WX-78's POV

What did I do to deserve this? I silently wondered, fixating the other two with looks of hatred. Humans! I hissed to myself. I'm sitting next to two pathetic humans. Oh, how disappointed you'd be in me... I tried to push the last thought away. I reached instinctively for the book at my side, reassuring myself with its presence. There was something odd about the smooth black leather of the cover, like it was too pristine, too well kept to have just been abandoned. Sure, there was someone next to it, but the clean white bones of the skeleton, it's face locked in an eternal scream of terror, suggested they had been dead a very long time. Seeing the skeleton filled me with a sort of dark satisfaction. Another part of me wished that that was one of these fleshlings I was stuck with.

I realized too late that while I had been deep in thought, my glare had been situated on the spider who introduced himself as Webber. He was looking at me back, his lip curled in a snarl and fur bristling. I met his glower evenly, and he looked away first. Without looking away, I stroked the book's cover once more. A shock seemed to zap my finger as I touched the red symbol in the center of the book, and I was thrown into a torrent of what felt like memories, but I could not recall them ever happening. A grief-stricken wail that pierced the air, the rushing sound of footsteps, the clanking of my own self falling to the ground. I panicked for just a moment, before reminding myself where I was. I am safe. I reminded myself sharply. I am safe. Gradually, the feeling ebbed away, and I suddenly felt very weak. I slid down the bark of the tree, holding my head until I was in a sitting position. I felt like I could hardly stand. I recognized that voice, I thought in horror. I shook the feeling away, and when I had finally controlled myself, I noticed that Webber had looked at me again, his gaze mocking.

Wilson appeared to have noticed the look, too, because he looked faintly concerned and said something to the spider. It was too far for me to hear, but by the way he nodded and stood up, I could only assume that they were going somewhere. Good, I thought. I can be alone now. I stood, trying to keep my knees from buckling again. I grabbed the book again, my grip shaky. The symbol was too red, and pulsing oddly. I tried to drop it, but failed.

Suddenly, I was on the ground, panic setting in. I looked up sharply, only to see that Webber was standing over me, his whiskers twitching with amusement. "You were so out of it," he sneered. Angrily, I kicked his legs out from under him, causing him to nearly fall on top of me with a squeak of protest, then I kicked him onto his back.

"You two! Quit fighting!" Wilson demanded. I turned indignantly to him.

"HE STARTED IT!" I protested.

"What are you, four? Grow up." Despite the sharp words, there was an underlying gentleness to his voice, almost as though he were speaking to children. I nearly sniped back at him, but Webber was nodding seriously at me.

"We should listen to him." There was still a mocking note in his voice. "After all, he is an adult." However, as he turned his gaze to Wilson, he eyed him with a sort of desperate hunger. I knew that look. He was wanting approval. Not knowing nor caring if he received it, I stood up and brushed the dirt off of my knees and, my fingers trembling, picked up the book once more. "What's that?" Webber asked, hopping up to look at it himself. I snatched it away with a glare.

"NOTHING," I snapped.

"It... looks like something," he ventured, trying to pull my arm down to look at it.

I promptly replied by smacking him in the back of the head with it.

He yelped at the sudden pain which I used to push him down, stalking to the other side of the clearing with my chin tipped upwards as Wilson helped him to his feet. Two sets of eyes burned into my back- one confused and concerned, the other enraged beyond compare. Without a word and before the spider could do anything in retaliation, I pushed my way out of the clearing, still holding the book.

Wilson's POV

"We're gonna rip that little jerk limb from limb when we get our hands on them!" Webber roared, trying to struggle away from my vice grip on his arm.

"No one's ripping anyone limb from limb," I informed him patiently, trying to hide my teeth grinding in frustration. To be honest, when he first said his age, I was shocked and confused. He was a kid. A kid! First of all, what in the world was he doing in a place like this, and why was he so intent on violently dismembering someone he literally just met. He struggled, of course, but he soon gave up, his bottom lip twitching in a barely suppressed snarl.

"Fine," he muttered.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "That means no fighting at all."

He stared at me for a few seconds, his mouth agape as though I had just told him to jump off of a cliff. "They hit us," he reminded me sharply, rubbing the back of his head for emphasis.

