It was dark, inside the old abandoned...factory? I guess it might have been a factory, once. It sure had that big empty central area that the pictures of factories had.
Then again, it might have been a warehouse, too. I couldn't tell. All I knew was that it was big, it was empty, and it was wide open.
Oh, and there were lots and lots of spider webs all over the place.
Like, lots of spider webs.
And, as I've said, it was dark inside.
Of course, part of that was because it was getting dark outside. While I'd been running back and forth to Emma's house and back, the sun had finally started to set, and the city streets were darkening rapidly. It made sense that the inside of the building was going to be dark. I didn't like it, but it made sense.
I wasn't really that fond of the dark, after the whole locker incident. I didn't like the dark, and I didn't like tight spaces.
All of that aside, however, the inside of the building was darker than it should have been. Even darker than when Emma had come to meet the spider woman.
"So," a voice came from above us, "one by one, in single file, brave and gallant, do little flies come wandering into my lair. I wonder, what funny sounds you make, as you wriggle in my snare?"
Suddenly, the shadows thinned, a little, and we could see the outline of a massive spidery shape hanging from the ceiling. It was still fairly dark, obviously, so we couldn't see much of her besides her silhouette—just her smiling mouth, filled with the biggest, sharpest teeth I'd ever seen outside of a cartoon or a comic strip. Which, since I'm fairly sure that spiders don't have teeth, was kind of alarming.
I blinked up at her, and swallowed.
"Well," I finally managed, "you look...impressive."
"But of course, my dear," she said. "Flies and spiders, mice and bugs, all are welcome to my home. Feast or famine, plague or palace, I suffer none to leave but ash and bone."
"That's a terrible rhyme," I heard myself say. "Bone and home? Did you really do that on purpose? Or was the first one just a happy coincidence?"
There was a short pause, and the sider-thing's smile disappeared.
"It's an awesome rhyme!" she almost shouted back. "Look, I'll admit that English isn't really my first language, but I'll have you know, there's not a whole heck of a lot of words that rhyme with 'home', okay?!"
"What about arachnodrome?" Tattletale asked from over to my side.
There was another pause.
"Arachnodrome?" the spider asked.
"Yeah. You know. As in, a place where arachnids gather. Arachnodrome."
I nodded.
"That'll work," I said. "'I suffer none to leave my arachnodrome'. That sounds way better than what you said."
There was another long silence, and then, finally, the spider silhouette scuttled closer.
"You're not supposed to criticize my poetry, you know," she said, sounding put out. "You're supposed to be creeped out and terrified. Or properly reverential and worshipful. Not...that."
I shrugged.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm a Republican. When we get creeped out, we break out the crosses and the flamethrowers. Since we didn't bring either, I'm afraid we can't do that."
"I'm not a Republican," Regent's voice echoed from the shadows, and I sighed internally. How the hell had he gotten so separated from the rest of us?
Fucking spiders.
"I'm a Libertarian," he went on, oblivious to my internal monologue. "And I'm here to object to your continued ongoing objectification of females, demons, and spiders that you are propagating. If the cause of infernal arachno-feminism is ever going to-"
"Bolt Zap!" I commanded sternly, flicking one hand out in the direction of his voice, and a tiny spark of electricity flew...huh. It flew back behind me, and to my right, just a little. Almost in the exact opposite direction of his voice.
"Yeowch!" Regent's voice came back, followed by a sigh from the spider-demoness.
"Thank you," she said, sounding aggrieved. "I don't know how much more of that I could have taken, without doing something drastic to him."
I shrugged, and then turned, and glared into the darkness.
"Arachno-feminism?"I growled. "Seriously?"
"Anyway!" the spider-demon said, before Regent could respond, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but since you're not frightened, and or creeped out, I'm afraid that I can't let you leave this building alive. So, no offense, but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to eat you all. Nothing personal."
"Oh, I understand," I told her, my expression earnest. "A spider's gotta do, and all that. But...uh...and this is just a hypothetical, mind you...what if we don't want you to do that?"
