider was indistinguishable from my own that we were one, just apart.

It was a strange feeling suddenly being at two places, to be two beings at the same time.

This new sensation was completely different compared to when I was using my power in the past. What I did back then in retrospect felt like I was sitting in front of a view screen and saw and controlled all my bugs through one. As if there was at least one step of separation between them and me, but now that was no longer the case, leaving no separation at all. What before was me and them, became us.

I could still feel the fading consciousness of the spider slowly molding and fusing with myself and I could feel his bliss, when he gave himself up to become part of something greater, of me. The spider felt fulfillment as if its whole purpose in life lead it to this situation and it could now fulfill its raison d´etre.

Experiencing the echo of his feeling was exhilarating, to say the least as was this new state of being I embody. I felt different but not in a bad way; I was not sure how to describe it. I withdrew into myself and listened to my body, tried to fathom the changes this brought upon me.

After some introspection I came to the conclusion that the spider -or more accurately his self- didn't vanish completely or stop existing in this merger. I could still sense parts of him existing under the surface of our new self, ready to be called upon awaiting to serve.

When I reopened my eyes the female spider sat on my torso on that body part other women would call their breasts and was demanding through her whole body language not to be left out.

"You want it, too ?"

As a response, she made to steps towards my face and awkwardly attempted to hug my face with her front-legs.

"You are quite the impatient one, aren't you."

The response I received would be best described as the spider version of blushing. I reached for the spider and started the merging process, and suddenly everything went wrong. Instead of making the connection to one spider as I expected, I made it to hundreds, and by the time I realized my mistake -that I had forgotten about the egg sack- it was already too late to stop the merger.

This time I didn't lose myself in a controlled myriad of impressions, this time I was lost in a cataclysmic storm, it felt like myself was ripped apart forming hundreds of connections, fusing together with what was found at the end only to try and meld together as one.

With dread, I found out I overextended, it took more effort than anything else I've experienced just to prevent myself from shattering into hundreds of pieces. Every time a part of me drifted away fusing faster than one of the others it pulled at myself in an attempt to draw out more of me and therefore taking it away from all the other connections, threatening to destroy the spider net I found myself being made into by disrupting the carefully maintained status quo.

It turned out to be a balancing act of the highest order to prevent myself from being severed into tiny little pieces while under the assault of all those sensory expressions.

Without my experience and me somehow retaining my multitasking ability, another thing the bleed over seemed to let me keep, I was able to prevail in this life and death struggle but not without cost.

The longer this merger took, the more I could feel myself getting weaker physically and mentally, by the time I was finished there was next to nothing left.

I'd never felt exhaustion even close to this before, and my last thoughts before darkness took me pertained to the fact that I might never regain consciousness before dying.

I found myself confined to a dark haze, but sometimes there were flashes of awareness for the most part filtered through the eight eyes of a spider. I saw the sunset and rise more than once, and I noticed the more time elapsed the more impenetrable the haze appeared to be.

I couldn't help but wonder was this how dying was like? Slowly being dragged further and further into a never-ending darkness?

It never came to that, me vanishing into the darkness. There was another flash, I saw through the eyes of the adult spiders a hand reaching over the edge of the boat, shortly after another hand was placed next to the first one and then with a light jerk that set the whole boat in a swinging motion those hands hoisted a body over the edge.

I saw a middle-aged dark blonde well-built guy with a naked torso standing there to which my spiders took exception. They hissed at him and took a defensive position upon my belly ready to attack this person at a moments notice.

I saw his lips move, but I heard no sound neither from him nor my spiders, the only reason I knew about their threatening gesture was owed to the fact that I also caught glimpses of the signal sent to their bodies.

The man took a step forward his arms raised in a non-threatening gesture, one I knew my spiders wouldn't heed, they decided to protect me, and they would or die trying.

When he took the next step the male spider jumped towards the jugular of the man. I barely saw movement until I felt a searing pain on the same scale as I experienced by being bisected by Scion.

The next thing I noticed through the eyes of the female spider was the two bisected halves of her male counterpart landing left and right on the ground next to the man, his fangs never even came close to reaching him. He gave the spider a glare with such intensity that I was sure a slight increase in it would evaporate everything in its path.

The message it contained was clear, if you don't attack me I will grant you the same courtesy. His lips moved again and I started to hate the fact that I never learned how to lip-read. But whatever he said was enough to pacify the female spider, because shortly after he stopped talking she lied down on me, still following his every move but no longer with hostile intent.

I wondered how did he kill my spider, did he utilize a power? The only ones I think able to that were either a form of air/wind manipulation or he used the edge of the force field to garner this result. Either way, the ease with which he used it to dispose of the spider, who was not only fast but also quite sturdy instantly bumped his threat rating to a high degree. Simply because whatever it was he did, it didn't seem to be Manton-limited. Which made him a threat on the same level or greater than Narwhal.

The man, wearing the strangest goatee I have ever seen, looked around for some time and then jumped back into the water, my spider noticed that the ship was slightly askew, which could only mean that we moved. Given the angle of the ship, it was quite a high-speed something I only thought possible with the use of a motor.

At that point, the connection to the awareness of the spider was cut, and I was back alone in the darkness.

To my surprise I still felt the presence of the male spider being part of my new self, I noticed how he siphoned the last vestiges of power from the well representing it, which served to further weaken me. I tried to get him to stop but all my effort were in vain.

I couldn't be sure if this was an automatic function of my new power, or I was just unable to influence it because of the condition I found myself in.