"It's not that bad," I pointed out lightly. "It could've been worse." After all, a human-sized hunk of metal and gears could probably have done much worse had he wanted to. Something kept them back though... I know the look of someone who hates someone else, that's definitely what I have on my hands here... but why would WX-78 just whack him instead of going full-blown murder on him? I need to look into that later. For now, I need to figure out how I going to keep these two in line without taking suicidal risks. I wasn't very fond of the idea of going against a human-sized hunk of metal and gears either, and even without looking I could tell the spider boy's fangs could do some serious damage should he want to hurt me.

He tore his arm away from my grip and sat grumpily down where he stood in a criss-cross manner and his arms folded over his chest. "They're still a jerk," he growled.

I sighed. I knew I had my hands full with these two, but tried to stay neutral. To be honest, I didn't particularly want to take sides- WX was being a jerk but Webber was being violent, they both needed to calm down. "I'll go find WX," I sighed again.

He jumped up again, glaring at me now. "You're going to find them?"

"We're in this together," I replied.

"We don't want to deal with them!"

"Then leave."

That shut him up real quick, resigning to mumbling under his breath instead of protesting aloud. I don't think he realizes that we need each other... maybe they will mellow out after awhile.

The look of pure hatred that Webber was shooting the area where WX disappeared said otherwise. Shaking my head, I went off in search of the irritable bot. Much to my surprise, Webber followed me. Whether that was to actually find them or to find a way to hurt them was beyond me. Luckily, being a very heavy robot, they made quite the trail through the brush. It cleared out into a grassland with several clear-water ponds. The clearing was filled with frogs- not like the frogs from my world, where they were only the size of your fist at most, these frogs were enormous. One was so big it was up to my knee's length. Webber did not seemed fazed in the slightest of the giant creatures, he just casually weaved among them while I looked on in shock. How in the world was the spider so confident? Surely whatever part of the world he came from, he never saw frogs this big.

"What are you?" I blurted, causing him to stop completely with his foot in the air. I saw him take a deep breath, then turn to me. He did not look happy. "Are you actually a spider?"

"Partially," he mumbled, turning back to the ponds without another word. I opened my mouth to ask his meaning, then realized that he'd probably add me to his hitlist if I wasn't already on it. How is that possible? Crossbreeding? A weird twisted human spider hybrid? Or... he sure looks like a human under all that fur. My mind swirled with possibilities of what the strange spider-child might be. I was still in a daze when I managed to force my shocked body to move, walking in the footsteps he took. The look on his face when I asked him what he was... was that sadness? Anger that I had asked such a question? Regret? Of course. Realization suddenly dawned on me. If my theories are correct in assuming he is half human, half spider, who would want to be around him? People would be terrified of him because he looks like a spider, and spiders... well, spiders are way too small to worry about. So how in the world does he exist because spiders are very small creatures that cannot breed with a human! Maybe he's some sort of lab experiment. That probably makes the most sense. An experiment on what would happen if they mixed a spider and human's DNA?

I was so deep in thought, it wasn't until Webber grabbed the collar of my shirt to keep me from falling into one of the frog ponds that I realized I had been in the danger of doing so in the first place. I took a few steps back, staring at it. I turned to thank him only to realize that he had already started moving again, completely ignoring that I even existed. Confused, I jogged a bit to catch up to him. "You alright?" I asked.

"No."

I was taken aback for a second at his bluntness. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I don't like talking about it, that's all."

I felt guilty for my earlier questioning.

"It's nothing against you, you seem like a good person." His whiskers twitched. "It's just... a touchy subject, I guess."

"Your... past?"

He nodded, not meeting my gaze. Suddenly, he picked up his pace. "WX!" He called, less hatred in his voice compared to earlier, surprising me. Then my blood froze. The robot had apparently collapsed, the book they had been obsessing over a few paces away. My first instinct was to try to shake them awake, but of course, Webber had other ideas. With a satisfied smile, he kicked the robot as hard as he could in the chest.

It seemed to hurt Webber more than it hurt WX, but it was still enough to rouse them. While the first hopped on one foot, grimacing in pain, the latter blinked open their 'eyes'. With a soft groan, they pulled themselves to a standing position, albeit wobbly on their feet. "What happened to you?" I asked, but they didn't seem to realize that I was standing there.

Instead, there was a look on their face, a sort of terrified grimace, that made me think they didn't fully understand where they were at the moment.

I found my gaze drifting to the black book at their side. They followed it and slowly picked it up. Some part of my mind knew that that book was what caused them to act oddly. Without knowing why, I shivered. What is that book? It's... unreal... It's... dangerous.