There was another pause, probably done purely for effect, and then the spider-woman smiled again.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, my dears," she said. "You see, while you've been standing there so obediently, I've been hard at work. And by now, my little dears will have looped enough threats around you to wrap you up just like...that!"
And when she said "that", I immediately felt millions of spiderweb-thin threads snap up from the ground to wrap around me, binding me in place, and leaving me helpless to move. Abruptly, most of the shadows lifted, and I could see the others, each of which was similarly bound.
And then Tattletale sighed, and stepped out of the silk cocoon.
Well, mostly out of it. There were still some silk threads wrapped around her, but nowhere near enough to stop here from moving.
"Seriously?" she said. "That was the best you could do? An illusion, layered over a handful of real threads? Didn't they teach you ANYTHING about cape combat when you were growing up? Or did you skip those classes so you could go down by the river and get drunk on the local coffee?"
"I dunno," I said, looking down at my own cocoon. Now that I thought about it, I could feel a sort of sickly black energy pulsating with it, and, after a moment's probing, I realized that the energy meant that this was an illusion.
A very good one, it seemed. Presumably Tattletale's power had led her to understand it for what it was. Thankfully.
"I mean, it's very nicely done," I continued, as I stepped out, in turn. Behind me, I could hear footsteps as the others stepped free. "Sight and touch? And sound, too. You are really good when it comes to illusions, miss."
Then I frowned up at her.
"Too bad that you never thought to use it for anything that might help the rest of us," I growled, letting my hands rise shoulder height. Then I pushed my hands forward, and concentrated for just a moment.
Immediately, a static charge began to build in the air. I didn't know if this would work, but...
Then I smiled, looked up at the jorogumo on the wall above us, and snapped my fingers.
There was a yelp, and she came tumbling down off the wall, landing on the floor with a thump, as the rest of the illusion dissipated from around us. Immediately, she was swarming back to her feet again, and glaring across the floor at the five of us.
Heh. Static shock for the win. I thought she'd lose her focus over that.
"You think you're cute, little parahuman," she growled, no longer looking at all satisfied with yourself. "But I've been watching mortals blunder into things that are beyond their understanding for longer than your country has existed, and I promise you that tonight will be no different!"
And with that, in a flash, she was moving up the wall with an almost unnatural speed, before flinging herself into the air to seize one of the many, many strands of silken web that were criss-crossing the building.
"You think you can fight me, little heroes?!" she yelled down at us. "When you come at me here, in my place of power, in the very center of my might? I think not! Children! Devour their bones!"
In an instant, I could hear the sound of scuttling, and then my eyes went wide, I saw a tidal wave of golden arachnids come pouring down the walls from silken sacks that I hadn't noticed before. Right. The jorogumo could command spiders. And if she could see through one's eyes, there was no reason to think she couldn't command entire legions of them to work together, and hunt as packs...swarms...whatever.
And there was no way in hell we'd be able to kill that many before we were all swarmed under.
Beside me, Tattletale turned to look at the spiders, and shrieked.
"Those are real!" she yelped, and I nodded to myself.
Of course she'd have some muscle to back her up. It wasn't as if she was an amateur at this. Maybe she wasn't used to fighting parahumans, mind you. But she clearly wasn't an amateur.
But...you know, I'd been to nature camps, before. And I knew that...well, bug zappers? They were a thing.
And my specialty is lightning. Lightning...and electricity.
"Right," I said. "This...might sting."
Outside, I felt the thirteen mice I'd gathered up for just this very purpose settled down onto their hind paws and tails, and take the meditative pose as their focus on the magic around us deepened.
"Powers of the storm and sky," I whispered, closing my eyes to help me focus, "lend me your aid. Strike down the unending legions of my foes, for they who have dared to defy you deserve no mercy!"
Then I opened my eyes, and gave the rapidly approaching spiders—I think the closest was no more than five or six feet away by now—a happy smile.