I decided to at least find out, for which purpose my power was used for and tried my best to examine this procedure, I thought it prudent to gather more information on it given that it was in the process of killing me and I couldn't be sure it would halt before succeeding.

I followed the path the power took and to my astonishment saw it used in slowly rebuilding the body of the spider, who should be dead. It finally started to make sense why they were so keen fusing with me. Apparently, we not only became one improved being, but it also served for them to gain some form of immortality.

Given what some would do to even reach an incomplete form of it like this seemed to be, I could completely understand their actions. But I also started to wonder what I got out of this deal aside from a few loyal companions. Was there more to this? Probably, most likely, almost certainly, unfortunately, I didn't expect to get an answer to this question until I woke again. If I ever did.

I felt myself weakening more and more until the darkness encompassed the last vestiges of my consciousness and was devoured by it. In my last thought, I considered myself lucky in ending this way instead of the alternative and cruel way of dying by thirst would have been.

I woke up with my whole body feeling exhausted and sluggish, I had difficulties moving my hand to my face in order to remove my dark hair from covering my eyes and as result hampering my vision.

I found myself lying on a bed draped in a blanket, to my right I found a small table with a glass of water and a plate filled with food. I didn't lose any time and reached for the glass I took greedy gulps out of it and only set it down again after emptying it to the last drop.

It was essential for the process of recovery to get back the lost liquid, I knew that my bodily awareness couldn't be accurate, not after it went through such an ordeal, but I could swear I already noticed a difference. The exhaustion and sluggishness slowly receding and a resemblance of strength returning to my limbs.

But why did I wake up? My condition should only get worse without any food or water intake and aside from the water now in my belly, I'm sure nothing found its way there since this disgusting fruit.

I couldn't fail to note that I wasn't alone in my bed, my eight-legged companions were there and if the empty bowls at the foot-end of my bed were any indication they already gorged themselves on food and water and entered a digestive nap.

Not that I could fault them for that. I took some of the food from the table and let the hunger take over my actions, it felt incredible to eat something after the ordeal I went through.

While eating, my thoughts drifted back to the spiders. Were they the reason for my awakening? Then eating and somehow sharing what energy this provided? I would love to ask them about it, but if my hunch turned out to be true I wouldn't want to disturb their sleep, because then they would have more than earned it.

I devoured the food and only stopped when there was no longer anything left on the once full plates.

I hadn't placed them back a more than a few seconds ago when the door to the room I found myself in was opened. A tall dark-haired woman who wore a long-sleeved v-necked top that displayed her rather vast female assets stepped into the room.

I suppressed the envy my younger self would have felt at seeing her and focused on the important details, her bare midriff was toned not unlike what my stomach used to look like when I was in the wards.

I pegged her to be around forty forty-five perhaps older, not because she looked the part but because she gave off an air of experience similar to the one I sensed from Miss Militia. Going solely by her outward appearance she didn't look older than mid-thirties, but I learned a long time ago to trust more than simply what my eyes perceived.

And this woman had far more depth to her than her looks and this way perceived age could account for. Despite the obvious unhealthy lifestyle she must lead judging by the burning cigarette between her lips, I still got the impression that in a hand-to-hand combat she could crush me like a bug, which I doubted any none brute would be able to do even without my powers.

Of course, first impressions aren't suitable and sufficient to form an educated guess, but I had learned to trust my instincts, and they rarely disappointed me, especially in rating how dangerous my opposite is.

Behind her followed the man I remember seeing through my spiders. He was now wearing a loose shirt and glasses. I noticed that above and under one of his eyes he sported a vertical scar.

What set me on edge wasn't this injury driving the point home that he must be an experienced fighter or the fact that I saw him display a power, but the way he held himself, the presence he gave off.

I have met people like him, people who can step into a room and own it demands respect from the occupants without even trying, certain of themselves to such a frightening degree that they didn't just think they can take anyone in it, no this level of assuredness is only present in the ones who are sure of it. People who fought countless battles against overwhelming odds and came out on top.

I have met people like this in the past Contessa, Alexandria, Jack Slash but also I came to mind. In my time in the Wards, I repeatedly watched video material of myself and what I see of his mannerism has a strong resemblance to the Skitter I saw in those videos, strolling into the PRT headquarters without a care in the world and taking down their Capes and other personnel left and right as if they were nothing more than some annoying pest.

He was on a completely different level than the woman. He closed the door behind him, barring the sight I had outside, to what looked like the interior of a bar, according to the few people I could make out sitting at tables and drinking some beverages out of big glasses. They wore strange clothes and were armed with weapons, was that a cutlass?

Before I could think on it and come up with some reason aside from being Halloween as to why someone should have such weapons on them, both the man and the woman seated themselves on some chairs they moved next to the bed I occupied, and I heard the woman say:

"Oh, you are already up. That´s unusual, I came here prepared to force-feed you while unconscious to get your body to regain enough strength for you to wake up."

She stared at me for a moment in deep thought until she continued.

"It wouldn't have anything to do with those spiders and their particular strong appetite wouldn't it ?"

She came to the same conclusion as me with fewer data points, she was sharp this one. Instead of confirming her suspicions, I asked.

"Who are you ?"

She was caught flat-footed by this question and took a few moments to get back her bearings.

"How rude of me, I totally forgot to introduce ourselves. My name is Shakuyaku but I'm usually called Shaky and this one."

She gestures towards her male companion.

"is called Ray, or as he is otherwise known as Silvers Rayleigh"

Authors Note: I considered for some time to introduce a language barrier. But ultimately decided against it. It would be cumbersome to get around it and slow down the pace in the next few chapters to a crawl ...

Last edited 11.10.2020