"Hyper-Static Field!" I shouted, dropping my hand sharply.
Immediately, a series of snaps, pops, and crackles sounded out, as little tiny sparks began to jump out from the air, or up from the ground, to earth themselves in the approaching spiders. First by the dozens, then by the hundreds, and then by the thousands, they began to die, falling victim to my improvised bug zapper spell. Behind me, Tattletale yelped, and I felt a sudden moment of panic about my phone, but a quick glance assured me that the spell was avoiding our phones, and focusing on the spiders. With a gesture, I swept the ring out, so that it was no longer just six feet away from us, but now eight feet, and, abruptly, the spiders withdrew, flowing back across the floor, and up the walls once more.
"Right," Grue said, his tone casual. "I think it's time we had a chat, young lady. Specifically, I think it's time we had a talk about why you don't do the kinds of things you've been doing lately."
"Oh?" said the spider woman. "And how do you propose to make me? I'm up here, after all. And you're down there. I don't think there's anything you can do, little parahuman. Not unless your friend is willing to let her defenses against my spiders fall.
On the brink of letting my spell collapse as she suggested so that I could strike at her in the air, I glanced back at the walls towards the spiders, who were still waiting patiently, and decided against it, instead contracting the ring back down to six feet around us once more to conserve energy. Beside me, Grue just nodded, and then looked at Bitch. Bitch nodded back, and then whistled.
"Angelica!" she snapped, before pointing up at the spider. "Fetch!"
The monster beside her fixated her head on the spider, crouched its legs, and jumped. Seconds later, it slammed back down to the ground, the torso of the massive spider-woman in its jaws.
"What!" the spider shrieked, looking genuinely outraged for the first time that night. "No! This is outrageous! It is uncouth! It is uncivilized! Put me down this instant you lout!"
"Don't let it bite you," Tattletale called out to us as the dog drew close. "Her bite is lethal."
The spider paused in its struggles.
"How did you know that?" she hissed, and Tattletale shrugged.
"Duh," she said. "Powers."
"Huh," Regent said. "That sounds...useful. I wonder..."
He reached out one hand, and concentrated for a moment, and then, abruptly, one of the spider's legs twitched, and smacked into her head.
"What nonsense is this!" she yelled. "Children! Aid me! Defend your mother!"
Immediately, the spiders on the walls began pouring back down across the floor towards us again, and I just had time to widen my eyes, and slash my hand across the air, before the first ones crashed into my suddenly widened circle.
It was...it was almost more than I could handle, and I staggered as they hurled themselves against the barrier I'd established. A moment later, I knew that I wouldn't be able to sustain this for long, but it was too late—even sustaining what I had was taking too much concentration to speak.
Vaguely, I could feel Tattletale pulling me to the side, while Bitch yelled something to her monsters, and then Tattletale was yelling into my ear to shrink the circle, and something about the spiders on the ceiling. Gasping, I let the circle contract, opening my eyes and wiping the sweat from them, only to almost lose my concentration as I saw what I could only describe as massive piles of spiders all around us.
How many spiders did this bitch have?
Then Tattletale was yanking on my sleeve, bringing my attention back around to her. When I glanced her way, she pointed up, and my eyes followed.
The sight that I saw made my blood run cold.
The ceiling, the roof struts, the web strands that criss-crossed the building...they were all covered with spiders. They weren't overhead, not yet, but they were inside the circle, and I had no doubt that, as soon as they were overhead, they were going to drop on us in a tidal wave of chitinous limbs and poisonous bites.
That...wasn't good.
Especially because I wasn't sure I could extend...nope. The circle was just that: a circle. There was no way I was going to be able to extend it to cover above us.
I yelped, and then reached out through my power to Squire Rattus and the rats I'd been calling to him this whole time, and twisted, in ways that I couldn't explain, and that I was pretty sure wouldn't make sense even if I could explain. There was a moment of golden shards and a vision of...something...and then I knew that he was coming.
Moments later, a tiny panel in one corner lifted—apparently, the rats had found the roof access-and a single rat leaped through the opening. Springing from one rung of the access ladder to the next, it rapidly made its way down to floor level, before drawing...wait...what?!
Where the hell had Squire Rattus managed to get his hands...paws...whatever...where had he managed to get a rat-sized katana?
And why was it sparking?
That question, at least, was answered when the rat swept its blade to the side in a glittering arc, and neatly decapitated a spider. Immediately, a small arc of lightning jumped to another spider, and then another, and then another in a tiny chain of miniature lightnings.
And then Squire Rattus was moving, dashing forward, his blade weaving back and forth from spider to spider in a whirlwind of steel and sparks of lightning. And behind him came a stream of rats, more rats than I'd ever expected to see. More...and bigger.
Oh. Of course. We were near the docks, after all. If I had to guess, I'd managed to get some of the local wharf rats to join in on this whole affair.
Unlike the spiders, the rats didn't seem to be bothered by the little lightnings of our protective circle, and in moments, we found ourselves surrounded by a protective circle of rodent bodyguards. Squire Rattus turned to me, and squeaked imperiously, and suddenly, realizing what he meant, I let the circle collapse with a gasp, almost staggering in relief when the strain vanished. It was, I knew, just a temporary release, and moments later, I was chanting again, this time gesturing above us, to form the circle on the ceiling above us, to extend the field into a cylinder, instead of a circle, to protect us all the way up.
Turning back towards the center of our little area, I could see that the spider-woman had escaped from Bitch's monster, and was currently engaged in what looked like a fight straight out of an anime with Grue, matching her eight limbs against his four. Her form was distinctly more human, now, although still unmistakably that of a spider, as well, and every so often, she'd rear her head back, and spit some kind of milky-white fluid at Grue, forcing him to dodge away from her to escape what looked to be hurled webbing. I had no doubt that it would be very, very bad if that stuff hit him, even if it wasn't dangerous in its own right, and I couldn't blame him for retreating from that. But every time he retreated, one of Bitch's monsters would lunge forwards, preventing the spider-woman from escaping until she could wiggle free and turn to face it, at which point Bitch would whistle, and the monster would retreat to let Grue take another whack at her. There was no denying, she was looking more and more battered with every exchange, and what had clearly once been an elegant kimono was starting to hang off of her more and more loosely, but if that was having any effect on her ability to fight, I wasn't seeing any signs of it...and much as I wanted to intervene, I couldn't afford to let my concentration lapse, and allow the spiders on the ceiling to have free reign to drop on our heads like their corpses were already doing just a few feet away from us. This was, I knew, a balance, not a victory. It had become a battle of endurance and attrition, where the first mistake would result in our getting wiped out, one by one.
And then, suddenly, for half a moment, I thought that we'd just made that mistake. Grue spun to avoid one blow, raising one hand to deflect another, and dodging beneath a third in a fantastic display of agility, but even as he did so, I could see where he missed a fourth limb coming around in the shadow of the second, which swept across towards his undefended torso. But before it could strike the spider-woman's arm...leg...thing...twitched, and spasmed, and she suddenly staggered to one side, slamming her limb down on the ground hard enough to leave a crack in the concrete floor.
"Wow," Regent's voice came floating through the air. "That could have really hurt if it had landed. Bet you're sorry you're missed with that one."
The spider-woman growled, and then turned her focus back to Grue, launching six of her eight limbs at him in a barrage of attacks that were almost too quick for the eye to see. Somehow, he managed to dodge or deflect them all, but it was clear to see he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long, and he was entirely on the defensive, now. He probably wouldn't even have been able to do that much, except that it seemed that every other strike seemed to twitch just slightly out of line, raining an endless stream of heavy blows upon the inoffensive air to either side of the supervillain.
And then, finally, it wasn't enough. One blow twitched to the side, one was blocked, another was deflected, another was dodged..and two more limbs, instead of trying to strike, plunged down into the ground, and a single human leg lifted up to plant a solid kick in Grue's side, knocking him back, where one of the limbs that had missed was able to loop around and hook behind his foot, and leave him sprawled out on the ground.
Shit.
"You're good, boy," the spider woman panted, staring at him. "For one of those arrogant little parahumans, you're very, very good. If you'd had time to study your arts for another five or six decades, you might even have been able to fight me with a chance of winning. For that matter, if you'd brought your friends, you might even have been able to have a chance of surviving in only five or six years. But you're not good enough, boy, not yet, and this is where your fight ends. Right here, right now, watching while I butcher your friends like animals and turn them into my own personal dinner. And then, maybe, if you're good, I'll let you live, and make you my mate."
I could feel my eyes widening in horror at this, but before I could say anything, Tattletale began to laugh.
Clearly, she found something in what the spider-woman said to be funny.
"Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us, Tats?" Regent asked, his tone sharp, and she just shook her head.
"You can't, can you?" she said, giving us a big smile. "Kill us, I mean. You're not physically capable. Not right now. In fact, judging by the way you're panting, I doubt you can even take more than one or two steps from that spot."
"What are you talking about little girl?" the spider-woman growled, and Tattletale smirked at her.
"Your face," she said. "It should be red, and sweaty, as a sign of increased blood flow and perspiration, which would be triggered by your increased metabolism trying to provide you with enough energy to continue fighting, and the subsequent need to increase the body's cooling to keep in the right temperature range. But it's still just as pale and light as it was when you started the fight, because even in this shape, you're more spider than human. And like a spider, you have book lungs, and an open circulatory system. Which means that, while you can make the fluid in your body move around faster, you don't have the ability to actually accelerate the flow of oxygen and nutrients to your muscles. You've been running on stored nutrients and oxygen, but now that you've run through that, your body doesn't actually have the mechanism to replenish the energy supplies your organs need to keep moving. Right now, you can kill maybe one of us, and then you're done."
"Then why haven't your pets killed me?" the spider-woman hissed. "You're bluffing, child."
Tattletale shrugged, and then reached down to her back, and pulled out a pistol.
"I don't think so," she said, as I felt my eyes widen. "And the reason that they haven't killed you is because it's against the rules to kill another cape. Not unless you absolutely have to. But you're not a cape, are you? You're something else, right? Something that's been around a lot longer than any cape alive."
The jorogumo's eyes narrowed as Tattletale brought the pistol out, and as the blonde girl worked the slide to chamber a round, she lunged forwards towards the lavender-suited cape. But it seemed that Tattletale wasn't bluffing, because the jorogumo staggered after only a single step, and then she collapsed to her knees, seemingly unable to do anything more than stare up at the lowering pistol.
"Do it, then," the spider-woman hissed. "Do it, little girl."
Tattletale's face hardened, and she started to pull the trigger. Then, suddenly, before she could finish, a crossbow bolt sprouted in the back of the woman's head, and she collapsed, as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. Then, suddenly, a ripple of darkness passed across her body, and when it was gone, there was nothing even vaguely woman-shaped at all—just an enormous spider, one whose body was almost four and a half feet long, not counting its legs. Then, before I could respond to the sight of a four and a half foot spider lying dead on the ground, the entire room rippled, and then vanished, replaced by absolute pitch blackness so complete that I immediately knew that there was absolutely no chance of my being able to see anything.
"Oops!" came Grue's voice, sounding oddly muffled, and, an instant later, the blackness began to thin, before abruptly vanishing completely, revealing...well, revealing a still pretty dark-much darker than it had been before-room, with the shadows of spider webs surrounding us.
Above us, I could feel the spiders suddenly stop throwing themselves at my bug zapper spell, before a rustling sound drew my attention back down to the floor, which was quickly rippling back away from us. It took a moment's thought, but then I saw more movement, and realized that the ripple was the spiders withdrawing, with the big wharf rats Squire Rattus had collected lunging out of the circle to give chase. I had to assume that they'd find new homes elsewhere in the city, hopefully without killing too many more people, but for now, there wasn't anything I could do about it. Almost crying in relief, I let the circle of bug-zappery collapse. In moments, Tattletale was beside me, lending me her shoulder, and with no small amount of gratitude, I managed to drape myself across her.
"Shadow Stalker," Grue said, as a human figure suddenly cut off what little light was coming through the door. "So good to see you again. I thought you'd forgotten us."
The dark-clothed heroine made her way into the building as Grue got to his feet, and gave us a steady look. In the next moment, a flashlight flicked on in her hand near her shoulder, and panned across the floor around us. She whistled, then, as she took in the scene before her. Turning to follow the light, I could feel my throat catch as I stared at what we'd done.
The floor was covered with a sea of spider corpses. In places, they'd formed piles two feet or more deep, especially around the place where I'd set up the ring once we'd taken up station to let Grue and Bitch fight the spider demon. I could feel myself shiver at the sight. Just the thought of what would have happened if I hadn't been able to maintain the circle was horrifying—if I'd lost focus, or run out of energy, we would have been eaten alive by the spiders, and I had no doubt that we would have died screaming.
Judging from the bones that I could see scattered across the floor in places, I didn't think we would have been the first to die that way. The flashlight turned up towards the ceiling, the, and I had to repress another shiver, as I saw just how much webbing was strung back and forth up there. There were several large bundles of web remaining, swaying back and forth gently, and I frowned, as I took them in. They were about the right sized for...but surely somebody would have noticed if a giant spider had been capturing people, right?
Oh, who was I kidding? This was Brockton Bay. In all likelihood, people vanishing because a spider ate them probably disappeared into the number of deaths and disappearances that happened every day.
Apparently Shadow Stalker thought the same thing, because the light lingered on one of those bundles for a few moments, before it came down to the ground again, and clicked off.
"Not exactly," the dark heroine of Brockton Bay said, turning to us. "I've just been busy with other things. Believe it or not, you guys aren't the only ones I feel hatred and loathing for."
"Awww," I heard Regent's voice coming out of the darkness. "And here I thought we had something special. What happened? Did you find another nemesis? Is there somebody else out there that you hate instead of us?"
It was in that moment, that Shadow Stalker earned my...respect, certainly, if not outright admiration.
"I'm sorry," she said, sounding somewhat sad. "I know I swore that I'd hate you forever, but...I just think we should try hating other people. Just for a bit. It's not you. It's me. I just don't think this is working out."
There was dead silence for a moment, as we all tried to adjust to the fact that the heroine before us had just completely broken type, before Grue had to say something. Because of course, he couldn't let a great response like that go.
"I swear," he growled, "if you look at us, and try and say 'can't we just be rivals...'"
"I hadn't thought that far," Shadow Stalker admitted, as she shone the flashlight across the spider corpses on the floor again. "To be honest, I was just feeling so good that I decided to run with what I could."
Then her head angled slightly, presumably allowing her to glance down at the body on the floor in front of us.
"I thought it was probably best that you not take that shot, though," she said, apparently turning her head back up to look at us again, and clearly trying to change the subject. "People might get the wrong idea, if you did that. Might think you were willing to do that to capes, as well."
There was a pause, and when she spoke again, I could tell there was a bit of a smile in her voice.
"I don't think you'd like the kind of attention that would get you," she said. "Self defense is one thing. Executing somebody like that, though...that would be a much bigger problem."
Then she turned, apparently facing towards the street again.
"Of course," she said, "Seeing as I'm on patrol right now, that means that I probably ought to report this. Pity about all that corrugated metal on the walls, though. Sure does futz up the radio signals, eh? Suppose I'll just have to trust that you lot will still be here when the Protectorate shows up, right?"
Needless to say, once she'd left the building to report in, we didn't stick around.
